Apollo lunar sample return bag

Large Beta Cloth lunar soil and equipment containment bag, 21 ¼ by 20 ½ inches. The front has three 2 by 4 inch heavy weave labels with the top label reading: “CONTINGENCY SAMPLE, CLOSEUP CAMERA FILM CASSETTE.” The middle label reads: “GEOLOGY FILM CASSETTE,” and the bottom label is blank. The back side has an 18 inch heavy zipper opener along the top edge. The interior of the bag is marked with part number of V36-784014-21 and serial number 06362 AAJ 4184, along with two inspection stamps.

NASA began establishing plans for the handling of lunar material to be brought back by Apollo astronauts as early as 1963. This included planning and construction of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) at the then called Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) in Houston, Texas, between 1964 and 1968. It was critical that procedures and facilities be established to provide a safe quarantine environment to prevent any possible Earth contamination from possible microorganisms from the Moon.

That mandated that initial flight objectives be the biological containment of the flight crew, the actual lunar samples, and any equipment that came into contact with these lunar samples. As for the latter two, a requirement to clean and isolate the materials that were exposed to the lunar environment was established. Upon docking with the Command Service Module (CSM) after leaving the lunar surface, the Lunar Module (LM) crew members were to have a vacuum cleaning system and contamination containment bags passed to them from the Command Module Pilot. The LM crew vacuumed the first collected lunar samples contained in a Teflon contingency sample bag, all the lunar picture film cassettes, and the two large Sample Return Containers (SRC’s or rock boxes) which were closed while out on the lunar surface. They also vacuumed cleaned their space suits, gloves, and helmets. These tasks would keep any free floating lunar material from entering the Command Module to a minimum.

This Contingency Sample bag represents some of the first planning for the system to secure the first lunar samples and for the protection the inhabitants of Earth. It was planned hold not only the first lunar samples, but lunar film experiments as listed – the cassettes containing film from the closeup and geology cameras. Final plans for the first lunar landing flight established the requirement to make individual contamination Beta cloth bags for each individual item being returned from the lunar surface – the two large metal SRC’s, closeup camera cassette (now in combination with the geology cassette), 70mm film magazines from the Hasselblad camera, and first samples taken from the Moon’s surface, the contingency sample.

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