North Carolina lunar sample displays North Carolina lunar sample displays The North Carolina lunar sample displays are part of two commemorative plaques consisting of small fragments of Moon specimen brought back with the Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 lunar missions and given in the 1970s to the people of the state of North Carolina by United States President Richard Nixon as goodwill gifts. The North Carolina Apollo 11 lunar sample display commemorative podium-style plaque consists of four "moon rock" rice-sized particle specimens that were collected by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969 and a small North Carolina state flag that was
William Carpentier Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin from the Pacific Ocean, Carpentier was assigned to Helicopter 66, the primary rescue helicopter which ferried the men to the waiting "USS Hornet". Both Carpentier and NASA engineer John Hirasaki – who had come into contact with Moon dust – were confined with the astronauts for their twenty-one day quarantine. In the period following their release from isolation, the publicity demands on Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin became so great that Carpentier was sometimes pressed into service to make public appearances in their place after a United States Department of State publicist concluded that the