NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Carolyn Shoemaker, Astronomer, part 2 of 3

You You You You

You You You

You You You

You You You

You devastating to him personally, to think that his dreams were not going to be fulfilled.

He knew that he couldn't be because people with Addison's disease often black out. And there was just no way that the medical inspectors would ever pass him. So instead, that very year, he ended up doing what he knew was going to happen eventually. The National Academy of Science formed a committee to choose the scientist astronauts. And instead of being able to apply for that, he found himself as chairman of the committee. And that was rewarding in a way, but rather bittersweet. What did he feel needed to be done for these scientist astronauts? What did he feel that they needed to have? As a geologist, Gene felt that the scientist astronauts needed a good geologic training.

All of those that applied for scientist astronaut were not geologists. There were biologists, there were physicists, there were others. But he thought primarily they needed a good geologic training. And he hoped that all astronauts, not just the scientist astronauts, but the others would have some geologic training. So that when they got to the moon, they would know what they were seeing. That was what it was all about. Were they seeing craters that were made by impact? Were they all volcanic? That had been a raging argument. Was the dust deep as Tommy Gold thought? Or was it just a surf, sufficient layer? There were many geological questions, the structure. All of it that a geologist looks at on the ground.

And he felt that it was very important, especially if they were going to bring back samples, that they would know what to look for. Great, terrific. Let me ask you about the founding of the three. Was it easy for Gene to attract geologists to lunar geology after geology? It was not easy in the early days to attract geologists to lunar geology. Too many geologists who were well-established, who had the background that he thought was important, were afraid to join this effort because they thought they would lay their careers on the line. They hadn't dreamt of going to the moon. They didn't necessarily have any particular desire. And while Gene was a good salesman, they were not quite ready to start. So astrogeology as a branch started out with very young geologists. The fact that Gene had been at Caltech and that Gene had taught some at Caltech was an advantage because he did recruit a number of students over the years that he had had.

So that were not only good geologists, but they were good geophysicists, geochemists. All of that was a part of astrogeology. Good. Okay. Go ahead. Gene was quite involved in setting up the astronaut training and the astronaut field trips, particularly along the geologic lines. We felt that they needed to know, first of all, what craters looked like. And so the initial field trip, I think, was out to meet your crater, Arizona. That was really the first crater that ever had been identified as having been caused by impact. And it's a beautiful structure. It's all laid out so you can see the geology nicely. So we took the original mercury astra. And maker, this is role 102, take one. Gene was really quite excited at taking the mercury astronauts out.

They were the first group that he took out and he took many other astronauts out after that. But he was so eager for them to know what to look for out in the field, what they needed to know about impact, about volcanic craters, about all of those different features that they were going to encounter. And so he tried to convey this. And he said that he thought Neil Armstrong, eventually, was one of the best astronauts he ever took out. Neil absorbed an awful lot. The first group, the mercury astronauts, were not so interested, and maybe they knew that they weren't going to have a chance to go to the moon. But when he took the other astronauts out later, they gradually became more and more interested. It wasn't one of those things that came automatically to them. Their chief love was not learning geology, but they began to see that maybe there was

a point to this. And so some didn't seem to absorb so much others did. And it may be that all of them absorbed more than they knew. Most of them ended up turning out to love it. It's amazing how many I've talked to. What was his, why did Gene want to learn to fly, and if he did, why so? You told me earlier, I loved it, as if you told me for the first time. Gene wanted to learn to fly in order to show that it was easier for a geologist to learn to fly than for an astronaut, a pilot, to learn geology. And so he worked on his pilot's license here in Flagstaff, eventually found that he couldn't pass the medical because of his Addison's disease. And then encouraged me to get my license and we flew together. He really believed that it would be easier for a geologist to learn piloting than for

a pilot to learn. He really believed that it would be easier for a geologist to learn to fly a plane, to become a good pilot than the other way around. And he felt that NASA's emphasis on fighter pilots, on pilots with lots of experience, was maybe a little overdone because he felt that a good scientist, a good geologist, should be able to learn all of that and do more. Now, did he have an influence on Harrison Schmidt, who would be the one scientist astronaut to fly? Tell me about their relationship a little bit, how it was formed, or what Gene's hopes were for Harrison. Jack. And Gene really hoped that Jack would have a chance to become an astronaut. He felt that he was very well qualified as a geologist and he encouraged him to apply. He encouraged about three people from astrogeology to apply.

