The Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law — in force from 1969 to 1977 — was the popular name for regulations adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1969 to formalize its "policy, responsibility and authority to guard the Earth against any harmful contamination … resulting from personnel, spacecraft and other property returning to the Earth after landing on or coming within the atmospheric envelope of a celestial body". Implemented before the Apollo 11 mission, it provided the legal authority for a quarantine period for the returning astronauts. The regulation defined "extraterrestrially exposed" as...the state or condition of any person, property, animal or other form of life or matter whatever, who or which has (1) Touched directly or come within the atmospheric envelope of any other celestial body; or (2) Touched directly or been in close proximity any person, property, animal or other form of life or matter who or which has been extraterrestrially exposed by virtue of subparagraph (1) of this paragraph.