Word: schmitt
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...armed with a new doctorate in geology from Harvard, Schmitt joined the U.S. Geological Survey at Flagstaff, Ariz. There he was assigned the job of assembling photographs taken by unmanned Ranger spacecraft into detailed lunar maps for future moon walkers. Schmitt was fascinated by the task. Recalls former NASA Geologist Gene Shoemaker: "Jack caught the space bug." Indeed, as soon as NASA began recruiting scientist-astronauts in 1965, Schmitt applied. He was accepted despite a minor physical problem: an unusual and painful elongation of the large intestine...
...field trips everywhere from Iceland to Hawaii teaching fellow astronauts how to spot and select geologically significant rocks. He worked closely with NASA scientists in devising scoops, shovels and other tools for the moon. Says NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz: "If anyone deserves a flight, it is Jack Schmitt...
...professional geologist, Schmitt will be under intense pressure to provide his colleagues with the best possible lunar specimens and descriptions of the landscape. To make sure that his performance meets his own high standards, Schmitt has been working at a furious pace. Scientists in Houston still talk about the time they took Schmitt to lunch at a local topless restaurant, where they all engaged in the usual space-flight shoptalk. Later, when one of the group asked what he thought of the amply proportioned girl who had served him, Bachelor Schmitt was astonished. "When was she topless?" he asked...
...Schmitt's companion on the surface of the moon will be the mission commander, Navy Captain Eugene Cernan, 38. A veteran astronaut, Cernan took a space walk during the 1966 earth-orbiting flight of Gemini 9 and flew the Apollo 10 lunar module to within nine miles of the moon's surface in 1969, during the final test of the Apollo system before an actual landing. Born on Chicago's North Side to first-generation Czechoslovak-American parents, he excelled in athletics in high school but turned down college football scholarships in order to study engineering...
...astronaut ranks. A modish dresser (typical garb: white slacks, maroon sports jacket, pink tie and shirt), he is married and the father of two children: a daughter, 13, and a son, 11. As pilot of the command ship America, he will remain in orbit around the moon while Schmitt and Cernan explore the lunar surface. Unlike earlier command pilots, he will not be totally alone. In lunar orbit with him will be the participants in a medical experiment to determine the effects of cosmic rays on space travelers: five pocket mice...