In Memory of Gene Cernan
- 17th Jan 2017
- Author: Tamela Maciel
Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan was the last man to walk on the Moon, and one of only three people to have visited the Moon twice. He was also the third person to walk in space.
It is with great sadness that we learned of Gene Cernan’s passing last night, at the age of 82. He leaves behind him a legacy of human exploration far ahead of its time and a commitment to inspiring future generations to follow in his footsteps.
Gene Cernan began his career in the United States Navy, as an engineer and pilot. In 1963, he was selected to join NASA’s third class of astronauts, ultimately flying into space three times. On Gemini 9A, Cernan and Tom Stafford practised the rendezvous techniques that would be crucial for later Apollo missions to the Moon, and Cernan made the third ever space walk, testing the mobility of the pressure suit (according to him it had “all the flexibility of a rusty suit of armour”).
Cernan flew again on Apollo 10, the key dress rehearsal mission before Apollo 11 made the historic first landing on the Moon. Astronauts Tom Stafford, John Young, and Cernan performed all the elements of a Moon landing mission, except for the actual landing. Cernan and Stafford went as far as boarding the Lunar module, nicknamed ‘Snoopy’, separating from Young in the Command Module, and descending to within 14 kilometres of the surface of the Moon. Legend has it that Snoopy was deliberately under-fueled so that an ‘accidental’ early lunar landing was impossible, but in reality the lander was not built to land and was far too heavy. Apollo 10 set the stage for the first landing on the Moon just a few months later in July 1969. The Command Module that carried Cernan, Stafford, and Young to and from the Moon is currently on display in London at the Science Museum.
In his third and final mission, Cernan finally stepped on the Moon in December 1972, culminating years of personal spaceflight that mirrored NASA’s trajectory to the Moon. Apollo 17 pushed the boundaries of lunar exploration, building on the experiences of the previous five lunar missions. Apollo 17’s key mission was to learn and collect as much about the Moon’s geology as possible.
“Apollo 17 built upon all of the other missions scientifically,” said Cernan in 2008. “We had a lunar rover, we were able to cover more ground than most of the other missions. We stayed there a little bit longer. We went to a more challenging unique area in the mountains, to learn something about the history and the origin of the moon itself.”
Cernan aided geologist Harrison Schmitt, NASA’s first scientist-astronaut, collect more than a hundred kilograms of lunar rocks from an area on the south-eastern rim of Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity), near the Taurus-Littrow mountains.
We at the National Space Centre will always feel a close connection to that final Apollo 17 mission and to Gene Cernan himself. It was the crew of Apollo 17 that collected our own piece of the Moon back in 1972, near the edge of Shorty Crater.
This rock now occupies pride of place at the top of our Rocket Tower, on special loan from NASA. It’s always a delight to see visitors’ faces as they realise that they’re looking at an actual piece of the Moon, in all its sparkling, pitted glory.
It’s estimated that this rock is 3.8 billion years old.
Gene Cernan was always a strong advocate of human exploration and the chance discoveries that humans alone can make. Here he remembers what it was like to collect rocks on the Moon, in a video filmed for the National Space Centre by Mark Stewart and the team behind The Last Man on the Moon film.
Apollo 17 was the last mission to the Moon, and to this day, humans have yet to return. Over the last 40 years, the observations and rocks collected by Cernan and Schmitt have been an invaluable resource in helping us understand where the Moon came from.
As Cernan re-entered the Lunar Module, knowing he was to be the last Apollo astronaut to step foot on the Moon, his final words were “America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. As we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”
After retiring from NASA, Cernan worked in private business and provided TV commentary for some of the later Space Shuttle missions. He remained committed to STEM education and inspiring the next generation of astronauts throughout the rest his life.
Cernan’s life is lovingly immortalised in the 2014 biopic The Last Man On The Moon, based on Cernan’s autobiography of the same name.
