NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, part 3 of 3

Great. Thank you. Terrific. Jean left. Left the space program and went to Caltech, partly because he was tired of the politics within the space program, the desire of many different groups and to have a piece of the action which was natural. They end fighting over who was going to do what, and the fact that, primary to him, he couldn't get enough science into the program. It looked as though every time an astronaut stepped out on the surface of the moon, he was going to be so programmed with experiments that he had to set out and that he, within a certain time constraint, that he wasn't really going to have time to do geology. Jean felt that the early missions were not proving the effectiveness of man in space.

And what would that have been? How would Jean see those lunar missions go as far as geology went? Jean would like to have seen more opportunity for the geologists to get out on the surface, for the scientists, to get out on the surface, to have the, the various experiments deployed automatically so that the man himself could take a look around, could look at the rocks, could go where his geologic instincts told him what the next place to look was. Why you should go from one to another. A field geologist is led on by what the rocks tell him and by what the structure tells him as to where he can go. And in this case, the astronauts were programmed virtually every minute of the time they were on the surface. They didn't have very much leeway at all and what they could do.

And this was very disillusioning to Jean. When he went to Caltech, in one of the first years there, he did speak to a group about those early Apollo flights. And he was a little innocent about the way... I'm sorry, we had to stop. Yeah, Patrick, this one is strong too. In the first or second year that Jean was at Caltech, being a little naive about the ways of the press at that point still, he gave a speech not knowing that anyone from the press was going to be there. And he gave a speech about Apollo 11 and 12 and his disappointment in the Apollo program as it had been done. He felt at that time that the emphasis, the primary emphasis, had all been on the engineering, which is a natural thing when you come to think about it. It would be a natural thing that the emphasis would be there through the first missions.

But he felt that there was so much emphasis on that and so little emphasis on what man could do in space. He was very disappointed and he was disappointed in NASA's approach. He never meant to offend NASA in this because he was a strong proponent of what NASA did and of NASA's programs. But NASA took great offense in the way that it was presented at least in the press. And so for quite a while, Jean was not looked upon very favorably by them. It must have hurt him. It did hurt him and it hurt his desires for various space programs and his effectiveness because he really wanted to work with them at all times. He just simply did not like that initial approach. But I think over the course of the years, he was reconciled and they were reconciled to him.

And he learned to temper what he said. When did he come back into the fold sort of with NASA in the space program? It was just kind of recently, wasn't it? Well, Jean came back into the fold gradually over the years. He did a number of things, although not always too visibly with NASA. And then when he had a chance to work with the Clementine mission, he came back and wholeheartedly. That was a return to the moon and he was thrilled. Tell me about that. What was his excitement there? How excited was it? Jean was about as excited as anyone I can imagine when Clementine was selected as a mission. But there was a slight problem there and that problem involved the fact that it wasn't entirely a NASA program. NASA funded and paid for the science and of course that was Jean's part in it.

But it was also a DOD mission and they built this and they built it really as an example of the first mission that was going to be cheaper, faster, better. Exactly what Dan Golden wanted. But it wasn't all NASA's and therefore NASA I know was not entirely happy with it. This also had to do with various personalities that were involved on that mission. But Jean was very excited and I think without exception everyone who worked with that mission found it just the most exciting thing they had done in years. In part because it was conceived, built, it took place and it was over within two years. That's pretty amazing. In the final analysis on the Apollo missions, the J missions, 15 through 17, did Jean ever comment on the geology that they did manage to accomplish in Apollo? Was he ever satisfied with what the at the end of the Apollo program, with what they managed to do?

I think that Jean really hoped for even more from the Apollo missions, the fact that there was only one mission that actually had a scientist, a geologist on it, was a big disappointment to him. It wasn't that the other astronauts didn't try and weren't able to do some things they did and within the limited amount of time that they were given to spend on the geology, they accomplished quite a bit. But it was not what Jean had dreamed of. So in that sense, no, he was never satisfied with it. If there had been more missions, more Apollo missions, and more geologists who had gone more science on those missions, then he would have been happy. But the missions were cut off too soon. And we just felt very lucky that Jack Schmidt was able to go on one of those missions, because actually the mission that Jack was scheduled to be on was cut off, and he was advanced to an earlier mission.

