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Since campus researchers began sending experiments and instruments into space in the late 1940s, NASA spacecraft have launched hundreds of CU Boulder instruments as well as 20 CU Boulder scientists, faculty and alumni on 52 space missions. CU Boulder ranks in the top five U.S. universities, excluding military academies, in the number of astronaut alums and is the top NASA-funded university in the world.

CU Boulder faculty, staff and students receive about $50 million annually for space research. This allows students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience and hone their skills by working on real projects used by space scientists.

The CU Heritage Center Space Exploration Gallery currently highlights:

• CU’s 20 system-wide astronauts
• An Aerobee rocket suspended from the ceiling, the same type that carried a CU-designed spectrometer to photograph the sun’s atmosphere in 1952
• A miniature replica of the Jack Swigert statue on display at the U.S. Capitol. Swigert, a CU Alum, flew on Apollo 13
• Artifacts that accompanied alumnus Ellison Onizuka aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in January 1986 and were recovered from the wreckage
• Spacesuits and other equipment used by astronauts

Our Moon Rock

Lunar Sample 15555.844
On long-term loan from NASA,
Johnson Space Center

On display at the CU Heritage Center is lunar sample 15555.844, on long-term loan from NASA. The moon rock was collected by Apollo 15 astronauts (none of whom are affiliated with CU) on July 30, 1971 when the lunar module Falcon landed in the Hadley-Apennine region of the moon. It was cut from the largest of the rocks collected on the Apollo 15 mission.

The Heritage Center moon rock is composed of medium-grained olivine basalt, one of the most common types of rocks found on Earth. Scientists use this information to better understand the origin and history of the Earth as well as the solar system as a whole.

By analyzing moon rocks like ours, scientists have discovered that the youngest moon rocks are as old as the oldest Earth rocks, or just over 3 billion years old. We know that the surface of planet Earth is active and that the movements of the tectonic plates uplift and volcanoes work to remix and alter its composition. The surface of the moon, on the other hand, has remained basically unchanged for the last 3 billion years. Geologic evidence of the earliest events that probably affected both the Earth and the moon can now be found only on the moon.

The first lunar samples were studied in vacuum to protect them from contamination by Earth’s atmosphere. Today they are housed in nitrogen to keep them from deteriorating. The CU moon rock is encased in a special, NASA-prepared airtight case that is filled with nitrogen.

CU Astronauts

* Perished in the 1986 Challenger explosion
** Perished in the 2003 Columbia disaster

For more information on NASA astronauts, visit