FieryIce
04-08-04, 10:25 PM
Excerpt written by Brian Marsden (http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/sl9/news81.html)
Gene Shoemaker, renowned both as a geologist and an astronomer, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Spaceguard Foundation, was killed instantly on the afternoon of July 18, when his car collided head-on with another vehicle on an unpaved road in the Tanami Desert northwest of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory of Australia. His wife Carolyn, who had closely collaborated with him in both his geological and his astronomical activities for many years, was injured in the accident and is in stable condition in Alice Springs Hospital.
In 1961 he took a leading role in the USGS venture, in Flagstaff, Arizona, into the study of "astrogeology", the Ranger missions to the moon and the training of the astronauts.
He continued to maintain an office in the USGS Astrogeology building after his formal retirement in 1993, while at the same time taking up a position at the Lowell Observatory.
The national interest in the production of plutonium led him to study of the craters formed in small nuclear explosions under the Yucca Flats in Nevada and invited a comparison with Meteor Crater. It was then that he did his seminal research on the mechanics of meteorite impacts that included the discovery, with Edward Chao, of coesite, a type of silica produced in a violent impact..
Gene lived as he died, active to the hilt, his enquiring mind participating in the adventure of ever learning more over an unusually large range of scientific disciplines.
Coesite (http://www.minerals.net/mineral/silicate/tecto/quartz/coesite.htm) is a Silicon dioxide.
Natural Coesite has been reported in the Barringer Crater (also known as Meteor Crater) in Coconino Co., Arizona; Sinking Springs Crater, Ohio; the Kentland crater, Newton Co., Indiana; the Riess-kessel Crater, Bavaria, Germany; Kimberly, South Africa; and the western coast of Namibia.
Coesite (center of inclusion) (http://www.geosci.unc.edu/Petunia/IgMetAtlas/minerals/coesite.html) and recrystallized quartz (borders of inclusion) form a tiny inclusion in nearly pure endmember pyrope garnet from the famous Dora Maira massif of Italy. The presence of coesite (a high-pressure polymorph of quartz) indicates that this rock saw extremly high pressures during metamorphism (probably more than 28 kbar).
Coesite (http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/silicate/coesite/coesite.htm) was actually first synthesized in 1953 before the discovery at Meteor Crater.
Oxidized remnants (http://www.solarviews.com/eng/tercrate.htm) of iron meteoritic material as well as some impact glass have been found at Wolf Creek, Australia.
Information about Ayers Rock (http://www.crystalinks.com/ayersrock.html) , Australia.
Gene’s death rippled surprise through the science community.
Could Gene’s untimely death be the result of his discovery that the so-called impact craters like Wolf Creek, Australia may in fact not be from impacts of meteoroids but more like nuclear explosion craters he observed in Nevada? Could it also be that Gene discovered that lunar craters were directly comparable to nuclear explosion craters rather than meteoroid impacts? Also, did Gene discover something or was going to investigate something about Ayers Rock, Uluru, not far from Alice Springs?
I’ll add intrigue to mystery.
There is a report called, NASA Technical Report R-277, Chronological Catalog of Reported Lunar Events, July 1968, written by Barbara M. Middlehurst, University of Arizona, Jaylee M. Burley, Goddard Space Flight Center, Patrick Moore, Armagb Planetarium and Barbara L. Weltber, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory http://www.mufor.org/tlp/lunar.html
The report charts what is described as Transient lunar phenomena (TLP) for the years 1540 to 1969. What I found interesting was in the years 1920-1929 there were only 4 reports compared to 1950-1959 the reports were so numerous it is broken into two separate web pages. I would be interested in seeing a report covering 1970-present for curiosity.
Next, there is the Clementine craft: http://www.mufor.org/clement.htm
In 1992, an official U.S. unmanned Defense Department (DOD) mission to the Moon was announced by the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). The first return to the Moon by the United States in 23 years, the mission was officially termed "the Deep Space Program Science Experiment" but has become better known by its public nickname "Clementine". Within a record two years of its origination, the completed BMDO Clementine spacecraft was dispatched to lunar orbit, commencing January 25, 1994.
I have been aware that NASA is run by the Department of Defense but why in this instance is there the involvement of Ballistic Missile Defense. Missiles would definitely show a cloud, haze, and light flash etc. on the moons surface if someone were interested in creating their own crater and possibly record radiation, heat readings in a different atmosphere than earth. Granted, this missile defense program is first dated in 1992 with commencement in 1994 while TLP’s have been recorded as far back as 1540.
Gene would have been aware of TLP’s with his work in astrogeology in Flagstaff, Arizona, the Yucca Flats in Nevada and the Lowell Observatory.
