Canada lunar sample displays the landing of Apollo 17 on the Moon, which was memorialised by astronauts Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt when they talked directly to the "youth ambassadors" from the surface of the Moon. Matthews was able to see astronaut Neil Armstrong personally at the luxury hotel in Orlando, Florida. He also got quite acquainted with Armstrong's daughter and became lifetime pen pals with her. The program directors promised each "youth ambassador" a lunar sample from the Apollo 17 mission. In 1973 Matthews was sent the Canadian "goodwill moon rock" encased in a clear Lucite ball about the size of
NASA Astronaut Group 8 NASA Astronaut Group 8 NASA's Astronaut Group 8 was a group of 35 astronauts announced on January 16, 1978. It was the first selection in nine years of astronaut candidates since Group 7 in August 1969, and also included NASA's first female astronauts. Due to the long delay between the last Apollo lunar mission in 1972 and the first flight of the Space Shuttle in 1981, few astronauts from the older groups stayed with NASA. Since then, a new group of candidates has been selected roughly every two years. In Astronaut Group 8, two different astronaut groups were formed: pilots