WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Moscow, Russia -- Mr. Lee Scherer, Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Apollo Lunar Exploration Office receives Soviet lunar samples from Academician A. P. Vinogradov, Vice President of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In the photograph left to right, Dr. Paul Gast, NASA, Lee Scherer, NASA, Prof. Vinogradov, USSR, Interpreter Igor Pochitalin, USSR, and Academician Boris Petrov, USSR. The United States and Russian governments formally exchanged lunar samples in a brief ceremony at the Academy of Sciences of June 10, 1971. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration received 3 grams of samples returned from the Moon by the Soviet spacecraft Luna 16 and presented to the Soviet Academy of Sciences, 6 grams of sample material gathered by the crews of the Apollo 11 and 12 missions.