At 10 minutes to 4 p.m. on Thursday, MacMillan 117 was already packed with students, professors and community members awaiting a lecture by Col. David Scott, commander of the 1971 Apollo 15 lunar mission and the seventh man to walk on the moon. Scott first traveled to space in 1966 with the Gemini 8 mission - the first spacecraft to dock in space - and flew on the 1969 Apollo 9 mission, launched in preparation for the Apollo 11 lunar mission later that year.
Scott's lecture, "Voyage to the Moon: The Apollo 15 Mission to Hadley Rille and the Apennine Mountains," was part of the Thomas A. Mutch Lecture series. Mutch was a professor of geology at Brown from 1960 until 1980, when he disappeared while climbing mountains in the Himalayas. The lecture series commemorates Mutch's accomplishments in the field of geological space study.
Before the lecture began, Professor of Geological Sciences James Head PhD'69 spoke about Mutch's passion for space study - a recurring theme throughout the event.
"Tim inspired and tutored a countless number of students with his imagination, intellectual rigor and commitment to resolve," Head said.
Scott then examined the geological aspects of the Apollo 15 mission, speaking extensively about both the level of education and adventurous spirit necessary for significant space research.
Scott came to NASA for space training in 1963 after six years as an Air Force test pilot. Though he knew little about geology, Scott was soon tutored in the field by Leon Silver, a California Institute of Technology professor employed by NASA who "made geology fun" and inspired him.
Scott's geology education at NASA not only improved his knowledge of geology but sparked a passion for it. Scott, who operated the first lunar rover with fellow astronaut James Irwin, marveled at the millions of years of history contained in a single boulder.
"We sampled the boulder and brought back the history," he said. "This has been here for 500 million years, and you're the first person to touch it."
Later in the mission, Scott came across an orthosite rock and, though he was told to report back to the launch, said he was so struck by its beauty he could not resist gathering it. NASA told Scott he could only delay the trip back in the case of a seatbelt malfunction. So feigning a malfunction, Scott obtained the rock forever known in NASA circles as "the seatbelt rock."
Though the anecdote was humorous, it also spoke to the passion for geology Scott had obtained through study. "We could find an orthosite because someone taught us how to find an orthosite," Scott said.
Looking to the future of space exploration, Scott concluded the lecture with his thoughts on a human mission to Mars. Scott emphasized the importance of getting humans to Mars, both for the sake of scientific research and exploration. Shuttling to Mars and back would take two years and eight months and, Scott jokingly estimated, a cost of "about 1 zillion dollars."
Most of all, Scott emphasized the human element of traveling - and eventually colonizing - Mars.
"If you plan to live on Mars, if you go anywhere in the solar system, you have to take the Earth with you," Scott said. "You can't colonize Mars without taking the Earth with you. You are an Earthling."
This doesn't simply mean bringing food, water and oxygen to Mars, Scott said, but furthering human knowledge through exploration. Scott said he believes in a mission to Mars for the sake of humanity and knowledge.
Scott ended by commemorating Mutch as an emblematic explorer. "He was an adventurer, an explorer," Scott said. "He climbed the mountains and went to the planets. When you think about going to Mars, think about Tim Mutch. Would he go to Mars? You bet he would. He's an example of what the rest of us should be."
Scott is currently assisting Head at Brown's immersive virtual reality center, "the Cave," in creating a projection of what a trip to the Moon or Mars would be like. The project will simulate conditions and research activities for a 500-day trip to the Moon - the amount of time necessary to spend on Mars for a future mission, according to Head.
Schuyler Maclay '10 said he enjoyed Scott's talk and viewing the slides of his had taken on the Moon. "I thought it was excellent. He went to the moon - that puts him in a small group," Maclay said.
But one student at the lecture questioned whether colonizing Mars makes sense.
"I'm not going to disagree that the adventurous nature of man has led to many scientific discoveries, but it's pretty senseless to say we should be promoting a mission where we're spending billions of dollars," Emmett Fitzgerald '10 said. "He admitted that there was no real reason (for the mission). He himself made the point that we here on Earth have our own problems."
But Scott said dedicating resources to space exploration is not about tradeoffs. "Mars is so close," he said. "You got to go to Mars."
