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 shelfs - 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'm focussing 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 on mineral & gem shows, 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 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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