Last man on the moon
Cernan carved out unique niche in record-setting NASA career
As he climbed down the ladder of the Apollo 17 lunar module in the winter of 1972, placing his size-10½ boot on the Earth’s moon, NASA astronaut Gene Cernan surveyed the desolate, silent landscape.
An overwhelming sense of majesty washed over him.
“My God, I was standing in a place no one ever had before,” Cernan later wrote in his autobiography, “The Last Man on the Moon.” “The soil that was firmly supporting me was not the dirt of Earth, but of a different celestial body, and it glittered in the bright sun as if studded with millions of tiny diamonds.”
Over the next three days, Cernan and fellow crew member Harrison “Jack” Schmitt traipsed across the lunar surface on a mission to uncover the satellite’s geological mysteries. Together, they spent 22 hours braving thick dust and tight deadlines to conduct scientific experiments, ultimately collecting more than 200 pounds of rocks brought back to Earth for examination. The grueling work left them exhausted and calloused, with an enduring pride in their triumph of the ages.
Forty-six years later, long after a three-man crew piloted the final Apollo mission, Cernan remains the last human to walk on the moon, a distinction he carried to his death in 2017 at the age of 82. Only 12 Americans carry the honor of having set foot on the moon, a thrill that Cernan chased but never duplicated in his life on Earth.
“I spent years searching for the Next Big Thing to replace my grand moon adventure, constantly asking myself, ‘Where now, Columbus?’ ” Cernan wrote in his 1999 book. “As for finding a suitable encore, nothing has ever come close.”
‘Lessons to learn’
Born in 1934 in suburban Chicago, Cernan graduated with an electrical engineering degree from Purdue University and migrated to California to fly Navy fighters. The bulletproof pilot’s 5,000-plus hours of air time and master’s degree from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School perfectly positioned him for NASA’s nascent space program. At 32, Cernan rocketed into space on Gemini 9 alongside Col. Thomas Stafford, completing a three-day mission to test rendezvous and maneuvering equipment used in future flights. Cernan became the third person to walk in space during the mission, spending two hours outside the vessel before an overheating suit and dehydration forced him to cut short the trip.
“It was the process of really coming to grips for the first time that there was something about this element of spaceflight that we did not have a good handle on yet,” legendary NASA flight director Gene Kranz later said in a documentary also titled “The Last Man on the Moon.” “We had many lessons to learn along the way.”
Three years later, in May 1969, Cernan and Stafford returned to space with fellow Navy pilot John Young aboard Apollo 10, charged with conducting a dry run to the moon. The mission took Cernan within about eight miles of the lunar surface, providing vital scientific data that allowed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to take the renowned “one giant leap for mankind” two months later.
Forging future destinies
Following the successful first moonwalk and the neartragedy of Apollo 13, American interest in space exploration waned. NASA officials tabbed Cernan to command Apollo 17, which would become the final program mission, alongside Schmitt and astronaut Ronald Evans.
Their excursion would set numerous records — most lunar orbits, longest lunar surface stay, largest lunar surface sample haul — during the 12-day trek.
Cernan spent most of his post-NASA days in the Houston area, working in the energy and aeronautical fields, eventually creating The Cernan Corp.
The clean-cut, charismatic pilot would shrug off multiple entreaties to run for public office, though he served as a steadfast advocate for continued investment in the U.S. space program. In his later years, Cernan declared living generations would see a human walk on Mars, but his final words before leaving the moon remain all too prescient.
“As I take these last steps from the surface for some time to come, I’d just like to record that America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow,” Cernan said. “Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.”
“As I take these last steps from the surface for some time to come, I’d just like to record that America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow.”
— Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 astronaut who was the last man to walk on the moon