You cannot enter the Rock Lab without a key card. You don't get one until it is dropped at the Bio Dome by Commander Salerno. This is later in the quest.
You will, however, need to go to the Research Station to recover the Locator Device. While there, use the eye color changer to make your eyes purple. This will let you pass the retina scan.
To enter the Rock lab, you need a keycard (dropped by Salerno when you find her) and purple eyes that you can get from the machine in the Research Lab.
The entrance is at the left side of the main base. There are entrances at the bottom of the Research Lab, at the bottom of the BioDome, and at the left side of the Rock lab.
The Purple Artifact is actually just slightly below the Rock lab on the map and can be seen as a faint purple glow. But you cannot do anything with it until you have the Geiger Counter from the Rock Lab.
It is in the top right section of the lunar map, just up from the main Moon base.
You need purple eyes to pass the retina scan at the Rock Lab. As explained on the computer in the Research lab, it can fool the scans used for security. Change them in the Research Lab. They will change back automatically.
After you chase her to the Rock lab, you can't find her again. When you use the Geiger Counter to find the Purple Artifact, she catches up to you.
You get the keycard when you follow Salerno to the BioDome. As she escapes, she drops the card by the airlock. You will chase her in the rover to the Rock lab, but you also have to have purple eyes to fool the retina scan. You get them when you are at the Research Lab (upper right by the airlock). To find Salerno, you have to get the tracking device from the Infirmary.
Only Salerno still has a key card to enter the Rock Lab, but she can apparently get in without one. You only get a keycard when she drops hers at the BioDome. You cannot enter the Rock lab until then. Get the locator device from the Infirmary and you can track her down.
When you find Salerno at the BioDome, she escapes through the airlock, and drops her keycard. If you have already turned your eye color to purple to beat the retina scan, you can follow her into the Rock lab.
It doesn't matter. Yours have to be purple to fool the retina scans, because you are not one of the regular astronauts -- their retina patterns are recognized by the security system at the Rock Lab.
Go down and across to the right, then up to reach the storage room, where you will find the geiger counter. Push the tall beams over and you will have a ramp to load it onto the rover.
There are two: - the BioDome is the second place you travel to in the rover. - the circular Infirmary is part of the Research Lab, the first place you go.