Wednesday, July 28, 1999 Published at 14:18 GMT 15:18 UK
Moon burial for geologist
Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker: Comet hunters
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
US geologist Gene Shoemaker, killed in a 1997 car crash in Australia, is soon to become the first person to be buried on another planet.
When the tiny Lunar Prospector spacecraft crashes into a dark crater near the Moon's south pole on Saturday, it will deposit onto the lunar surface the ashes of the pioneering astro-geologist.
He was a legend among geologists. Almost on his own he invented the science of the study of cosmic impacts and he played a key role in training the Apollo moonwalkers to explore the Moon in a scientific manner.
Shoemaker's work meant the scientific return from Apollo was extraordinary.
He had wanted to be an astronaut himself and perhaps today he could have been. But in the early 1960's health qualifications were more stringent than they are now and he was turned down because of a minor medical problem.
Later, he was to return to the crater to train Apollo astronauts how to look for rocks and identify geological features.
Throughout a scientifically rich and rewarding life as scientist his unfulfilled dream to walk on the Moon continued to haunt him.
His colleagues and friends knew of this wish and so they placed on the side of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft a small polycarbonate capsule carrying an ounce of his cremated remains.
He devoted his life's work to investigating the geology of Solar System bodies, studying cosmic impacts, and searching for comets with his wife, Carolyn.
"He would be thrilled"
"I don't think Gene ever dreamed his ashes would go to the Moon," Carolyn Shoemaker said shortly before watching Lunar prospector blast-off in January 1998. "He would be thrilled."
"This is so important to us," Carolyn Shoemaker said. "It brings a little closure, in a way, to our feelings. We will always know when we look at the moon, that Gene is there."
Photos courtesy of the United States Geological Survey.