Alastair G. W. (Graham Walter) Cameron (21 June 1925 – 3 October 2005)[1] was an American–Canadian astrophysicist and space scientist who was an eminent staff member of the Astronomy department of Harvard University.
His father, born in London, England, was chemist A.T. Cameron, a professor and chair of the biochemistry department at Manitoba Medical College.
[2][3] He recalls addressing all men as “Doctor” as a four-year-old, noting it was "clearly an early attempt at forming a hypothesis based on limited data.
When the Apollo program achieved a successful Moon landing in 1969, the former classmate sent a cheque to settle the bet, which Cameron had framed and hung on the wall in his office.
Since this element has no stable isotopes, the observed technetium would experience radioactive decay with half-life of about 200,000 years, which was much shorter than the lifetime of the star.
However, as his calculations increased in sophistication and the computing resources at Chalk River improved, he switched to work during the night and on weekends when the machines were not in use.
[6][8] In 1959, after growing frustrated with what he saw as the Canadian government's lack of interest in investing in science, Cameron emigrated to the United States, which had just seen a major expansion of funding for space-science research due to the Sputnik crisis.
When an audience member asked, “What did you do on the seventh day?” he reportedly responded, “I rested.”[6] Samples brought back from the Apollo program showed that the Moon was composed of the same material as the mantle of the Earth.
[1] Cameron was able to use increasingly sophisticated computer models to show that such a collision could produce an Earth-Moon system with the correct mass, spin, and orbital momentum.
[1] While Cameron became a naturalized United States citizen in 1963 in order to receive the security clearances necessary to work in the US space program, he frequently returned to visit his native Canada and remained active in Canadian politics throughout his life.