Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Menk's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable,
Speaker 1: and if history is an open book, all of these
Speaker 1: amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for
Speaker 1: us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. He's
Speaker 1: the only astronaut without a military and aviation background to
Speaker 1: have set foot on the Moon. He and other scientists
Speaker 1: entered the history books as the first time NASA sent
Speaker 1: scientists to accompany astronauts into space. But that's not the
Speaker 1: most curious fact about Harrison Schmidt. Not even close. You
Speaker 1: could say he's studied and prepared his entire life for
Speaker 1: the moment when he stepped foot on Apollo seven on
Speaker 1: December eleventh of nineteen seventy two. After studying geology at
Speaker 1: the California Institute of Technology, he spent a year at
Speaker 1: the University of Oslo. In nineteen sixty four, he received
Speaker 1: his PhD from Harvard. From Rocks to Gas and the
Speaker 1: matter that makes up planets and their moons, I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to say that Schmidt knew a lot about
Speaker 1: the material that makes up our world. While most geologists
Speaker 1: work for energy companies or mining sectors, Schmidt took a
Speaker 1: different route. In nineteen sixty five, he found work creating
Speaker 1: geological field techniques at the US Geological Surveys Astrological Center
Speaker 1: in Flagstaff, Arizona. Those techniques would go on to be
Speaker 1: used by Apollo Cruz. When NASA decided to send scientists
Speaker 1: to the Moon with astronauts, they selected Schmidt. Schmidt trained
Speaker 1: with the Air Force for the next year, learning to
Speaker 1: become a jet pilot. Schmidt made his second mark in
Speaker 1: history as the only geologist in the Astronaut Corps. From there,
Speaker 1: he moved to Houston, where he put his lifelong love
Speaker 1: of geology to use, training the astronauts to be come
Speaker 1: better at recognizing geologic changes while in orbit and collecting
Speaker 1: material from the Moon's surface. In March of nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: Schmidt was assigned to the Apollo eighteen crew. Unfortunately, his
Speaker 1: hopes were dashed when NASA scrubbed the mission. All wasn't lost, though,
Speaker 1: and his breakthrough came in late August when scientists convinced
Speaker 1: NASA to reassign Schmidt to the Apollo seventeen mission. It
Speaker 1: would be the last Apollo mission, Schmidt certainly had some
Speaker 1: shoes to fill, replacing an astronaut Joe Angel as the
Speaker 1: lunar module pilot. Two years later, on December seventh of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, Schmidt and his crewmates Commander Jean Cernan
Speaker 1: and Ronald E. Evans boarded Apollo eleven at the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Space Center for launch. A few days later, Cernan and
Speaker 1: Schmidt landed on the Moon. Before collecting rocks, Schmidt took
Speaker 1: pictures and claimed to have snapped the iconic blue Marble
Speaker 1: photo of Earth. To date, it's the most widely circulated
Speaker 1: photo ever taken. Schmidt collected formations, picked a sample that
Speaker 1: became one of the most significant rock specimens ever collected.
Speaker 1: At just five ounces, the plutonic rock has helped NASA
Speaker 1: support its theory about what material makes up the Moon's core.
Speaker 1: After collecting samples, Schmidt's and Commander Sernan returned to the
Speaker 1: Lunar module. Both men removed their helmets. Moments later, Schmidt
Speaker 1: realized that he was congested was at the start of
Speaker 1: a cold With his next breath, the inside of his
Speaker 1: nose felt irritated. It was then that he understood the source.
Speaker 1: He and Sernin had moon dust on their suits, helmets,
Speaker 1: and boots. Schmidt felt his throat tightened, his voice faltered.
Speaker 1: It turned out that Schmidt was allergic to the very
Speaker 1: thing that he had trained for the Moon's surface. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the only one, though, One of the flight
Speaker 1: surgeons on the mission also suffered an instant and severe reaction.
Speaker 1: Both men recovered, though, and the mission resumed. Apolo seventeen
Speaker 1: splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean on December nineteenth
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy two. In the fifty years since the
Speaker 1: Apollo seventeen mission, Schmidt has advocated test in future pilots
Speaker 1: against such allergic reactions. The soft, powdery material is difficult
Speaker 1: to remove, even when the astronauts attempt to brush it off.
Speaker 1: For Schmidt, the ease with which moondust can make its
Speaker 1: way into astronauts lungs, it seems there is nothing to
Speaker 1: sneeze at. The world is a massive place, with billions
Speaker 1: of people separated by thousands of miles of oceans. But
Speaker 1: every once in a while, something serendipitous takes place. We
Speaker 1: might run into an old friend in an unlikely location,
Speaker 1: or realize that the differences between our cultures aren't as
Speaker 1: vast as we had once thought. But Cornish missionary William
Speaker 1: Colenzo discovered something quite unexpected on his trip to New
Speaker 1: Zealand in the late eighteen thirties that the world was
Speaker 1: a lot smaller than any of us really knew weren't.
