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' :.".;:F Ze)68303653:5%*· 3 '.t:-;• ...,•«036-1...t,k:,4•''•i.I•••.-i•:'<•/••0/ -•4•4••••••.f»«•C-7.iu.-0At '• •.':.Sh:(Sphf ·r#·CliE ./1 ...... =.5 .,.': '.4 4, 1. :-.26/1 -· 1 4•- ..:6(:--t•'-.-•.:.-*••,•- r'•LAT,&•:.r.•i·-'Si<,,: f- f. • .. - f t':.:*.'•13·:- . •_'A .,t .·.:a,;..•6*e•..,iz-.•.:..·, -Renowned geologist Gene Shoemaker aspired to visit tbe moon. He never made it, but bis asbes did. don't remember when I first met Gene Shoemaker, storyteller so completely one with his world, his work, but chances are I heard him before I saw him. He and his life that a typical stop-look-see field expedition was a warm, jovial, and boisterous man, with a in the rudiments of southwestern US. geology became a hearty, body-quaking laugh that bounded its happy magic carpet ride. way across a room, a laugh that seemingly could defy physical law and pierce vacuum. And because he was By the time it reaches northern Arizona from its always laughing, one's encounter with the man usually source in the western Rod FEBRUARY 2000 ASTRONOMY 53 single mental leap, Gene had made a connection between the Accompanying Gene Shoemaker's ashes to the moon was a small plague heavens and Earth that no one before him had seen. Terrible that contained two photos and a passage from Romeo and Juliet. destruction could rain down on our planet from above. And he was would call an encounter with Gene convinced that the craters on the "My Shoemaker Fix." I had become a moon, widely believed at the time to be Gene junkie. the result of explosive volcanic d#/Al,6.5,:• 4: His wife Carolyn later told me that eruptions, were the result of the same -I--•' EUGENE M. SiIOLMAKER the man was always thinking, punching cosmic hailstorm. 1928-1997 his calculator, pursuing new ideas, By the time I enrolled for my second And. when he shall die. rejecting bad ones. He was brilliant; he field trip with Gene to visit and examine Take him and Clit him 036111in little ,tars, was renowned. He should have been And he will make the t'ace of heaven sci fine Meteor Crater, I was aware of «The That all the world will be in love with night. richly rewarded and well-supported in Story." Gene had desperately wanted to And pay no w·oiship to the garish .un. his research. Yet, even he wasn't free of go to the moon himself as an Apollo the trials and burdens of a modern-day ...ill./.Ill.." - William Shake.peare astronaut to test out his ideas on the --- 'Roineoand Juliet'. 1595 scientist. To do any scientific investiga- cosmic origin of craters, but Addison's .-mi....f tions, he too had to write proposals disease had grounded him. The Apollo and gain financial support of some program, however, had proven him kind. And he wasn't always successful. correct: The inner solar system was at He was as frustrated as the rest of us. one time an incredibly violent place. In the 198Os, Gene and I met up again as members of the The last time I saw Gene was at the Applied Physics Labo- Voyager Imaging Team. The Voyager discoveries of a similar ratory in Laurel, Maryland, during the NEAR spacecraft's epoch of violence in the outer solar system, as recorded on June 1997 encounter with the asteroid Mathilde. Gene and the icy satellites of the giant planets, gave Gene much to his wife were, like myself, special guests of the NEAR science think about. Employing his technique of determining the team. We could sit back and enjoy the views. Mathilde would relative ages of the surfaces on a body by looking at the be only the third asteroid visited by a spacecraft, and it was a spatial density of craters, Gene broadsided everyone again by different class from the other two. The images showed an informing them that not only had these bodies suffered asteroid that was mostly crater: huge chunks taken out of it severe impacts, but that some of them had been broken to by the ubiquitous process of impacts. Tracking the spacecraft bits and reassembled, and in some cases, many times. as it passed Mathilde allowed a determination of the aster- Collisions were everywhere and could destroy worlds or even oid's mass. The density was low, possibly as low as water ice. create them. Our own moon was But the asteroid certainly wasn't made of water. What was it? ,,6•94•4 created in a colossalimpact of a Mars- Gene punched some numbers into his calculator, looked at /•••• sized object with Earth. How the answer with a deep, furrowed brow, and announced to all •j f gratifying it was to him that he lived in the room: "It's a sand pile!" - to see a collision: that of a comet he There it was. He had done it again, and this time it hap- Qi-/I co-discovered, Comet Shoemaker- pened right in front of me. I was awestruck. He had made ')• Levy 9, with Jupiter in 1994. another mental leap that shifted paradigms, diverted people's In the years following the last thinking, and focused it elsewhere. Mathilde was not a solid, 3 I ·,1 El' Voyager encounter with Neptune, I rocky body but instead had to be something no more sub- L..f.•'...: ''/ 1 . • ' 4 didn't see much of Gene. But when- stantial than a pile of rubble. By extension, other asteroids /·t li' . \ 1 Al ever I knew he was anywhere could be rubble piles too, held together presumably by self- 1.4 'C . I .