Obituaries E UG ENE M. S HO EM AK ER Eugene M. Shoemaker, One Of

and was also involved in istry of the Colorado plateau the Ranger and Surveyor country, studies of the Struc miss ions. ture and mechanics of meteor After leaving Caltech for craters, the search for planet Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1985, crossi ng as teroids, and studies Shoemaker focused his studies of the magnetostratigraphy of Obituaries on impact craters, as teroids, sedi mentary rocks. and comers. His observing H e codiscovered the team, which included hi s mineral stishovite, which is a wife, Carolyn. discovered hi gh-pressure form of quartz several thousand asteroids and produced only during large 33 comets, including Comet impact events. This discov Schoemaker-Levy 9, which ery established the extra crashed inro Jupiter in 1994. terres trial origin of many Shoemaker's many other cryptoexplosion structures. scientific accomplishments Shoemaker was elected to included seuing up the Inter the National Academy of planetary Geological Time Sciences in 1980; he received Scale, based on crater densi the National Medal of Science ties on planetary surfaces. in 1992, and the Bowie This allows age estimates Medal (rhe highest award of E UG ENE M. S HO EM AK ER to be made for terrains from the American Geophysical 1928-1997 other planets based on space Union) in 1996. photographs. His other research included exploration for uranium de posits and salt structures in Eugene M. Shoemaker, one Colorado and Utah , research of the world's foremost plane on rhe geology and geochem- tary scientists, was killed in an automobile accident in Australia on Thursday, July 17. His wife, Carolyn, was also injured in the accident. Shoemaker first came to A Celebration of Life for Eugene Shoelliaker war held in Flagstaff Cal tech as an undergraduate, Octoher 11. Harrison ('Jack" Schmitt (BS '57, Apollo 17 astronaut, and earned his bachelor's and former senator frml1 Nelli Mexico) delivered the main address, from degree in 1947 and his mas which the following is adapted. rer's in 1948. He received a second master's degree and When I received the phone caU about this celebration of life his doctorate from Princeton for Gene, I was reading Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose's University, and returned to remarkable narrative about Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, Caltech in 1962 as a visiting and the opening of the American West. J could not absorb professor. He served as a Ambrose's words without relating those events, people, and research associate in astro consequences to our own experiences in the 19605. geology here from 1964 ro As 1 reached the end of the book, I was reminded particularly 1968, as professor of geology of Gene's most unique quality during those heady days. I could Carolyn and Gene Shoemaker in 1969- 1980, and professor of not help but compare Gene as leader, as well as a scientific front of t he Alu mni House during geology and planetary science explorer. to Captain Lewis and an earlier Corps of Discovery. 1980-85. Shoemaker served Paraphrasing just a little, as Ambrose said of Lewis: "How he Commencement weekend as chairman of the Division led is no mystery. His techniques were time-honored. He knew in June 1997. of Geological and Planetary hi s [people). He saw to it that they had [regular inspiration, Sciences from 1969 ro 1972. neces-sary resources, sufficient rools). He pushed them to bur He also worked for many never beyond the breaking point. He got OUt of them more. than years with the U.S. Geologi they knew they had to give. His concern for them was that of a cal Survey, and was affiliated father for his son. He was head of a fami ly." with the Lowell Observatory Many of us saw our lives moved forward professionally because at rhe time of hi s death. He of Gene's knack for inspiring people to go far beyond what any was a principal investigator of us believed we could do. We kn ew then as we know now thar for geological field investiga we worked with one of the truly great scientists and visionaries tions for the Apollo lunar of this latest age of exploration. Like Lewis, "[h]is intense curi programs from 1965 ro 1970, osity abollt everything new he saw around him was infectious. I 9 9 7 ENGINEERING & HI EN (E NO. 41 On the February 1966 cover of £&S, Gene Shoemaker holds a handful of tektites, which he thought were remnants of lunar material ejected from the Moon's surface during impact from a high~ speed object. Such objects (meteorites, asteroids, comets) Shoemaker believed. also created the craters visible on the Moon, Mars and Earth. a theory now universally accepted. him," he added. Well, I had emotion, the excitement, and, no idea who Gene Shoemaker we believed, the science of the might be, but Danny and I