And only one of them was accepted, who was Jack. But I think it was due to Gene's persuasive powers, probably, that Jack applied in the first place. Did Jack want to be an astronaut? I think Jack very much wanted to be an astronaut by the time he applied for it. And Jack has a very keen mind. He found that learning to fly wasn't too difficult, although sometimes examinations were difficult, because he could see so many different answers to the questions. Which answer was the one that they wanted on that examination? Okay, cut for a second. It's funny because I want to take two college makers. Gene was very excited about what the astronauts were going to find on the moon in those first missions when he was so heavily involved. He got more and more enthused, yes.

And of course, controversy was raging about whether they were going to be able to find out much, what they could do, what could a man do. And of course, in those first missions, you wondered, well, can they actually get a man there? Will he have time to do anything? Will they be able to get him back? And primary in Gene's thoughts was the question, if a man goes to the moon, will he have enough time to show that it's worthwhile to send a man to the moon? Because one of the other big arguments was whether we should even have man missions or whether we could do everything else robotically. Was he happy by the time Apollo 12 came along and the landing site selection was chosen? After 11, which was very conservative vis-a-vis geology, what were Gene's feelings about the next site for 12 for the ocean of storms? Was he happy with where they were going?

Was he happy with NASA's attitude towards doing science? Gene accepted the fact that the Apollo 12, that it was not necessarily going to the site that he would want to go to as much himself. He knew that these missions were going to be conservative to begin with, and he had had quite a struggle to try and get instruments up there that the astronauts could use. Even the spacesuits that they would have to wear on the surface were cumbersome, awkward, it was hard to move, and at first they had to do everything. They couldn't reach down and pick up a rock. They had to have tongs to pick up the rock. That sort of thing was very discouraging to them. He was discouraged because there were so many good ideas being presented on how to make things easier for the astronauts to find the geology, to study the geology. But NASA did not seem very interested.

I think their basic feeling at the very beginning of the program was, yes, Kennedy said, we will get a man to the moon and bring him back. And after that, they were not so interested in the moon. They had a number of missions. They had the rockets for a man to go there. But they were really already beginning to think, I think, beyond the moon. Where would you go next? How about Mars? This was in the 70s. We didn't know much about the moon yet, and that was discouraging to Gene, and the politics were very discouraging to him. When he finally decided to get away from it, what did he say to you about why? Was he truly at a frustration breaking point? Gene had gotten tighter and tighter as he worked in the program. And so by the time that he left the program and went to Caltech, he said he told me that the politics were just too extreme.

He couldn't do what he had really wanted to do, which was to show that man could do something in space that you can't do without man, without a thinking person. And he felt that NASA was never going to do that. You talked about the tools. What was the, give me an example of the kind of tools he wanted to take up and couldn't get on board. The simple pick that a geologist needs. Gene really wanted a good geology pick for, for example, amongst the tools that the astronauts would use. You couldn't have a good geology pick. In the first place, those who were deciding on the weight specifications, on what could be taken, didn't see the need of a geology pick, and they, in the second place, it would be too expensive. All of the, there was a great deal of money being poured into the program and into the various instruments and tools, and none of it came cheaply. You couldn't just go buy something off the shelf and use it.

You had to have it specially designed. There was a Jacob's staff, a staff that you could hang all of the tools on that would make it easy for the astronauts to carry it in their cumbersome suits. But that was thrown off of the flight. And so it was just very difficult to get things that would be useful. Great. Cut, please. Gene is chief investigator on the field experiments for Apollo 12. He was interested in getting out the report, in fact a few days ago I found maps. In a map drawer, stored there, ready for more work. It took a lot of work to, to make the final report. And what was happening was that Gene was going to make the transition to Caltech as chairman of geology and planetary science.

At the same time, the missions had been set back in time by the fire on the one Apollo. And so his time schedule was off. He didn't really get that final report out as he wanted. He just simply ran out of time, and he had too many commitments to do it all. Okay. Good. Yeah, we'll just roll this out. One thing they did do after every mission was get out, you know, I think there was almost immediately a one week report, and then there was a 30-day report, and 60-day report. Thing used to produce geology on the spot without a lot of time to think about some of it to really digest it, as they would eventually with the final reports. But it was the final report eaten.