Moon boxes and mystery men

See the box in this photo? It's more interesting than it looks. This is a box that went to the Moon.

Astronauts used the boxes to collect and bring back to Earth nearly 50 pounds of moon rocks and soil ... Each of the boxes was machined from a single piece of aluminum, "seamless except for the lid opening, which had a metalized gasket that firmly sealed when closed."

The photo comes from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.—a research facility that participated in the Manhattan Project and later was involved in designing equipment for the Apollo Project. Journalist Frank Munger writes about Y-12 and other parts of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

This photo, which he posted on his blog, is also interesting because nobody knows who the three guys in the photo are. Munger was hoping that Boingers might be able to offer some leads.

Read Frank Munger's blog post

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: audience participation • DOE • History • moon • research • Science

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gtrjnky

That’s Eugene Levy in the middle.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1505629914 Paul Chrastina
  
  I’m thinking it’s Peter Sellers, but you could be right….
John Fleming

The guy on the right is 60541, obviously.
- MrSlumpy
  
  I think it says “Goshi.”
  - John Fleming
    
    All three of them look pretty 1337.
- http://twitter.com/randywalters Randy Walters
  
  Clear as day, that’s a fact.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

60541′s nametag with photo is just so tantalizingly out of reach.
yri

I think the one on the left is John Many Jars.
griever

From the Cyborg ID number on the right, that’s obviously a young Reset Smith
- petronius
  
  THX 1138 took the picture.
  - http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
    
    No he would have mucked it up due to not taking enough drugs.
http://twitter.com/openfly ǝɔʎoſ ʇʇɐW

Oakridge is an amazing city historically. At the beginning of ww2 it boasted a population of about 2 thousand. By the end it had a population of 60000 and was consuming something like a quarter of the US power grid. It’s one of the great unknown engineering feats of that time.
http://profiles.google.com/smithemma Emma Smith

The guy on the right is obviously the 10th Doctor…
Nigel Field

That’s Kevin McDonald (from Kids In The Hall) on the right.
- BombBlastLightingWaltz
  
  Sure, if he doubled his weight.
http://twitter.com/Listener43 Listener43

John Yaya, John Smallberries, and John Bigbooty. I think John Parker had just stepped out for a “smoke” when this photo was taken.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Robinson/100002917927146 Bill Robinson
  
  BigbooTAY!
spiffw

I believe the one on the right was a cellmate of Jean Valjean.
- http://twitter.com/randywalters Randy Walters
  
  You are correct, sir! For the Win.
SamSam

Did anyone expect a serious answer from Boingers?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1510324784 Jennifer M Ring

umm yeah, I was kinda expecting a useful answer. I was hoping that maybe one of these guys could be somebody’s father. But then again, seeing that most of these replies are from high school kids, that would be impossible…
- Robert
  
  Try again on metafilter. We’re all about snark here.
- gtrjnky
  
  I bet you’re a lot of fun at parties.
vonbobo

“He told me he was vacuuming the curtains in the nude, slipped off his chair, and landed directly onto this gizmotrometer.”
Eoin McCarthy

I’m going to say Farouk El-Baz is the guy in the middle.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/ap15-KSC-71P-383.jpg
- spiffw
  
  Shadow Puppets 101?
Jeremiah McCoy

Actually, my grandfather worked at y-12, on something related to Apollo, during that time. I could probably run the photo past him and see if he knows who they are. It would be tomorrow before I could do that though. He is 90 now, and is cantankerous, and recently had some cancer removed, but his memory is still good.

I was born around Oak Ridge and spent a portion of my childhood there. My grandparents still live there and I live just outside town these days. Living there is interesting. There are places you just know you are not supposed to go. Otherwise, it is a pretty normal little town. Lots of old people though.
spiffw

AND SOLVED…allegedly, and not by me. I just googled.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2012/04/moon-box-mystery-solved.html
http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Robinson/100002917927146 Bill Robinson

I believe that’s Woody Allen in the middle, holding our leader’s nose.
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  I hope he stays away from steam rollers and giant bananas.
Editz

I’d swear that’s Conan sketch writer and performer Brian Stack:

http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/3/1/31u5efal56as1356.jpg
jaytkay

Sleeper has always been my favorite Woody Allen movie. Thanks!
BombBlastLightingWaltz

3 white guys not wearing respirators inspecting foreign terrestrial specimens. Expendable for data resource acquisition.
http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

Well duh, it’s avant band The Residents.
WinstonSmith2012

That’s me holding the whatchamacallit standing right next to my good friend 60541 (it was top secret work, so we all went by our birthplace zip codes). A later version of the $1.65 million whatchamacallit actually flew on Apollo 18… oops.