Some one hundred moon rocks from the various NASA missions owned by NASA and loaned to 120 scientists to study through the Lunar Sample Analysis Program came to UT in 1974 for study by Earth and Planetary Sciences Professor Lawrence Taylor. An auctioneer in Paris offered to pay $100 million per gram for any authenticated moon rock in 1974, and UT’s one hundred samples weighed 750 grams. The rocks were placed in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Building under tight security. UT obtained an automated electron microprobe for study of the rocks, joining Stanford, California Institute of Technology, and MIT in having such an instrument. In 1977, through a cooperative agreement between NASA and the Soviet Union’s Academy of Sciences, Taylor also received a sample of moon rocks collected by the unmanned Soviet Luna 24 mission of 1976.