Just days after the 30th anniversary of mankind's first walk on the moon, a U.S. astronomer is about to become the first person to be laid to rest up there.

A one-ounce vial of Eugene Shoemaker's cremated remains is on NASA's Lunar Prospector, which is scheduled to slam into the surface of the moon Saturday.

The spacecraft is crash-landing in a crater at the south pole on purpose -- skimming into the shadowy bowl at a 6.5 degree angle in an effort to look for evidence of water under the surface.

Shoemaker was a highly respected astronomer, but always wanted to be an astronaut. He was disqualified from NASA's training program because he had Addison's disease.

"Not going to the moon and banging on it with my own hammer has been the biggest disappointment in life," he once said.

Instead of going up in space, Shoemaker taught geology to Apollo astronauts.

After dying in a car crash in 1997, most of his cremated remains were sprinkled in a massive crater in Arizona that Shoemaker had discovered was formed by a meteor crash about 50,000 years ago.

But some of his ashes were set aside, so that NASA could eventually send at least part of him to the moon.

One former colleague says Shoemaker's friends will now be able to look at the moon rise and say, "Hi Gene, good to see you today."