In a stunning report conducted by the NASA Inspector General, Paul K. Martin, the space agency was exposed to having lost an estimated 500 Moon rocks. In a statement that is quite the understatement, Martin stated that the agency “lacks sufficient controls over its loan of Moon rocks.' Really? So, now the big question: how could so many Moon rocks come up missing?
Well, it all has to do with NASA generosity.
In the years from 1969 to 1972, NASA launched 6 manned missions to the Moon, bringing back hundreds of pounds of lunar rocks,all of which are classified as government property. As for what was done with the Moon rocks, most of them were kept for scientific analysis and 50 were sent as gifts to the states (one per state) and still others were sent as gifts to other countries.
Result: lots of Moon rocks floating around, lost of potential for one getting lost.
In the report, Martin cites the generous handing out of samples to researchers and general bad book keeping for the present state of affairs. On the donation end, many cases have been found where researchers who were given Moon rocks either lost or simply never returned them. Some have even been reported as stolen (hint:don't go trying to buy Moon rocks anytime soon!). On the other end, there has been a lot of bad record keeping by the sub-institutions responsible for keeping track of the Moon rocks. The Johnson Space Center alone has records for hundreds of missing objects, including Moon rocks.
In the end, the report calls for stricter controls over materials loaned out by NASA. To put things in context, though, out of over 26,000 lunar samples NASA has out on loan, 517 have been lost, which is not a huge amount, but still a regrettable one. Who knows, in the future, some of the Moon rocks may turn up somewhere.
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