The nation's space agency can credit itself with putting man on the moon, building a space station and sending a rover to Mars to search for life in its first 50 years.
To celebrate the occassion, the capsule that brought the first comet samples back to Earth is going on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.The capsule launched in 1999 and took seven years to reach Comet Wild 2, capture dust and bring it back to Earth. The roundtrip journey of 3 billion miles marked the first U.S. robotic sample to be returned from beyond the moon.
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