Message posted by Magoo on September 12, 2000 at 05:27:57 EST:

I saw an interesting documentary last night about Joel Shumacher, the geologist/astronomer who was most famous for co-discovering the Shumacher-Levy 9 comet that broke up and crashed so spectacularly into Jupiter in 1993.

Apparently he worked at NTS in the 1950's and 60's, and was involved in studying the geological results after many of the tests. He later went on to be a major consultant for NASA in the years before the first moon landings, and was at one time considered a likely candidate to actually go to the moon.

It was also Shumacher who is credited with conclusively proving that the Meteor Crater in Arizona was actually formed by a meteorite or small comet, after his studies of the man-made craters at NTS. rior to that, many scientists attributed its formation to volcanic activity.

There was some outstanding film footage of many of the tests at NTS, including an amazing slow motion film of the sedan crater being formed. Its howed a huge mass of earth being pushed upwards, before the fire and atomic wave finally breaking through the mound as it rose!

The documentary was produced by national Geographic, and was mainly about the possibility of terrestrial impacts by NEOs (Near Earth Objects, aka asteroids or comets) and the ramifications of such an impact. The video is really worth getting if you get a chance. Since Shumacher died about 3 years ago, I would imagine it to be 4-5 years old.

As an aside, there was some really outstanding scientific work done at NTS in the 'golden years' of atomic research. It is just such a shame to read about how many of the workers at those facilities are now in poor health or have since passed away, and have subsequently been left with inadequate or no compensation.

Magoo

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