Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Author: ERIC GRUNDHAUSER

Translation: yangfz

Revision: young monks in the mountain temple

Eugene Shoemaker (Eugene Shoemaker) looks at his own model of the moon. Source: NASA has many people who have walked on the moon, and for them, space exploration is like "visiting the Empire State Building". But for those who have walked on the moon's rocks, there is only one person who can stay on the moon forever.

So far, the late scientist Eugene Shoemaker (Eugene Shoemaker) is still the only man whose bones are buried on the moon. Even an amateur stargazer might know the name of Shoemaker, which comes from the famous comet Shoemaker-Levy, which hit Jupiter in 1994 and fell to pieces. The comet, discovered by Shoemaker with his wife Carolyn and David Levy, is unusual because it marks the first time humans have seen a planetary collision. The collision attracted a lot of media attention, and a small town in Wyoming built an interstellar landing zone to welcome potential refugees from Jupiter, and Shoemaker became a household name.

Shoemaker had a brilliant career, combining geology with astronomical applications to create the field of planetary science. He studied many craters on Earth and founded the Astro-Geological Research Program within the United States Geological Survey in the early 1960s. Shoemaker used his knowledge to train some Apollo astronauts to look for something unknown based on the topography of the lunar surface.

Eugene Shoemaker and his wife, researcher Caroline Shoemaker. Source: USGS1997's colorful life ended abruptly on July 18, when he died in a meteor crater in Australia in a car accident. But even if he is dead, his journey is far from over.

Attention turned to Celestis, the only company to commemorate a successful space flight. Charles Chafer, CEO and co-founder of Celestis, said: "We made our first launch in the Canary Islands in April 1997, and a total of 24 people participated in the flight, which we call" founder's Flight "(Founder's Flight). Among them are some celebrities, such as Timothy Timothy Leary and Kidd Gene Roddenberry. There are also some space freaks like Gerard K. O'Neill, but most of them are normal people. "

Celestis fixed the extra space already on the space launch vehicle and used the ashes to be sent as secondary payloads. "I think this art is' hitchhiking'," Chafer said. So, if the rocket goes into space, it has a little room for manoeuvre in terms of space and weight, and Celestis tries to fill it with bones. Generally speaking, any equipment attached to such commemorative payloads will fall into Earth orbit. "our payloads are always attached to something, whether it's the spacecraft or the abandoned stage of a rocket," Chafer said. "at the end of their orbital life, they are small enough to burn out when they re-enter the atmosphere. A moment of ashes to ashes.

But when it comes to Shoemaker, the situation is a little different. Carolyn Porco, a close colleague of Shoemaker, who wanted to be an astronaut but was disqualified for medical reasons, has decided to try and eventually land the late scientist on the moon. Fortunately, NASA also liked the idea of leaving Shoemaker's ashes on the lunar surface and contacted Celestis. "I got a call from a good friend, Ed Heffernan, NASA's chief of staff and legislative liaison," Chafer said.

Heffernan asked Chafer,Celestis if he could work with them to find a way to land Shoemaker's remains on the lunar surface, because NASA had no business of burying people. Chafer is certainly interested, but he wants to make sure that this groundbreaking burial will set a precedent for future memorial services. "I said, I hope it was a contract bought from us, and now we have very little income," Chafer said. "I think we charged them for the capsules we sent to Arizona." According to Chafer, the cost of the capsule is about $600.

An artist's portrayal of the Lunar Prospector. Source: on January 6, NASA1998, NASA's Lunar Surveyor (Lunar Prospector) was launched to the South Pole of the moon in search of ice and carried an ounce of Shoemaker's ashes. According to the memorial website set up by Porco, the ashes are carried by polycarbonate capsules provided by Celestis. The capsule was wrapped in a piece of brass foil with a laser etching of his name, accompanied by an image of comet Hale-Bopp; an image of the Arizona meteor crater, where he trained the Apollo astronauts; and classic phrases from Romeo and Juliet. On July 31, 1999, when Lunar Surveyor completed its mission, NASA deliberately crashed the ship on the lunar surface, carrying Shoemaker's ashes, and he became the first and only person to be buried outside the earth.

Celestis will take decades to complete their current 14 tasks. They named the mission of transporting the remains of Shoemaker "Luna 1", which is so far the only mission to send the remains to other planets.

But Chafer says this won't be the last. "I think we are entering an era of commercialization of space travel." The biggest obstacle to the development of space burial is the high cost of launching a rocket to take a small number of bones out of space, but with the rise of other independent schemes, such as SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, there are more and more opportunities to fly these secondary payloads, which means that more people will have the opportunity to enter the universe.

Do you want to be buried on the moon? Source: RKARKOWSKI so, although there have been some competitors offering similar services in recent years, Celestis is still the only company that actually achieves burial in outer space. But competition does not hinder Chafer. "if there is no competition, I will worry about the market," he said. The market is certain to exist, attracting what he calls "geeks, new-age people, adventurers and people who want the biggest farewell ever". Celestis's next planned tasks include a second moon landing funeral in the first quarter of 2018, as well as their first "Voyager" mission, which will try to send some of the remains to outer space forever.

Eugene Shoemaker (Eugene Shoemaker) may not be alone on the moon for much longer.

Original text link:

Https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/e u gene-shoemaker-buried-moon-celestis-nasa

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ID:cas-iop), author: ERIC GRUNDHAUSER

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