Astronaut picks up rock

Houston asks Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke to pick up a big moon rock. Duke later named it 'Big Muley'. The other astronaut, John Young, walks casually through the background on his way to the lunar rover.
Duke says the rock is the size of a football. Of course he means an American football. A Rugby football is much larger than this.
Duke originally estimates the weight to be about 40lb. However, due to lunar gravity, he revises that to 20lb.
John Young doesn't get involved.

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• Young
• Apollo
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• NASA
• space
• moon
• rock
• lunar
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• football
• astronaut
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• geology
• kangaroo
• hop

[EricWilsonWildlife]

The lunar reconnaissance orbiter just photographed the Apollo landing sites on the moon, and the landers are all there, complete with footprints etc. Of course these conspiracy nutters will even claim the photos are fake. They do not live in an evidence based reality.

[Rob260259]

Absolutely not Tim. The 1/6 gravity is there. Watch the dust at 0:45.

Get over it. In 1969 Americans landed on the moon.

[nasaman58]

I got to see this rock in the lunar curatorial facility at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It's big! Turns out to be an impact melt with an anorthosite cap with a glassy bottom. It's likely ejecta from the Nectaris basin and later ejected from South Ray crater at the Apollo 16 landing site.

[megpennywhistle]

hahaha! This is kid's joke. Look at the shadow of the guy behind. It's getting shorter. hahahaha.

[Lavenderrose73]

Oh that is too funny! I thought the rock would be a lot lighter; what the heck was that thing made of???

[ingareinar007]

lets say this was a hoax. well, the russians would found out, and sendt up a ship later. asking, where are the flag, rest of the LM and so.

[cabot2jville2010]

...people, watch at :30-:36 it's obvious the rock just tilts around like it was in a 1/6th gravity zone, moon gravity. when he's talkign about how heavy it is, he's mentioning what it will be once it's back on earth

[kaderoder]

So, was it four pounds of rock? (5/1)

[Th1sWasATriumph]

Where he casually uproots the rock . . . this is what science is for. So men can go to other worlds and pick up rocks. I probably sound facetious, but I'm entirely serious. Hopefully you all know what I mean, at least those who don't think it's a hoax (it fucking WASN'T a hoax.)

[un4g1v3n1]

4.7 pounds, and it sounds like he's trying to pick up a fifty pound bag of dogfood. Anyone who watches this and think it's authentic, needs their damn head examined! Or go ahead and donate your brain to science now, as it isn't doing you one goddamned bit of good!

[LunarTuner]

Actually, "Big Muley" turned out to be almost 26 lbs. on earth--4.3 lbs. on the moon. If you're on earth and wearing stiff, bulky gloves, try picking up something that large weighing 4.3 lbs. In other words, try wearing a pressurized A7L suit, high-voltage, insulated electrical gloves or boxing gloves and picking up an American football half-filled with water (about 4.5 lbs.).

If you think that's easy, I want what you're smokin'.

[aerowenn]

He was estimating the weight, keep in mind he's handled a lot of material in the moon's gravity. He wasn't saying it felt like 20 lbs there, he's trying to put it in Earth perspective. They have a weight budget for reentry.