George Carruthers designed and built the
first astronomical telescope that observed the universe from
another world: our Earth's Moon. Working at the U. S. Naval
Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., Carruthers
created a highly sophisticated and versatile far-ultraviolet
camera that could take direct images of the universe, as well
as spectroscopically analyze its constituents. Born in
Cincinnati on October 1, 1939 the eldest son of an inventive
civil engineer, Carruthers arrived at NRL in 1964 armed with a
Ph.D. in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the
University of Illinois. He had been building and using
telescopes since childhood and was mentored in classes at the
Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Here I recount the path
Carruthers took that brought him to NRL to develop and perfect
a wide range of ultraviolet detectors for use both in
astronomy and by the Department of Defense. His devices flew
on sounding rockets, Apollo, then Skylab, and finally on
Shuttle. In his later years, Carruthers became an avid mentor,
inspiring inner-city Washington DC school children to seek out
careers in his dual worlds of science and engineering.
About the Speaker:
Dr. David DeVorkin is senior curator
emeritus, history of astronomy and the space sciences at the
National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
DeVorkin's research and collections center on the origins and
development of modern astrophysics and the space sciences
during the 20th Century. He has curated several major
exhibitions in the space sciences and established the Museum's
``Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory'' and related
outreach programming in astronomy education. He has been in
contact with George Carruthers since the early 1990s recording
his life and work, restoring his lunar camera, and hosting a
few of his many appearances at the Museum. He is presently
writing a full life biography of Carruthers, highlighting his
development of highly sensitive ``electronographic'' cameras
that he incorporated into rocket and satellite payloads, and
sent to the Moon on Apollo 16. DeVorkin is the
author/editor/compiler of some 20 books and more than 125
scholarly and popular articles. He holds a PhD in the history
of astronomy from the University of Leicester and an MPhil in
astronomy from Yale University.