Science fiction

Family history and educational background; undergraduate degree from University of California Los Angeles (1924-1927); PhD from University of California Berkeley (1927-1931); orbit computing with A. O. Leuschner; thesis work at Lick Observatory with Donald Menzel; work at Harvard College Observatory (1931-1955); with Harlow Shapley, Donald Menzel, Annie Jump Cannon, Antonia Maury, Bart Bok, Leon Campbell, Cecelia Payne Gaposchkin; comets and meteors; radio astronomy; Super Schmidt meteor camera project (1948); Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (1955-1973); science fiction authors, especially Arthur C. Clarke; Moonwatch project, Armand and Grace Spitz; military and science funding; Multi-mirror telescope with A. B. Meinel; "icy comet" model.

George Carruthers was born 1939 in Cincinnati, Ohio; child of George Arthur Carruthers and Sophia Singley Carruthers; father an engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base; interest in science from reading science fiction; built his own telescope while in junior high school; very little discrimination in elementary or junior high school even though he was one of few African Americans; moved to Chicago for high school; access to Adler Planetarium and built more telescopes; read about rocket launches and Herb Frieman; read The Viking Rocket Story by Milton Rosen; undergraduate University of Illinois 1957-61; Ph.D. University of Illinois 1964; "An Experimental Investigation on Atomic Nitrogen Recombination;" while in graduate school spent a summer at AerJet in California; exposure to engineers and "big science;" post-doctorate at E. O. Hurlburt Center for Space Research at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), in unit headed by Talbot Chubb; dichotomy between scientists and engineers; little discrimination; small science vs. big science; molecular hydrogen; concern with science education and Project SMART; cameras and sensors on rockets; spectrography; electronographic technology; joint proposal with Thorton Page; hired permanently at NRL; charge-coupled device (CCD) technology; Apollo 16; geocorona camera.