HOUSTON, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Arizonans will have the rare chance to touch a piece of a moon rock in early January at NASA's Driven to Explore traveling exhibit. Driven to Explore offers a look at America's program to return humans to the moon and travel beyond.

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The exhibit will be located at the Yuma Proving Ground Heritage Center in Yuma, Ariz., on Wednesday, Jan. 6 through Thursday, Jan. 7. The exhibit will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. MST, daily.

The centerpiece of Driven to Explore is the opportunity to touch a lunar rock sample picked up on the moon and brought to Earth by the astronauts of Apollo 17 in 1972, America's last human mission to the moon. The nearly 4-billion-year-old rock is one of only seven lunar samples in the world made available for the public to touch and feel.

Driven to Explore allows visitors to see models of the new Constellation Program's rockets and crew exploration vehicle that NASA is developing and to learn how and why America will return to the moon.

NASA has conducted over two dozen tests at the U.S. Army's Proving Ground in Yuma to support the design and development of the Orion crew exploration vehicle's and the Ares I crew launch vehicle's first stage parachute recovery systems. More than twenty tests are planned over the next five years.

The exhibit also details the accomplishments of the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

For more information about NASA, visit:

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SOURCE NASA

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