future. A few days later, had overlapped at both Cal Gordon Swann and others tech and Harvard. If Danny arrived and, with Gene's daily thought what Gene was inspiration, an eclectic group doing was interesting, it went to work. almost certainly was! We began learning our Not having any idea what I new lessons by trial and error, Certainly he would be was getting into, I headed Out mostly error-lessons that anyone's first choice for a of Cambridge in my '55 ultimately were to become companion on an ex tended Chevy Business Coupe for part of the foundations of camping trip." Route 66, Flagstaff, and the Gene's Apollo field geology Before I arrived on the old Astrogeology Branch experiment, underpinning Shoemakers' doorstep in Flag Headquarters. I became a almost everything Apollo staff in 1964, Gene and I little suspicious only when accomplished scientifically on wrote twO tenees that had Danny and others in Menlo the Moon. With Arizona literally crossed in the mail. decided nor to relocate in freshmen, Spence Titley, long He was contacting people on Flag. What did they know hours, and Jim Beam, we set the Geological Survey's list of thar I didn't know? Exci ting about answering questions those who had passed its things, however, were about never asked before. 1963 employment exam, and to happen. How do you communicate I was looking fot a job. After arrival at the old detailed geologic notes by Interesting and adventur museum offices in the pines tadio across the 240,000 ous jobs in geology seemed at the north edge of town, miles of space, when Swann nonexistent to this new PhD and JoD Swann's enthusiastic keeps stepping on your lines? in 1964- none in academia, welcome, Gene provided me How should the lunar surface and the ongoing slump in with a tough choice between debris, latet to be defined by metal prices didn't help in joining Don Elston, Ray Gene as the now famous lunar other areas where "hard-rock" Batson, and others on the regolith. be sampled,.when and field experience might be ongoing Surveyor television the old International Travel applied. Fo[cunareiy, I re project, or heading up work Ails can't get us to Torn membered that in 1960, after on a new NASA contract to McGetchin's Mexican Hat helping line up a trip to look develop lunar field geological kimberlite location? How do for West Coast eclogites, Bob methods. Surveyor was very you photographically docu Coleman had taken me down real and had exc.iting science ment a sample location and a dark hallway in the Survey's potential. Lunar field work orientation without using Menlo Park facility and intro was in the misty, undefined more than an absolute mini duced "Gene Shoemaker, who future, but there was really no mum of extraordinarily valu is doing weird things like cboice: as important as able time, when Schmitt can't mapping the Moon. Danny Surveyor was and would rurn keep the Polaroid film out of Milton is even working for out to be, in Apollo lay tbe the Hopi Bucres' dust? What 42 ENGINHRING & SCIENCE NO. 1997 intellectual foundation for this history of science to record that for the first time we had gained a first-order understanding of another planet. Gene, "more than any other individual, was responsible for the incorporation of geology into the In 1992, Gene joined a University of Wisconsin team Ame rican space program. " We might add thac, more than any other individual, he was responsible as chief scientist on a proposal to operate twO scientific for our present consideration of the Moon and Mars as places for future seulements rovers si multaneously and co operatively on the surface of of our children and grandchildren. the Moon. Our objectives were to unravel the three dimensional nature of the regolith and to define the basis for bringing its energy resources back to Earth. Who would have thought when we first gathered in Flagstaff in training vocabulary do YOll The question I asked myself, for our presenr consideration the '60s that Gene's legacy use when your field men are however, was, "If someone of the Moon and Mars as would include the potential not geologists but rather are actually does land on the places for fueure sertlements for providing for the long headstrong test pilots? Moon, and if I passed up a of our children and grand term energy and environmen Ultimately, all our questions chance to try to be that children. tal needs of humankind? had answers, but none was person. would I regret it?" Gene's influence within the Gene would have. Yes, obvious when Gene started The answer being obvious, space agency in rhe 19605 indeed! With the usual geology down rhis parh of the rest is histOry-helped was f.'1r greater than even he unbounded enthusiasm, he lunar exploration and along, I strongly suspect, by imagined.

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