The Legacy of George Carruthers
Dr. George Carruthers, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, stands to the right of his invention, the gold-plated ultraviolet camera/spectrograph. The first Moon-based observatory, Carruthers developed it for the Apollo 16 mission. U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
George Robert Carruthers was an aerospace engineer and astrophysicist. Among other accomplishments in his long career, his invention was sent on one of the Apollo missions. It was mankind’s first astronomical observatory located somewhere other than the Earth. George Carruthers died late last year, at the age of 81.
For his lifetime of achievements, Carruthers in 2011 was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama. Long before that, he spent much of his childhood in Chicago, learning from astronomers at the Adler Planetarium. In the early 1960s, he attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, going from undergrad through a Ph.D., earning degrees in engineering and nuclear physics along the way.
To take a look back at his legacy, The 21st was joined by a Senior Curator in the History of Astronomy and the Space Sciences at the National Air and Space Museum and a professor of physics at Howard University.
Guests:
David DeVorkin, Ph.D., Senior Curator of History of Astronomy and the Space Sciences at the National Air and Space Museum. DeVorkin is also working on a manuscript on the life of George Carruthers.
Prabhakar Misra, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy at Howard University (Washington, DC), Fellow at the American Physical Society
Prepared for web by Zainab Qureshi
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