The only professional scientist to walk on the Moon is also a climate skeptic.

History · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Harrison Schmitt, the last living person to walk on the lunar surface, remains a singular figure in space history. As a geologist, he transformed how astronauts studied the Moon, yet his post-NASA career as a U.S. Senator and outspoken critic of climate science has made him a deeply polarizing public intellectual.

Born in 1935 in New Mexico, Harrison Schmitt earned a PhD in geology from Harvard before joining NASA’s first group of scientist-astronauts in 1965. His impact on the Apollo program was profound; he developed the geological field techniques used by crews and personally trained them to be competent observers of the lunar landscape. When Apollo 18 and 19 were canceled in 1970, the scientific community successfully pressured NASA to reassign Schmitt to Apollo 17, ensuring a professional geologist would finally reach the Moon.

During his 1972 mission, Schmitt collected Troctolite 76535, a sample that remains central evidence for the theory that the Moon once possessed an active magnetic field. After returning to Earth, he transitioned into politics, serving one term as a Republican U.S. Senator for New Mexico starting in 1977. His tenure was marked by his chairmanship of the Science, Technology, and Space Subcommittee, but he was defeated in his 1982 reelection bid by Jeff Bingaman, who campaigned on the slogan, "What on Earth has he done for you lately?"

In the decades since, Schmitt has become a vocal proponent of lunar resource utilization, specifically helium-3 for fusion energy. However, he is equally known for his rejection of the scientific consensus on climate change. He has characterized the "global warming scare" as a political tool for government expansion and has frequently argued that carbon dioxide is beneficial for agricultural productivity. His departure from the Planetary Society in 2008 was explicitly linked to these views, as he disagreed with the organization's focus on climate change and its prioritization of Mars missions over a return to the Moon.

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