After the obligatory planting of the American flag and some geological sampling, Conrad and Bean made their way to Surveyor 3. They observed that the probe had bounced after touchdown and carefully photographed the impressions made by its footpads. The whole spacecraft was covered in dust, perhaps kicked up by the landing.
The astronaut-archaeologists carefully removed the probes television camera, remote sampling arm. and pieces of tubing. They bagged and labelled these artefacts, and stowed them on board their lunar module. On their return to Earth, they passed them on to the Daveson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and the Hughes Air and Space Corporation in bl Segundo, California. There, scientists analyzed the changes in these aerospace artefacts.
One result of the analysis astonished them. A fragment of the television camera revealed evidence of the bacteria Streptococcus mitis. I or a moment it was thought Conrad and Bean had discovered evidence for life on the Moon, but after further research the real explanation became apparent. While the camera was being installed in the probe prior to the launch, someone sneezed on it. The resulting bacteria had travelled to the Moon, remained in an alternating freezing.' boiling vacuum for more than two years, and returned promptly to life upon reaching the safety of a laboratory back on Earth.
The finding that not even the vastness of space can stop humans from spreading a sore throat was an unexpected spin-off. Rut the artefacts brought back by Rean and Conrad have a broader significance. Simple as they may seem, they provide the first example of extraterrestrial archaeology and perhaps more significant for the history of the discipline formational archaeology, the study of environmental and cultural forces upon the life history of human artefacts in space.
