[meteorite-list] NPA 07-21-1997 Shoemaker Killed in Car Accident

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: The Frederick Post
City: Frederick, Maryland
Date: Monday, July 21, 1997
Page: A-5

Asteroid crater expert killed in car accident

     PHOENIX (AP) - Eugene Shoemaker, the geologist-astronomer who warned 
about the dangers of asteroids hitting Earth, died in a car accident in 
Australia during an annual search for craters.  He was 69.
     Mr. Shoemaker was killed Friday in a two-car crash on a dirt road about 
310 miles north of Alice Springs.
     His wife, fellow Lowell Observatory astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker, 67, 
suffered hip and chest injuries but was in stable condition at Alice Springs 
Hospital, authorities said.
     The driver of the other car hospitalized with minor injuries, but his 
wife and their daughters, 5 and 8, escaped injury.
     The Shoemakers discovered about 20 comet and 800 asteroids but were 
best known for the co-discovery with amateur astronomer David Levy of the 
comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke up and smashed into Jupiter's gaseous 
atmosphere in 1994.  The team had been searching the sky for new comets.
     It was his fascination with asteroid impacts - such as the one which 
caused Meteor Crater near his home in Flagstaff - which drove most of his 
work.
     "Any area he went into, his contributions stood in mammoth proportion 
above the rest of us mortals," said Laurence Soderblom, a colleague of Mr. 
Shoemaker's who is working on the Mars Pathfinder mission.
     News of Mr. Shoemaker's death cast a pall over the Pathfinder 
scientists, many of whom had been Mr. Shoemaker's students or colleagues.  
NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin called Mr. Shoemaker "one of the most 
renown planetary scientists in the world."
     Mr. Shoemaker, a geologist by training, was a leading expert on craters 
and the interplanetary collisions which caused them.  He first proved to the 
scientific community that it was indeed the result of an asteroid impact, 
said University Arizona planetary scientist Larry Lebofsky.
     He also wrote an influential paper in the early 1960's comparing Meteor 
Crater with a large crater on the moon.
     The Shoemakers had gone to Australia on an annual trip to search for 
asteroid impact craters in the outback, said Edward Bowell, a fellow 
astronomer at the Lowell Observatory.
     "I think Gene Shoemaker is arguably one of the great founders of 
planetary science."  Mr. Bowell said.  "He more or less single-handedly 
created the field of impacts...and he was the one who started bringing to 
other scientists and the public's attention the danger of the impacts of 
comets and asteroids on the Earth.  He was really one of a kind in that 
sense."
     Mr. Shoemaker founded the U.S. Geological Survey's Center of 
Astrogeology in Flagstaff in 1961 and served as the center's chief 
scientist.  He also was involved in several U.S. space missions, including 
the Apollo missions to the moon - he taught the astronauts about craters 
before they left Earth.
     Mr. Shoemaker had wanted to be an astronaut but was rejected because of 
a medical problem, Mr. Bowell said.
     In a February 1996 interview, Mr. Shoemaker said he hoped for more 
manned space missions soon - to nearby asteroids, if not to the planet Mars.
     "I don't think I will live long enough to see us get to Mrs." Mr. 
Shoemaker said.
     Besides his wife, survivors include two daughters, Linda Salazar and 
Christine Woodard of Los Angeles; and a son Patrick, of Iowa.  Funeral plans 
were incomplete.

(end)

Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
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