George Robert Carruthers

George Robert Carruthers (October 1, 1939 – December 26, 2020) was an American space physicist and engineer. Carruthers perfected a compact and very powerful ultraviolet camera/spectrograph for NASA to use when it launched Apollo 16 in 1972. Carruthers was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2003, and in 2011 he was awarded the National Medal for Technology and Invention.

Early life and education Carruthers was born on October 1, 1939, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to George and Sophia Carruthers. Carruthers was the eldest of four children. His father was a civil engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers and his mother was a homemaker. When Carruthers was young the family lived in the Evanston neighborhood before moving to Milford, Ohio.

At an early age, George developed an interest in space flight through reading popular space fiction like Buck Rodgers and the early 1950s Collier's series on space flight. Carruthers's father also encouraged his interests in math and science. At the age of 10, Carruthers built his first telescope out of cardboard tubing and lenses purchased using money he earned as a delivery boy. Carruthers enjoyed visiting Chicago museums, libraries, and the Adler Planetarium.

Career at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory In 1964, as he was completing his Ph.D. thesis, Carruthers was invited to give a colloquium talk at the United States Naval Research Laboratory. That year he became the first E. O. Hulburt Postdoctoral Fellow, funded by the National Science Foundation, and in 1967 transitioned to a permanent position. His design detected an upper limit to the amount of molecular hydrogen that exists in the interstellar medium, answering numerous questions astronomers were asking at that time about what was then referred to as the "missing mass" problem.

In 1969 NASA requested proposals for scientific experiments that could be conducted by astronauts on future lunar missions. Simultaneously but independently, Carruthers and Thornton Page proposed conducting ultraviolet imaging of the Earth. It was suggested by NASA that the two form a joint proposal, and this was approved with Carruthers as principal investigator and chief engineer and Page as the science lead.

On February 1, 2013, Carruthers was awarded the 2012 National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama at the White House: "For invention of the Far UV Electrographic Camera, which significantly improved our understanding of space and earth science."

Outreach work During the 1980s, Carruthers helped create the Science & Engineers Apprentice Program, which allows high school students to spend a summer working with scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory. He frequently participated in public observing events at Howard University and SMART Day programs at the National Air and Space Museum.

From 1983 onward he was the chairman of the editing and review committee and editor, Journal of the National Technical Association. This journal included biographical sketches and career profiles of prominent African American scientists and engineers, and was distributed to high schools and to colleges.

In 2022 NASA renamed the Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere mission, also known as GLIDE, to honor Carruthers. The mission was renamed to be the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. This mission was launched in 2025 and observes the Earth's atmosphere in ultraviolet light. The renaming ceremony took place on December 2, 2022, at Carruthers's alma mater the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Honors and awards 1970 Arthur S. Flemming Award 1972 NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal 1973 Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society 1987 Black Engineer of the Year Award National Science Foundation Fellow Honorary Doctor of Engineering, Michigan Technological University 2003 Inducted into the National Inventors' Hall of Fame 2012 National Medal of Technology and Innovation

External sources From the Laboratory to the Moon: The Quiet Genius of George R. Carruthers by David DeVorkin