Oral histories in meteoritics and planetary science-XXIV: William K. Hartmann

Abstract

In this interview, William Hartmann (Bill, Fig. 1) describes how he was inspired as a teenager by a map of the Moon in an encyclopedia and by the paintings by Chesley Bonestell. Through the amateur journal “Strolling Astronomer,” he shared his interests with other teenagers who became lifelong colleagues. At college, he participated in Project Moonwatch, observing early artificial satellites. In graduate school, under Gerard Kuiper, Bill discovered Mare Orientale and other large concentric lunar basin structures. In the 1960s and 1970s, he used crater densities to study surface ages and erosive/depositional effects, predicted the approximately 3.6 Gyr ages of the lunar maria before the Apollo samples, discovered the intense pre-mare lunar bombardment, deduced the youthful Martian volcanism as part of the Mariner 9 team, and proposed (with Don Davis) the giant impact model for lunar origin. In 1972, he helped found (what is now) the Planetary Science Institute. From the late 1970s to early 1990s, Bill worked mostly with Dale Cruikshank and Dave Tholen at Mauna Kea Observatory, helping to break down the Victorian paradigm that separated comets and asteroids, and determining the approximately 4% albedo of comet nuclei. Most recently, Bill has worked with the imaging teams for several additional Mars missions. He has written three college textbooks and, since the 1970s, after painting illustrations for his textbooks, has devoted part of his time to painting, having had several exhibitions. He has also published two novels. Bill Hartmann won the 2010 Barringer Award for impact studies and the first Carl Sagan Award for outreach in 1997. Figure 1Open in figure viewerPowerPoint William K. Hartmann taken 2010 Aug 2 (Photo: Gayle Hartmann).