(2/3) “The Americans offered me work in a laboratory, but I...

(2/3)  “The Americans offered me work in a laboratory, but I didn’t want.  I was nostalgic for Italy.  I missed the artistic tradition.  I missed the warmth of human contact.  I missed the laundry hanging in streets and people singing from open windows.  So I proposed to continue my research in Rome.  I specialized in silicon carbides and sent all my data back to NASA. I’m not sure how they used it because those are secrets of NASA.  But I know they used it, because they pushed me very hard and gave me plenty of money.  Then 1969 came around.  Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and returned to Earth with a collection of lunar samples.  But none had been given to Italy.  Fifteen of our laboratories made a proposal with no luck.  Everyone wondered: ‘Why not Italy?’  So I asked myself: ‘What can I do with a lunar sample?’  And then I had an idea.   If I vaporized the sample, perhaps I could learn the molecular composition of the primordial nebula.  The origin of the solar system!  But people thought I was crazy.  Vaporize a lunar sample?  Who would suggest such an idea?   But I made my proposal anyway.  Then one morning I opened up the newspaper and saw a headline: ‘Lunar sample to Italian scientist, Giovanni De Maria.’  And later that day I received this telegram, inviting me to pick up my moon rock at the American embassy.”
(Rome, Italy)