Eugene Shoemaker
From Slackerpedia Galactica
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Born in Los Angeles in 1928 before it was invaded by actors and prostitutes, Eugene Shoemaker grew up to become a preeminent astronomer whose name was synonymous with the profession. Armed with a Ph.D. from Princeton, his observations became key to showing the influence of asteroids and meteor impacts on planetary bodies, including that giant hole in the ground in Arizona. Shoemaker was in the running for one of the scientist slots for the Apollo missions to the moon, but the one (and thus far, only) scientist to land on the moon was geologist Harrison Schmitt (on Apollo 17).
Managing to marry Carolyn Spellman, probably the only other female astronomer at the time, the pair went on to discover over 300 asteroids with constant Canadian collaborator, David Levy. The three discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, the comet that impacted Jupiter in 1994, providing a rare opportunity for comet-gas planet collisions and actual press coverage of astronomical events. Sadly, Eugene Shoemaker died in a car accident while in Australia in 1997.
Some of his ashes now rest on the Moon (brought there by the Lunar Prospector probe), the first man to enjoy this posthumous honor.
