RIP Gene Cernan, last astronaut on the moon

[Astronuc]

HOUSTON (AP) -- Former astronaut Gene Cernan, who as the last person to walk on the moon returned to Earth with a message of "peace and hope for all mankind," died on Monday, his family said. He was 82.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gene-cernan-last-astronaut-moon-205711702.html

"Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation's leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon," his family said in a statement released by NASA.

Cernan was commander of NASA's Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface. On Dec. 14, 1972, he became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon — and he traced his only child's initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own.

"Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make," Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. "I didn't want to go up. I wanted to stay a while."

Cernan called it "perhaps the brightest moment of my life. ... It's like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you can't."

On Dec. 11, 1972, Cernan guided the lander, named Challenger, into a lunar valley called Taurus-Littrow, with Harrison "Jack" Schmitt at his side.

Cernan died less than six weeks after another American space hero, John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/rip-john-glenn.896429/

It's amazing what was accomplished in one decade.

 

[jedishrfu]

They asked him if he had any regrets and he said that he's the last man to go to the moon and that we have no plans to go back there.

http://time.com/4635852/cernan-eugene-gene-last-man-moon-nasa-astronaut/His favorite phrase given in all of the talks he presented to school groups:

“Always shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you wind up among the stars.”

 

[Vanadium 50]

I met him a couple times. Nice guy.

 

[1oldman2]

Yesterday, going over the APOD site I was looking at this image.

Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and check out this stereo scene from Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon! The color anaglyph features a detailed 3D view of Apollo 17's Lunar Rover in the foreground -- behind it lies the Lunar Module and distant lunar hills. Because the world was going to be able to watch the Lunar Module's ascent stage liftoff via the rover's TV camera, this parking place was also known as the VIP Site. In December of 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent about 75 hours on the Moon, while colleague Ronald Evans orbited overhead. The crew returned with 110 kilograms of rock and soil samples, more than from any of the other lunar landing sites. Cernan and Schmitt are still the last to walk (or drive) on the Moon.