2023-05-12 10:20:52
In 1997, Eugene lost his life in a road accident from which his wife emerged unscathed. Cremated, she’s one of his former students, Carolyn Porco who will fight to offer him a unique destiny. She said at NASA : “The idea of giving Gene Shoemaker the Moon as his final resting place came to me on July 19, the day after Gene died and when I read in the morning paper that his body would be cremated.“
She struggled to retrieve 28 grams of her ashes and place them aboard NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft.
On January 6, 1998, wrapped in brass foil ribbon with a photo of Barringer Crater and a quote from “Romeo and Juliet”, Shoemaker’s ashes were launched into space. A year later, when the ship’s primary mission ended, it deliberately crashed into the South pole of the Moon, scattering the ashes of Eugene, where he has lain for 24 years with a hell of a view of Earth.
Until today, he is still the only human being whose ashes have been sent to the Moon but that should change soon as an American company tried to send 120 funeral urns in May 2023. If the rocket exploded , this is only a postponement…
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