The Publisher
Like so many boys who grew up in the 1960s/70s, I have always been
hypnotized by the NASA missions - especially by the Apollo program, and
the first moonlandings. Neil Armstrong's small step proved to be indeed
one giant leap for mankind, and the stuff of which a child's dream is
made. Of course, I wanted to become an astronaut, fly to the Moon and
beyond to explore the vastness of the universe! However, like so many
childhood dreams, it didn't come true - at least not in the way I had
planned it.
Years later, I stumbled on an alternate route to the stars. Since my
early childhood I had been collecting rocks, and one day in the early
1990s I ran into Gregor Pacer, a Polish meteorite dealer, at a local
mineral fair. There they were, sitting on his shelves - meteorites,
genuine rocks from space! Although I had read a lot about meteorites, I hadn't been aware that it was possible at all to privately own these
messengers from space. I always had thought that the few meteorite
samples in existence were safely locked away in museums and institutions
– unattainable and out of reach, just like the Moon and the stars.
My passion for space was reborn, and I became an avid meteorite
collector. Since the late 1990s, I've been focusing more and more on
the crown jewels of meteorites, the rare achondrites, and
especially the samples of planetary origin – genuine lunar and martian
rocks. During the last few years I've been avidly hunting planetary
rocks at mineral & gem shows, on the internet, eBay, and in the
deserts of Arabia. In 2003 my dearest dream came true, and I found my
first Moon Rock, lunar anorthositic breccia Dhofar 908. Going to
show that some dreams do come true, in the end. |
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The Publisher at the SaU Shergottite Strewnfield
in Oman: "I found nothing but these ol' barrels."
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