Harrison Schmidt: Geologist / Astronaut / Pilot

[FlyinSpy]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2199/1

Interesting interview with Harrison Schmidt, NASA's first scientist / astronaut regarding the value of his pilot training (Navy and Air Force). I never realized they had him go through a full syllabus. Also interesting his comments about the value of rotary wing training on his lunar module piloting tasks:

JC: You seem to be saying that flight training transfers to other aspects of training. Is that fair to say?
HS: It definitely does. The best example I have of that is helicopter training. The more time I was getting in the helicopter, the better I could fly certain aborts that might result from an under-burn while going into orbit around the Moon. In that situation you have all the spacecraft docked, and may have to use the lunar module engine to get out of lunar orbit. And you don’t have enough time to do anything more than establish error needles to fly, and with a major offset in the CG [center of gravity] of the combined spacecraft that is a challenge. It’s a hand-eye coordination challenge that I felt was significantly enhanced by staying very, very current in the helicopter.

 

[Pugs]

Good article. The episode in From Earth to the Moon miniseries called Galileo Was Right is my favorite and Harrison (well, an actor playing him!) is a key figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(TV_miniseries)

 

[helolumpy]

I like the discussion at the end, who was the last man to walk on the moon?
Gene Cernan, says it was him since he go in last, therefore he was the last person to have walked on the moon.
Harrison Schmidt says it was him since he was the last to reach the moon's surface, therefore he was the last person to walk on the moon.

 

[GroundPounder]

I like the discussion at the end, who was the last man to walk on the moon?
Gene Cernan, says it was him since he go in last, therefore he was the last person to have walked on the moon.
Harrison Schmidt says it was him since he was the last to reach the moon's surface, therefore he was the last person to walk on the moon.

In any event, since no one who walked on the moon was born after 1935, it won't be long until no one alive will have walked on the moon. I bet that you could not have gotten too many people to believe in 1972 that the days of manned exploration of the moon were over.