Has Anyone Been Buried on the Moon?

Spoiler alert: Yes. But just one person. Learn who Eugene Shoemaker was and how his friends and family got him interred on the moon in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff. Lauren bobble bam Here. Eugene or Gene Shoemaker
trained astronauts and founded a new science born on April Night.
Shoemaker was one of the twentieth centuries great minds. His
work on impact craters affected everything from NASA's Apollo missions

(00:22):
to the dinosaur extinction debate. For his contributions to human knowledge,
he was awarded the National Medal of Science by then
President George H. W. Bush In, but a different honor
eluded him. Shoemaker studied the Moon from Afar, but he
often dreamed of climbing into a space suit and walking
on its surface. Sadly, he never got the chance. Addison's

(00:43):
disease crushed his hopes of becoming an astronaut, but in
some of his ashes were laid to rest near the
Moon's southern pole. That made him the first and to date,
the only person to ever receive a lunar burial. It
was a poignant epilog to the man's rear. Shoemaker was
a geologist by training, and craters were one of his

(01:03):
great passions. He helped confirm that the famous Bearinger Crater
near Flagstaff, Arizona, a crater that's five hundred and seventy
feet or a hundred and seventy three deep, was made
by an asteroid impact. He also championed the hypothesis that
another such impact killed last non avian dinosaurs sixty six
million years ago, and by mapping some of the craters
on our Moon, he revolutionized our understanding of its geology.

(01:27):
In nineteen sixty one, the United States Geological Surveys set
up an astrogeology research program. Shoemaker, often considered the founding
father of astrogeology, was chosen to lead it. NASA would
enlist his services to Shoemaker joined future Apollo astronauts on
field trips to Berenger Crater and other sites, where he
trained them to collect rock samples, perhaps seemingly simple skill set,

(01:49):
but one that would let them eventually bring home the
first Moon rocks humans ever saw, and thus making all
kinds of research possible. His work was instrumental to the
discovery of the Shoemaker Leve nine commet, which struck Jupiter
in One of the commets co discoverers was Eugene's wife
and fellow scientist, Caroline Shoemaker. Cumulatively, Jeane and Caroline discovered

(02:11):
one thousand, one hundred and twenty five asteroids and thirty
two commets, But on July eighth, the couple was involved
in a tragic car accident. Though Caroline survived, Jean was killed.
The very next day, Shoemaker's former student, Caroline Porko, devised
a fitting tribute. A planetary scientist at the University of Arizona,

(02:31):
Porco learned that her mentor was going to be cremated,
so she spearheaded an effort to put an ounce that's
twenty eight grams of his ashes board NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft.
The cost of sending things into space can run into
the hundreds of thousands of dollars per pound in terms
of time and energy and research, and so although physically small,
that single ounce is a huge tribute. Polycarbonate urn capsule

(02:53):
was built by Celestis, the same company that sent ashes
of Star Trek creator Geane Roddenberry into orbit. Wrapped around
Shoemaker's appsle was a brass foil ribbon bearing a picture
of the baron Drew Crater and a thematic quote from
Romeo and Juliet, and when he shall die, take him
and cut him out in little stars, and he will
make the face of Heaven so fine that all the
world will be in love with night, and pay no

(03:13):
worship to the garish sun. With the precious cargo and
tow the spacecraft launched out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, on January.
More than a year later, the vessel, whose objective had
been to hunt for water, was deliberately crashed near the
lunar South Pole. Shoemaker's ashes went down with it. Celestia's
hopes to enter other human remains on the Moon at

(03:34):
some point, but for the moment, Shoemaker has the place
to himself. Caroline Shoemaker said in press release. It brings
a little closure in a way to our feelings. We
will always know that when we look at the Moon
that Jean is there. Today's episode was written by Mark
Mancini and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a

(03:56):
production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
in this and lots of other unearthly topics, visit our
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