\1 '1 nearby I made a point of finding gravity sufficient to counter the potentially shattering effects i 7.1 1 him. Time with Gene was mind- of impacts. Planetary scientists have taken this new outlook •' -' ' expanding. He understood so on asteroids and are running all over the place with it. 9 much, so thoroughly, and he Less than a month later, Gene was dead, killed in a tragic E shared his knowledge freely, automobile accident in central Australia. Like everyone who * punctuated always with that learned of that awful development on that awful day, I was 8 laugh. I came away from these stunned. What new insights went with him, we'll never know. f meetings inspired and renewed It was a loss difficult to measure. S t in my feeling that to be a The following day, I read in the morning newspaper that 65 planetary explorer was the Gene's body would be cremated. The love he engendered in • most meaningful calling all who knew him, his inspirational life, and how badly he 3 a person could follow. had wanted to get to the moon all flashed through my mind 3 To my close friends, I with the speed of a cosmic impact. Let's send Gene to the .f moon, I thought. This is his last chance. a It was a Saturday. I went into work, logged 3 onto my computer, and started I '.'... pummeling with e-mails • .4 4 4 anyone who could 3 *. help in further- • - 042t + *4% ing this idea. 1 4 - What is 3 * 442-r.r,-. I 042042.·*442r-042042:I·.I' F.036,1...036·· ....'...... IFF*.3.,41·4:.4· • ..· •':•/ ·.( 3,• : •· .. ." ...... , .. .' -/ 94. I .3 - .., ".;,· ·I·,036-i.ti,··r•t•' m,•• ,1. · s••...:·7•t:·f:«,.i••.'...1..'..:-...... :.. ..'... ..036.'.; ':036e...' •..i•,9.. 1.'.,ti"*:1#*.. . 4':,3.2.i:'tl'·•:'44'·•2.31'·• ....•.·....'...... ".···· t.:...... 5$....1 :.'*Et'I.,i. /·1·1•4•"7 Z&'3,..lwi ..., ...., .• ..:.,i·,i i•"I'.....1:.. "Er . :: ·- ·t.,5.1:e iFi:·.,3,79,·.1, . 4, 0 ...... -'...... :..,•. . '.t . .,),· t,4 *51• :,i... '.: M •, 0,'4.'•·'i.,r#•4:.,•..••2" #516 : ' , ....1....'BW 246.:.",W I fl. . .. ·:'ll,1.K lf;''i'v,-2•, )1'.1 11.0'., - '4'.- Ii'i.•'.' ).'·. :r ' , ./ ... •·6- Agy...., ..4.- .....'...4 ..(.... .* a +-0 . -CU Ct: the next lunar mission• When will it be launched? Would it be One of Gene Shoemaker's favorite places: the Grand Canyon in Arizona. technically feasible to include a small, lightweight capsule with perhaps an epigraph?.How do I get in touch with Carolyn where the following day, a Monday, I delivered the whole Shoemaker (who was injured herself in tile accident and recu- package to Scott Hubbard. It was then out of my hands. perating somewhere in a hospital in the middle ofAustralia) to On January 6, 1998, Lunar Prospector was finally sent on find out if she would approve the idea? its way to the moon. Eighteen months later, on July 31, 1999, Within 30 hours I had my answers: It's amazing how it crashed on command into the lunar south polar region, many people in the space business can be found working on carrying Gene's ashes down to the surface. The fulfillment of the weekend. Lunar Prospector was the next mission going to one man's dreams, and the final episode of his inspirational the moon. But it was in final systems testing, to be shipped to life, met on impact. Cape Canaveral from Moffett Field in California within two months. Even though it was late in the game, mission In the last two years, my Shoemaker Tribute website manager Scott Hubbard was warm to the idea (so long as the (condor.lpl.arizona.edul-carolyn/tribute.html) has received mass could be kept to a minimum), and Carolyn Shoemaker thousands of hits from people all over the globe. People I had sent back the message that the Shoemaker family would don't even know have expressed gratitude for honoring this be forever grateful if I could actually pull it off. man's wish to get to the moon and describe being moved to And within nine days, I had the go-ahead from the NASA the point of tears after hearing the story of Gene Shoemaker. official who could make it happen. Associate Administrator It is a story that reverberates many places in the heart. It is for Space Science Wesley Huntress had responded, "I like one man's story for sure: of his dream, his disappointment, his that idea, Carolyn. I like the poetry of it." life lived to the fullest, his legacy, and his final journey home. It was a bit of a scramble as there wasn't much time. I But it is our story, too. Thirty years ago, we humans arrived at wanted to include something to commemorate Gene's the moon in life, and now one of us has arrived there in death. scientific legacy. It seemed appropriate to choose his favorite We have put our mark on the heavens and they have become photo of Meteor Crater and a photo of the last comet that he our own. And now they beckon like never before. and his wife saw together, Comet Hale-Bopp. And somehow, What is it that makes one person see things that others I extracted from the dusty realm of dim memory a passage I don't, think thoughts that others wouldn't dare, and go places had read from Romeo and Juliet long ago that seemed perfect that others will only imagine• It's hard to say. But Gene was for the occasion. one of those people. And if there was ever a person who In one crazy weekend in late August 1997, the idea turned deserved to be given this special place in history, of being the into reality. On Friday I drove from Tucson to Phoenix, first human to be sent to rest on another celestial body, it was where I had arranged to have my design laser-engraved onto he. To those of us who knew and loved him, that silver orb in a small piece of brass foil. The following day I drove north to the night sky will never be the same. May his laughing spirit Flagstaff. That afternoon, in an intimate ceremony in the walk its barren, windless reaches in peace, forever. El back of Gene's house, in view of his beloved San Francisco Peaks, members of the Shoemaker family and I collected Gene's ashes into a small capsule. The next day, I drove to Carolyn C Porco is a planetary scientist at the University OfArizona Phoenix for a flight to Ames Research Center in California, and the Imaging Team Leaderfor the Cassini mission to Saturn. FEBRUARY 2000 ASTRONOMY 55