CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Apollo astronaut and former U.S. senator Harrison "Jack" Schmitt will present the sixth annual Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium public lecture entitled "A Trip to the Moon" on Wednesday, April 19, in MIT's Room 9-150 at 3pm.
Dr. Schmitt studied geology at the California Institute of Technology, Harvard and in Norway and trained as a jet and helicopter pilot in the 1960s. As an Apollo 17 crew member in 1972, he was the last of 12 men (and the only scientist) to set foot on the moon. On the 12-day mission, he and fellow astronaut Gene Cernan spent 75 hours on the lunar surface in and around the Valley of Taurus-Littrow, including 22 hours outside the lunar module Challenger, and they brought 250 pounds of samples back to Earth.
Dr. Schmitt served one term as a senator from his home state of New Mexico starting in 1976 and has since worked in various capacities in the areas of space, geology, technology and policy. He is now an adjunct professor at the Annapolis Institute and chairman of the Technical Advisory Board of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.
