How Y-12 helped Apollo 11 during the moon landing

Y-12, we have a problem.

In 1967, before one man took one giant leap for mankind, NASA called scientists at Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge with a specific request.

Apollo 11 was preparing to land on the moon in a spectacular fashion, and NASA had forgotten something major: It didn’t have a safe way to bring back any moon rocks.

NASA had a lot of stipulations: The boxes had to vacuum seal the lunar samples to prevent contamination. The boxes had to withstand spacecraft vibration during the flight. And they definitely couldn’t leak.

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