NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt, geologist, astronaut, and Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 17, part 3 of 3

You You You You

Take one my actual Interest in becoming an astronaut didn't crystallize until NASA asked for volunteers Back in November of 1974 That I got that wrong let's start over I've lost track of 864 My actual interest in becoming an astronaut didn't crystallize until 1964 in November when NASA and the National Academy of Sciences asked for volunteers for the first ever Science astronaut selection I my interest though had been peaked when I was a student Fulbright student in Norway in 1957 and experienced the Sputnik the launch of Sputnik The first artificial satellite of the earth that the then Soviet Union put into orbit experienced that in the context of the student community at the University of Oslo And you couldn't be involved in that community and not recognize the profound impact that it was having not only in that look what technology has done unexpectedly but also look at the apparent threat that

That free men and women now face from a technologically ascendant Soviet Union ultimately that proved not to be quite as great a concern as it appeared at the time but we didn't know then So those the combination of those two factors excited my interest and I continued then from that point on to sort of keep an eye on what was happening in space related activities And when the opportunity to volunteer came along actually when the opportunity came along to go to work for Gene Schumacher here in Flagstaff That was partially in the back of my mind not to become an astronaut but because of my intellectual interest in space And the thought of becoming an astronaut really had not been any more than a sort of a joke among my colleagues and me until there was an actual selection

Did you ever think when you did that but you might go to the moon? Well that was the whole idea the whole idea of volunteering was with the possibility of actually taking my science and my interest to the moon But early on in my activities as an actual astronaut I realized that the probability of that happening at least early on was pretty small We had no idea in the late 1960s how many times we would have to try to land on the moon before we actually landed there We had no idea whether scientists would ever be accepted as a crewman whether the systems that were then just in the design and initial manufacturing phase were going to be safe enough for anybody to fly much less to put somebody on who although maybe a pilot Because that's what NASA required at the time still was not the experience test pilot that we had ready and willing to go into space as part of the Apollo program

I understood that at the time and had a sort of a turnaround of thought and that well since I'm in here let's see how much we can do as scientists and as interested parties to enhance the success of the program And to also begin to interject as much science as possible into the activities of the astronauts when and if they finally get to the moon Well company about the class of 65 I mean who was in that class how many were there did you did you guys all think you might get shot? The class of 65 started out as about 1400 volunteers That was went down very quickly in the initial physical that we had to send in with our application It was what was called a FAA physical flight physical for ordinary pilots And that came down to about 400 as I recall

Out of that 400 then we were asked to submit some more detailed information about our lives and careers And from that the National Academy selected about 80 and as a matter of fact Gene Schumacher was chairman of that selection committee And out of that 80 then based on an essay and some submission of reprints of scientific articles and things like that They eventually came to 16 that they recommended for NASA Those 16 were then invited to take a physical at Brooks Air Force Base then the center of that kind of activity for NASA And out of that 16 only 15 of which actually showed up for the physical then six were selected There were two positions aerospace physicians There were three geologists and now I'm talking about the 16

I better... Out of the six that were finally selected there was one geologist myself Two engineering physicists, Gariott and Gibson and two physicians, Kerwin and Gravelin And we were then interviewed that was based not only on the physical but on the interviews that we had at NASA after the physicals And then we were shipped off to pilot training at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona, somewhat south of Flagstaff here Dwayne Gravelin unfortunately because of publicity and other things that were involved in a pending divorce did not continue in the program after the first three weeks Kerwin and... That's it, we don't need to get into that.

Okay, two of the other six were already pilots and so they were transitioned into the T-38 which was NASA's jet aircraft of use at the time down at Houston The rest of us, Gariott Gibson and myself, continued through pilot training, learning to fly T-38s and then really arrived on site in Houston as part of the Active Astronaut Corps then in 1966, the summer of 1966 Was it a career move for you? Was it a risky career move? I mean at that time other people have described it as such I don't think so, I had just received my doctorate in geology from Harvard. I had a significant amount of experience as of that time in field geology I had volunteered to go into space activities by coming to work at the United States Geological Survey facilities here in Flagstaff and I did not consider a significant change. Now my family, my mother and father certainly did and others did, but it was not much different than in my mind than the risks that field geologists take fairly routinely and probably shouldn't take by going out into high mountain countries sometimes alone as they never should in taking part in their career

Also, I very soon began to feel that the chances of actually going to the moon were pretty small and that my contribution was going to be in whatever I could add to the training, to the design of equipment, to the planning of missions that other people would actually fly The information that I was gradually able to put together over the years suggests to me that the NASA astronauts in 1964 timeframe As well as the most of the management at what is now the Johnson Space Center, then the man spacecraft center, did not want scientists in the program. They felt they could carry out their mandate which was Kennedy's challenge to go the moon and return safely to Earth without any scientists

There were a few though in that group, namely George Lowe, who was the Apollo spacecraft program manager, I think Gene Kranz, who is famous now from the Apollo 13 movie, Chris Kraft, maybe to some degree, I'm not too sure there, certainly Sam Phillips at headquarters, who was Apollo program manager, who felt that if they were successful in the Apollo 13 program manager they would be successful in their designs for the lunar module and other systems to put men on the moon and return them, that they would have a tremendous capability to do other things, namely science. And thanks to those gentlemen, science was brought in.