Artemis and the Valera Meteorite: Time to get back to work!

Artemis 1 rocket — The Aretemis 1 rocket is a combined effort of older projects making this state-of-the-art space vehicle look much like a creative kid mixed all his Lego NASA sets together. [image: NASA]

A strange thing about the Valera L5 meteorite, besides landing on a cow of course, is that it is currently crossing the bridge of time between recent and historic. October 17, 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of its fall to earth. That timespan is also the physical distance between our last visit to the moon, and our renewed interest in the lunar landscape with the Artemis 1 rocket. As of this writing, the first two launch attempts were scrubbed, and a third launch attempt is scheduled for September 27th. With the crossing of all fingers, and with all nearby wood knocked on, the rocket will launch on schedule heading out to the moon and beyond before returning to earth by dropping a capsule carrying a trio of synthetic passengers plus one Snoopy plush toy into the Pacific ocean under the parachutes that just days earlier were orbiting the moon.

STARDUST Sample Return Capsule — The STARDUST sample return capsule sitting in the Utah mud after safely floating down to earth after seven years in space.

However, prior to the water landing, the Orion space capsule will enter the Earth’s atmosphere very much like a meteorite. Arriving home at 32 times the speed of sound, Artemis will push the reentry limits of our knowledge as well as our technology. The fastest meteors enter about seven times faster than that, but there are plenty of meteorites that arrived at the paltry speed of only one sixth that of the speediest of meteors, or slightly faster than Artemis. But no matter how a rock or a space capsule slices the atmosphere, the speeds are faster than we have every returned something alive from space. The current unmanned record holder is the STARDUST Sample Return Capsule which entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a blazing 37.6 times the speed of sound back in 2006.

Valera slice — My slice of Valera weighs in at about 150g. Not a bad looker for a 50 year old. Welcome to club historic you silly cow killer.

The Valera meteorite fell the same year Apollo 17 successfully went to the moon and returned. And it would be the last time humans visited the moon until, well, maybe 2026 if all goes well with Artemis 1, Artemis 2 and of course Artemis 3, the one to carry four humans (not just men this time) to the moon. So even though Artemis 1 has yet to hear “Go for launch,” I hope the return to the moon happens before more recent meteorite falls drift through time into the category I love dearly, that of the historic witnessed fall.

Until next time….And Godspeed Artemis!

Martin Horejsi

Dr. Martin Horejsi is a Professor of Instructional Technology and Science Education at The University of Montana, Missoula. A long-time meteorite collector and writer, before publishing his column "The Accretion Desk" in The Meteorite Times, he contributed often and wrote the column "From The Strewnfields" in Meteorite Magazine. Horejsi is also the Lead Technology Reviewer for The National Science Teaching Association, and just celebrated his 22th year working with NASA and the JPL in education and public outreach (EPO), and is a NASA Solar System Ambassador. Horejsi specializes in the collection and study of historic witnessed fall meteorites with the older, smaller, and rarer the better. Although his meteorite collection once numbered over a thousand pieces with near that many different locations, several large trades and sales and trades have streamlined the collection to about 250 important locations with all but 10 being witnessed falls. Many of the significant specimens in Horejsi's collection are historic witnessed falls that once occupied prominence in the meteorite collections of Robert A. Haag, James Schwade, and Michael Farmer. Other important specimens were acquired through institutional trades including those from The Smithsonian Institution, Arizona State University, and other universities. Horejsi was awarded the Harvey (Nininger) Award in Tucson in 2006, The Brotherhood of Guardians of the Ensisheim Meteorite in 2011, a JPL Inspiration Person, on the JPL STARDUST Team that was awarded the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Annual Trophy in 2008, and former board member of the International Meteorite Collectors Association, and the Northwest Council for Computers in Education.

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Artemis and the Valera Meteorite: Time to get back to work!

Martin Horejsi

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