Did Jean feel that we got valuable information that has made a difference in our knowledge of not only the Moon, but the Earth as well from Apollo? I think Jean felt overall, yes, we got some very valuable information that told us something quite a lot about the Moon. Certainly from the lunar rocks, we have learned a great deal. We've learned just from the men who were up there, something of what the Moon was like, and how that relates to the Earth. We learned that the craters, primarily the craters, were impact, and it was from that lunar timescale and the cratering that Jean was first able to start building his theories on the origin of the solar system. In 1962, Jean was given the opportunity by Max Fijet to head up the science in Houston for the astronauts, and he turned that down.

I think he felt that what they were doing was emphasizing the engineering more, and he felt very strongly that the US Geological Survey was the logical place for the science to be done. He already knew of some people who were getting involved in the program with him. He knew the strong feelings about that, and the capabilities. He was very comfortable with what he could do at the survey. He was not so comfortable with NASA bureaucracy. What did you think of Jack Schmidt's job on Apollo 17 on the Moon? In the final analysis, did he feel Jack did a good job? Jean thought that Jack did as good a job as anyone could do under the time constraints. We were in London at that time, and he was broadcasting for BBC on that particular mission. And as he watched it, he thought Jack was doing just great. He sort of shared the excitement that Jack was expressing all the time. And that was great. And when Jack saw this orange soil, for example, the things that Jack was picking up on were good. He felt good about that.

He knew that Jack just didn't have enough time to do everything that he might have wanted to do, and that he himself would like to have done. There was a problem for the astronauts on the Moon, and particularly for Jack Schmidt has a geologist. Geologists generally take their time in looking at things, and they think about it. It's very heavy slogging when they really are into it.

And it's intuitive. They don't always know where it's going to lead, but one thing leads to another. And Jack didn't have time for that. None of the astronauts had time for that. It just wasn't the way to do geology or to do really good science. Very happy. He'll sleep better tonight. Now, what did Gene think about the idea that there was water on the Moon, and everybody's the headlines screaming water on the Moon? Did he always know that? Gene didn't always know that there was water on the Moon, but I think out of the Clementine mission when he saw those images, and he saw those permanently shadowed places at the South Pole and at the North Pole, but particularly the South Pole with its very deep basin. He felt that if there was any place on the Moon where there was going to be a chance of water, it would be in those shadowed places. I think the Clementine mission picked up on the fact that there was hydrogen in those areas. And if that were the case, then there was the possibility of water on the Moon.

That would be something that later missions could prove where Clementine couldn't. Was he excited when they found that there may indeed be water ice or whatever? Yes. He was really quite excited at the prospect of water on the Moon, water ice, enough that it might become useful for man on the Moon. It might become useful if there were enough for man going elsewhere from the Moon. Now, finally, years of studying asteroid and impacts, cratering, both of you, what did that tell you about the Moon, about the mysteries of the Moon and how they may relate to Earth? Was that important in terms of your based knowledge? The study of asteroids and comets and the impact both on the Earth and the Moon, the other solid bodies, became sort of an integrated philosophy.

We know that probably the biggest craters on the Moon were caused by asteroids. The biggest craters on Earth were caused by comets, and that's just a difference in the atmospheres, what can get through to the body below. We know that from the Moon, we were able to develop a timescale that would tell us something about when these craters were formed, what sizes of craters we could expect from different sizes of bodies. Yes, the two were very closely related. The Moon tells us about the Earth and the Earth tells us about the Moon. One last question. What would Jean be doing today? If Jean were still with us, what would he be doing today?

If Jean were still with us today, he would be intrigued by the possibility of life being discovered on Mars. He had some reservations as to whether that was really so, but he was interested in it. But what Jean would really be going after today would be a mission to an asteroid, because asteroids are the easiest bodies to get to in the solar system. They're easier to get to than to get to the Moon. It takes less fuel to do so, to do things from an asteroid that would have real meaning and a real potential. If we could do something from an asteroid and use an asteroid as sources for some of the materials we need, we might be able to go farther in space. We could also be vastly intrigued by one of the moons of Jupiter. He was intrigued by Europa and the possibility of a water ocean beneath the ice.

That really excited him, and in fact he was a part of a small group that he called the Europa Mafia, those who were thinking of how to explore there, how to get through that deep ice cap, and find out about life there. That's great. Okay. Terrific. Thank you very much. Thanks for putting up with us. You're welcome.