Wow, um… simple question gets totally blown out of proportion in so many different ways…
I feel like a moron because I have a degree in earth and space science and I had never once heard anything about looking for water on the moon.
Not nitpicking, but Gene Shoemaker did A LOT more than finding the Shoemaker -Levy 9 comet. In fact, I believe it was his wife who first detected that one (the one wich ran into Jupiter in 1993[?]). And I’m pretty sure that he was supposed to have been on the Apollo 11 mission (first to land on the moon) but was bumped off the team, I think for health problems.
This seems highly doubtful to me… The Apollo-era astronauts were drawn mostly from the ranks of military test-pilots, not from astronomers and other scientists (though there were a few scientists on the later missions, and all of them received some scientific training). Unless Gene Shoemaker facts are the next iteration of Vin Diesel / Chuck Norris facts?
Wikipedia entry for Gene Shoemaker says he was “set to be the first scientist to walk on the Moon but was disqualified due to a disorder of his adrenal gland.” (emphasis mine) The actual first scientist on the moon was Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17.
That Wikipedia entry is awfully misleading. “Set to be” by whom? Certainly not NASA. He definitely would have liked to walk on the moon, but he was never an astronaut. He was never an astronaut candidate. He may have applied, but his Addison’s disease would’ve disqualified him from making even the first cut in the selection process.