Harrison Schmitt

Santa Rita, New Mexico, where he was born on July 3, 1935, is not there any more. It was a company town on the lip of the Chino copper mine, and once that mine went open-pit in 1901 the town spent half a century moving out of the way of its own hole, until it was abandoned for good in 1967. Schmitt grew up 15 miles west in Silver City and left with a geology degree from Caltech in 1957, a Fulbright year at the University of Oslo, and a Harvard doctorate in 1964 written on a Norwegian eclogite complex. Then he went to the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Center at Flagstaff and started teaching astronauts how to read ground.

NASA took him in June 1965 in the first group of scientist-astronauts and immediately sent him to Air Force pilot training for a year. He was assigned to the Apollo 15 backup crew in March 1970, which put him in line for Apollo 18. When 18 and 19 were cancelled that September, the lunar geology community pushed NASA hard to get a professional onto a flight that still existed, and in August 1971 he replaced Joe Engle as lunar module pilot on Apollo 17. Launch was December 7, 1972, landing at Taurus-Littrow on December 11. He was the twelfth man to walk on the Moon and the only professional scientist ever to. He picked up Troctolite 76535, still the central evidence that the Moon once had a magnetic field, and climbed back into the module ahead of Gene Cernan.

He came home and ran for office. New Mexico sent him to the Senate in 1976 over the Democratic incumbent, 57 percent to 43, and threw him out in 1982 after Jeff Bingaman campaigned on the line What on Earth has he done for you lately? Since then the geologist has spent much of his public life rejecting the earth-science consensus on climate. He has called the concern a stalking horse for National Socialism and the carbon dioxide alarm a red herring, and in 2013 he co-wrote a Wall Street Journal column with William Happer arguing that more atmospheric carbon dioxide is good for crops. He quit the Planetary Society in November 2008, partly over its climate advocacy. Appointed New Mexico's energy secretary in January 2011, he withdrew a month later rather than sit for the required background investigation.

He is still here, 91 as of July 2026, and since Gene Cernan died in 2017 he has been the most recent living human to have stood on another world. One small argument follows him. The photograph of the whole Earth taken on the way out, the Blue Marble, is claimed by Schmitt, was claimed by Cernan, and was claimed by Ronald Evans; NASA credits all three. He has spent 30 years arguing that the Moon should be mined for helium-3 to fuel fusion reactors, founding the Interlune InterMars Initiative in 1997 and publishing Return to the Moon in 2006. The town he was born in, meanwhile, is a hole in the ground.

Harrison Schmitt's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Apollo geology field training other
  He taught the Apollo crews to work as observers in orbit and geologists on the ground 1966
• Apollo 17 mission
  The last crewed lunar landing, and the only one with a scientist aboard 1972
• Troctolite 76535 discovery
  Called the most interesting sample returned from the Moon 1972
• Interlune InterMars Initiative company
  Founded to argue for mining lunar helium-3 for fusion fuel 1997
• Return to the Moon book
  Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space 2006

• July 3, 1935 aged 0 Born at Santa Rita, New Mexico, beside the Chino copper mine The town was abandoned in 1967 as the open pit consumed the site.
• 1957 aged ~22 Takes a geology degree at Caltech A Fulbright year at the University of Oslo followed.
• 1964 aged ~29 Finishes a Harvard doctorate on Norwegian eclogite
• June 1965 aged 29 Selected in NASA's first group of scientist-astronauts His first year was spent learning to fly jets.
• August 1971 aged 36 Replaces Joe Engle as lunar module pilot on Apollo 17 Geologists lobbied for the seat after Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled.
• December 11, 1972 aged 37 Lands at Taurus-Littrow with Gene Cernan He collected Troctolite 76535 near Shorty crater, in the orange soil.
• August 30, 1975 aged 40 Resigns from NASA to run for the Senate
• 1976 aged ~41 Elected to the US Senate from New Mexico, 57 percent to 43
• 1982 aged ~47 Loses to Jeff Bingaman, 54 percent to 46 Bingaman ran on the line What on Earth has he done for you lately?

• Buzz Aldrin b. 1930
  Apollo 11 lunar module pilot and second person to walk on the Moon. walked there three years before him
• Alan Shepard 1923–1998
  First American in space and fifth person to walk on the Moon during Apollo 14. first American in space, later a moonwalker
• Michael Collins 1930–2021
  Apollo 11 command module pilot who orbited alone behind the Moon while Armstrong and Aldrin walked below. stayed in orbit on the mission before
• Wernher von Braun 1912–1977
  German-American aerospace engineer who led the development of the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the Moon. built the rocket that carried him
• Carl Sagan 1934–1996
  Astronomer and science communicator who brought cosmology to millions through Cosmos and popular books. co-founded the Planetary Society he resigned from in 2008