WEBVTT

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My name is Ryan Zeigler. I'm the Apollo curator and
I take care of NASA's Moon rocks. As a geologist, we

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like to study rocks, we like an excuse to be
outside, we like an excuse to study something

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cool, and there isn't much cooler than Moon rocks.
The Apollo samples have taught us a lot about the

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Moon for the last 50 years. We've had orbital
missions that have taught us even more about

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the Moon and now we're ready to go back and get
samples from new places on the Moon that will

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answer questions that we can't answer right now
with the collection we have. I just think these are

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the coolest samples ever and that I like taking
care of them to make sure that all the hard work

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that's gone into them over the last 50 years is
not lost and therefore uh enables more people to

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study them in the future. The best part of this job
is getting to go in the lab and actually see the

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samples. I mean a lot of this job is hard you have
to take really good care of things if you goof up

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you've damaged the samples forever so there's
there's a fair amount of stress that goes with

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it, but then you get to go in and you get to see
new samples when they're opened or you get to hand

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out samples to people and they make these amazing
scientific discoveries and while they did most of

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the hard work that you know that they wouldn't
have been fully successful without help and so

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being able to help that's really the best part
of the day. My job has taken me all over the world,

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all over Europe, including some really unusual
places like Vietnam or Japan or Australia so

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I've gotten to go all these different places as
part of being the Apollo curator. It's cool that

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I'm entrusted with the responsibility of taking
care of these rocks on behalf of the American

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people and it's me and the rest of my team's job
to take care of them so that they are preserved

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and that they are well used and that's really
an honor. If there are kids out there who love

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rocks, if you've got a rock collection, if you
want to really study rocks then do more than

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just pick up pretty rocks. Try to learn what
the rocks are made out of. Try to identify the

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individual minerals inside through minerology or
or what the textures inside the rocks are through

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what's called petrography, which is a study of the
textures inside the rocks cause that's how you can

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take your collection of rocks and turn it into
a more you know into a career someday. I think

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most little kids wanted to be an astronaut and I
loved space and I loved NASA and I always wanted

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to work here and then when I got into geology
and I found out there was a chance to actually

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study Moon rocks that just it I never looked
back. as soon as I like started down that path

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it was all moon rocks all the time. When this job
opened up 12 years ago and I was like oh that's

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what I want to do. That's my dream job and so uh
people often ask me what do you want to do next

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and I'm like you know I'm good I'm happy
where I am. I'm really this is this is the job I love.