NIA | News & Highlights | Astronaut Participates in Workshop at NIA

Apollo 17 Astronaut Harrison Schmitt Participates in Workshop at NIA

Several NIA researchers attended The Advance Materials and Processing Branch's Materials Challenges for Lunar Exploration Workshop held at NIA from January 31-February 1, 2007. The two-day workshop addressed material challenges for the Moon, Mars and Beyond Initiative, focusing on radiation, dust (regolith), habitat and life systems matters. Dr. Harrison Schmitt, an Apollo 17 astronaut and the only scientist to walk on the moon, provided NASA and NIA scientists a personal view of the challenges of the lunar surface exploration.

Bio:
Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, a native of Silver City, NM, has been a geologist, pilot, astronaut, administrator, businessman, writer, and U.S. Senator. He received his B.S. from Caltech, studied as a Fulbright Scholar at Oslo, and attended graduate school at Harvard. His Ph.D. in geology in 1964 is based on geological field studies in Norway. As a civilian, Schmitt received Air Force jet pilot wings in 1965 and Navy helicopter wings in 1967.

Selected for the Scientist-Astronaut program in 1965, Schmitt organized the lunar science training for the Apollo Astronauts, represented the crews during the development of hardware and procedures for lunar surface exploration, and oversaw the final preparation of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Descent Stage. He was Mission Scientist in support of the Apollo 11 mission. After training as back-up Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 15, Schmitt served as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17 - the last Apollo mission to the moon. On December 11, 1972, he landed in the Valley of Taurus-Littrow as the only scientist and the last of 12 men to step on the Moon.

In 1975, after two years managing NASA's Energy Program Office, Schmitt fulfilled a long-standing personal commitment by entering politics. Elected in 1976, he served a six-year term in the U.S. Senate. Senator Schmitt, the only "natural scientist" in the Senate since Thomas Jefferson was Vice President of the United States, was a member of the Senate Commerce, Banking, Appropriations, Intelligence, and Ethics Committees. In his last two years in the Senate, Schmitt held the position of Chairman of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space and of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. He later served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the President's Commission on Ethics Law Reform, the Army Science Board, as Co-Chairman of the International Observer Group for the 1992 Romanian elections, and as Vice Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the 1992 World Administrative Radio Conference in Spain.

Jack Schmitt is now the Chairman of the NASA Advisory Council. He consults, speaks, and writes on policy issues of the future, the science of the Moon and Planets, and the American Southwest. He presently is Chair Emeritus of The Annapolis Center (risk assessment) and is Adjunct Professor of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, teaching "Resources from Space." Schmitt became a consultant to the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin in 1986, advising on the economic geology of lunar resources and the operational and financial aspects of returning to the Moon. Schmitt's current board memberships include Orbital Sciences Corporation, Edenspace Systems Corporation, and PhDx Systems, Inc., and, as a retired Director, he is a Member of the Corporation of the Draper Laboratory. He also is a member of the Energy Department's Laboratory Operations Board. Schmitt founded and is Chairman of Interlune-Intermars Initiative, Inc., advancing the private sector's acquisition of lunar resources and Helium-3 fusion power and clinical use of medical isotopes produced by fusion-related processes. He is author of the just published book, “Return to the Moon,” that describes a private enterprise approach to providing lunar energy resources for use on Earth.

Schmitt's honors include the 1972 Arthur S. Fleming Award, Distinguished Graduate and Sherman Fairchild Scholar at Caltech (1973), NASA Distinguished Service Award, Fellow of the AIAA, Honorary Member of the Norwegian Geographical Society and Geological Association of Canada, Lovelace Award (space biomedicine, 1989), G.K. Gilbert Award (planetology, 1989), Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of America, American Institute of Mining, and Geological Society of London, honorary degrees from U.S. and Canadian universities, and in July 2003 the U.S. Department of State established the Harrison H. Schmitt Leadership Award for U.S. Fulbright Fellowship awardees.