KARACHI, Oct 2: The National Museum is displaying a fragment of the lunar rock as its object of the month, says a press release.

It adds that the fragment of the lunar rock is a portion of a rock from the Taurus Littrow valley of the moon. It is given as a symbol of the unity of human endeavour. With this fragment is exhibited a flag of our country which was carried to the moon aboard spacecraft by America during Apollo 17 mission, Dec 17, 1972. The same was presented to the people of Pakistan on behalf of President Nixon in 1973.

The press release says that the decade of the 1960s was surely unique for science and geology in particular. It began with a first view of the far side of the moon and it ended with the first look at the mat-erial from which the moon is made.

A new era in lunar exploration began with the launching of the Russian I UNA 3 spacecraft on Oct 4, 1959.

In 1961 President Kennedy set for the United States a clear policy and goal of landing on the surface of the moon as the early Apollo missions were unmanned excursions in earth orbit to test the various components.

The Apollo programme landed 12 astronauts on the moon in six lunar landing missions. It also sent two manual Apollo spaceships into orbit around the moon.

Twenty-four Americans flew to the vicinity of the moon in these nine Apollo spaceships. Three of these astronauts who landed on the moon went to the vicinity of the moon twice.

The 11 space flights in the Apollo programme covered a total of 18,010,337 miles and took a total fo 104 days, 5 hours, 3 minutes.

The eight Apollo spacemen that achieved lunar orbit spent a total of 30 days circling the moon, and about 832 pounds of lunar rock and soil were brought back by six crews that landed on the moon.