From the Laboratory to the Moon

The reserved genius and celebrated Black scientist, who built the first astronomical observatory on the moon and worked to inspire underserved students to pursue science and engineering.

In April 1972, as George Carruthers closely monitored the operation from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, astronauts conducting the Apollo 16 mission positioned a gold-plated far ultraviolet electrographic camera on the moon. The camera, Carruthers’s invention, was the first astronomical obser…