So was the circumstances of Gene Shoemaker’s death questionable?
Gene Shoemaker, renowned both as a geologist and an astronomer, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Spaceguard Foundation, was killed instantly on the afternoon of July 18, when his car collided head-on with another vehicle on an unpaved road in the Tanami Desert northwest of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory of Australia. His wife Carolyn, who had closely collaborated with him in both his geological and his astronomical activities for many years, was injured in the accident and is in stable condition in Alice Springs Hospital.
In 1961 he took a leading role in the USGS venture, in Flagstaff, Arizona, into the study of "astrogeology", the Ranger missions to the moon and the training of the astronauts.
He continued to maintain an office in the USGS Astrogeology building after his formal retirement in 1993, while at the same time taking up a position at the Lowell Observatory.
The national interest in the production of plutonium led him to study of the craters formed in small nuclear explosions under the Yucca Flats in Nevada and invited a comparison with Meteor Crater. It was then that he did his seminal research on the mechanics of meteorite impacts that included the discovery, with Edward Chao, of coesite, a type of silica produced in a violent impact..
Gene lived as he died, active to the hilt, his enquiring mind participating in the adventure of ever learning more over an unusually large range of scientific disciplines.
Coesite (http://www.minerals.net/mineral/silicate/tecto/quartz/coesite.htm) is a Silicon dioxide.
Natural Coesite has been reported in the Barringer Crater (also known as Meteor Crater) in Coconino Co., Arizona; Sinking Springs Crater, Ohio; the Kentland crater, Newton Co., Indiana; the Riess-kessel Crater, Bavaria, Germany; Kimberly, South Africa; and the western coast of Namibia.
Coesite (center of inclusion) (http://www.geosci.unc.edu/Petunia/IgMetAtlas/minerals/coesite.html) and recrystallized quartz (borders of inclusion) form a tiny inclusion in nearly pure endmember pyrope garnet from the famous Dora Maira massif of Italy. The presence of coesite (a high-pressure polymorph of quartz) indicates that this rock saw extremly high pressures during metamorphism (probably more than 28 kbar).
Coesite (http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/silicate/coesite/coesite.htm) was actually first synthesized in 1953 before the discovery at Meteor Crater.
Oxidized remnants (http://www.solarviews.com/eng/tercrate.htm) of iron meteoritic material as well as some impact glass have been found at Wolf Creek, Australia.
Information about Ayers Rock (http://www.crystalinks.com/ayersrock.html) , Australia.
Gene’s death rippled surprise through the science community.
Could Gene’s untimely death be the result of his discovery that the so-called impact craters like Wolf Creek, Australia may in fact not be from impacts of meteoroids but more like nuclear explosion craters he observed in Nevada? Could it also be that Gene discovered that lunar craters were directly comparable to nuclear explosion craters rather than meteoroid impacts? Also, did Gene discover something or was going to investigate something about Ayers Rock, Uluru, not far from Alice Springs?
I’ll add intrigue to mystery.
There is a report called, NASA Technical Report R-277, Chronological Catalog of Reported Lunar Events, July 1968, written by Barbara M. Middlehurst, University of Arizona, Jaylee M. Burley, Goddard Space Flight Center, Patrick Moore, Armagb Planetarium and Barbara L. Weltber, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory http://www.mufor.org/tlp/lunar.html
The report charts what is described as Transient lunar phenomena (TLP) for the years 1540 to 1969. What I found interesting was in the years 1920-1929 there were only 4 reports compared to 1950-1959 the reports were so numerous it is broken into two separate web pages. I would be interested in seeing a report covering 1970-present for curiosity.
Next, there is the Clementine craft: http://www.mufor.org/clement.htm
In 1992, an official U.S. unmanned Defense Department (DOD) mission to the Moon was announced by the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO). The first return to the Moon by the United States in 23 years, the mission was officially termed "the Deep Space Program Science Experiment" but has become better known by its public nickname "Clementine". Within a record two years of its origination, the completed BMDO Clementine spacecraft was dispatched to lunar orbit, commencing January 25, 1994.
I have been aware that NASA is run by the Department of Defense but why in this instance is there the involvement of Ballistic Missile Defense. Missiles would definitely show a cloud, haze, and light flash etc. on the moons surface if someone were interested in creating their own crater and possibly record radiation, heat readings in a different atmosphere than earth. Granted, this missile defense program is first dated in 1992 with commencement in 1994 while TLP’s have been recorded as far back as 1540.
Gene would have been aware of TLP’s with his work in astrogeology in Flagstaff, Arizona, the Yucca Flats in Nevada and the Lowell Observatory.
So was the circumstances of Gene Shoemaker’s death questionable?