Speaker 1: In Penzance, Cornwall, England in eighteen eleven, Colenzo was a
Speaker 1: printer's apprentice before he joined the Church Missionary Society to
Speaker 1: spread the gospel. It was eighteen thirty four when he
Speaker 1: first traveled to New Zealand and came face to face
Speaker 1: with the native Maori people and their customs. According to
Speaker 1: some reports, he was the first European to ever set
Speaker 1: foot within the village. They welcomed him in, allowing him
Speaker 1: to witness their customs. Colenzo was watching some Maori women
Speaker 1: cooked potatoes when he noticed something strange about the pot
Speaker 1: they were using. It was made of bronze. These people
Speaker 1: wouldn't have cooked in a bronze vessel. They would have
Speaker 1: used something wooden with heated stones inside to warm their food.
Speaker 1: Not to mention, Colenzo was, if not the first, then
Speaker 1: among the first Europeans to enter their community. The Maori
Speaker 1: had never traded with foreigners before, so where had they
Speaker 1: gotten this bronze pot. Well. As he began to examine
Speaker 1: it more closely, he realized that it wasn't a pot
Speaker 1: at all. It measured six inches across by six and
Speaker 1: a half inches tall, with a jagged lip going around
Speaker 1: its opening. There was also an inscription embossed around its
Speaker 1: middle in a language Colenzo didn't understand. But what he
Speaker 1: did know was that the object the Maori had thought
Speaker 1: was a pot was in fact actually the crown of
Speaker 1: a ship's bell. It had apparently been in their possession
Speaker 1: for decades, and had been discovered tangled among the roots
Speaker 1: of a tree that had been felled during a storm.
Speaker 1: Colenzo knew it needed to be studied further, and so
Speaker 1: he bartered with the women, offering them an actual cast
Speaker 1: iron pot in exchange for the bell. They acquiesced and
Speaker 1: allowed the missionary to take it back to England. It
Speaker 1: was later revealed that the writing around its rim was Tamil,
Speaker 1: a language spoken in parts of India, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1: But how had it wound up so far from home?
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty two, a New Zealand scientist named William
Speaker 1: Maskell suggested that it might have been owned by a
Speaker 1: sailor who had traveled to South Asia and taken it
Speaker 1: for his own before ultimately losing track of it. Later,
Speaker 1: almost a century beyond that, historian Robert Gossett claimed that
Speaker 1: it had been part of a ghost ship that had
Speaker 1: lost its crew and traveled thousands of miles away from
Speaker 1: its home before crashing into New Zealand. Neither story, though,
Speaker 1: was ever confirmed. And then there was the matter of
Speaker 1: the inscription. At first, it was believed to date back
Speaker 1: as far as the fourteenth century, but that theory was
Speaker 1: dismissed as of several years ago. Nalina gopol, a museum
Speaker 1: curator in Singapore, examined the bell in twenty nineteen. A
Speaker 1: native Tamil speaker herself, Gopel easily read the text along
Speaker 1: the bell's edge without question. That was because it was
Speaker 1: more modern than earlier researchers had determined. Gopel knew that
Speaker 1: an older version of Tamil would have been almost impossible
Speaker 1: to read because it would have been too different from
Speaker 1: the current iteration of the language. She figured it was
Speaker 1: only as old as the seventeenth or eighteenth century. As
Speaker 1: for what it said, the literal translation read the Bell
Speaker 1: of the Ship of Mohideen Bucks. Early experts assumed that
Speaker 1: meant that the ship had been owned by a person
Speaker 1: with the name of Mohideen Bucks, but not Gopel. After
Speaker 1: quite a bit of search, she determined that Bucks wasn't
Speaker 1: the owner, nor was it the name of the ship.
Speaker 1: It was the name of a saint. In fact, many
Speaker 1: ships coming out of Southeast Asia at the time would
Speaker 1: have been named mo hitting Bucks as a way to
Speaker 1: bless them on their journeys, to keep them safe, and
Speaker 1: at least in this instance, it didn't work out so well.
Speaker 1: Not only did Gopel nor any of the other experts
Speaker 1: who studied the bell know how it arrived in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: there was no trace of the ship that had carried
Speaker 1: it either, and we might never know the true story
Speaker 1: behind the bells providance. The sea may get angry and
Speaker 1: loud at times, but there is no greater keeper of
Speaker 1: secrets on this earth than the water that covers it.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mank in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Loore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.