TRUE FACT: In 1999 a American became the 13th person on the moon. Gene Shoemaker was a scientist who died in 1997.NASA placed his ashes on board a sattilite to the moon in 1998. It crashed into the surface in July 1999. The first [&only] Burial on the Moon!..................................... HOUSTON, July 31, 1999 — Colleagues of a late researcher noted for his expertise on outer-space collisions came up with an astronomical way to honor his memory. A vial carrying an ounce of Eugene Shoemaker’s ashes slammed into a moon crater at 3,800 mph, riding shotgun along NASA’s Lunar Prospector science craft. “He is the very first human inhabitant of Earth to be laid to rest on another celestial body,” said Carolyn Porco, a University of Arizona professor and Shoemaker’s colleague in NASA’s Voyager missions. “That’s very significant because it says we have arrived at our place in the solar system, the solar system is our own and it’s beckoning us.” It was Porco who spearheaded the tribute effort and designed an epigraph that accompanies the ashes of Shoemaker, who died two years ago in a car crash while crater-hunting in Australia. Credited along with his wife for the discovery of about 20 comets and 800 asteroids, Shoemaker gained worldwide fame as a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which slammed into Jupiter in 1994. Lunar Prospector hit the moon at 5:52 a.m. ET July 31, 1999.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 19:56:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015