|
 Cernan, who was also the second man to walk in space, died
surrounded by his family, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration said in a statement without providing details.
A separate statement from his family and released by NASA said
his death came after "ongoing health issues."
Cernan and fellow Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt became
members of the most exclusive club in the universe on Dec. 11,
1972, when they stepped from their lunar landing module onto the
moon's surface. Only 10 other people - all American astronauts -
had done so before and none since.
"Oh, my golly," Cernan told mission control in Houston as he
touched the moon. "Unbelievable."
For three days, the moon was home for Cernan and Schmitt. They
rambled more than 19 miles (30 km) in their lunar roving vehicle
and gathered more than 220 pounds (100 kg) of rocks during their
22 hours of exploration of craters and hills.
"I knew that I had changed in the past three days and that I no
longer belonged solely to the Earth," Cernan wrote in a memoir
titled "The Last Man on the Moon." "Forever more, I would belong
to the universe."
Cernan was 38 years old when he blasted off for the moon on Dec.
7, 1972, as commander of Apollo 17. With Ronald Evans orbiting
above in the command module, Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, a
geologist, rode the lunar lander to the moon's surface four days
later.
They explored for about seven hours each day and Cernan wrote
that moonwalking was painful for him because he had injured a
tendon in his leg two months earlier playing softball.
On the day before returning to the command module, Cernan drove
the rover to a point away from the lunar module so that a camera
on the vehicle could film their departure. He then paid tribute
to his young daughter, Tracy.
"I took a moment to kneel and with a single finger, scratched
Tracy's initials, TDC, in the lunar dust, knowing those three
letters would remain there undisturbed for more years than
anyone could imagine," Cernan wrote in his memoir.
The size 10-1/2 boot prints that Cernan made on his walk back to
the module afterward marked the last steps man has taken on the
moon. Cernan said he spoke spontaneously as he returned to the
lunar module.
"As we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow (a deep lunar valley
where they had landed), we leave as we came, and God willing, as
we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind," he told
mission control.
"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. Godspeed to the crew of
Apollo 17."
WANTED TO STAY
In a 2007 interview for NASA's oral history program, Cernan
recalled his final moments before climbing back in the lander.
[to top of second column] |
"Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make," he said. "I
didn't want to go up. I wanted to stay a while."
Apollo 17 was Cernan's last flight as an astronaut after 566 hours
and 15 minutes in space.
Cernan was born March 14, 1934, and grew up near Chicago. He was in
the military officers training program at Purdue University, where
he first met Neil Armstrong, who would become the first moonwalker.
Cernan became a Navy test pilot and joined the astronaut corps in
October 1963. His first space flight came three years later due to a
tragedy. Cernan and Thomas Stafford had been designated to be the
backups for Gemini 9 and had to take over the three-day mission when
the original crew members were killed in a plane crash.
Cernan became the third person - following a Russian cosmonaut and
U.S. astronaut Ed White - to make a spacewalk on the Gemini mission
and set what was then a record by being outside the spacecraft for
two hours and nine minutes.
In 1969, Cernan was the pilot of the Apollo 10 lunar module that
came within 9.6 miles (15.6 km) of the moon's surface after
separating from the command module. The descent toward the surface
served as a dress rehearsal for Apollo 11, which two months later
delivered the first men to the moon, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Cernan retired from NASA and the Navy in 1976. As a civilian he
helped start Air One airline, worked as an energy and aerospace
consultant, served as chairman of an engineering company and was a
space commentator for ABC News.
In 2011, after NASA ended the space shuttle program, Cernan joined
Armstrong in testifying before a congressional committee to urge the
government not to give up on space exploration. Cernan was
particularly critical of the decision by President Barack Obama's
administration not to pursue the Constellation program, which aimed
to send astronauts to the moon and Mars.
"I don't think he fully understands what traditional America is all
about because he didn't literally grow up here," Cernan said of
Obama in a 2012 interview with Fox News.
Cernan met his first wife, Barbara, who had been a flight attendant
for Continental Airlines, on a plane. They divorced in 1981 after 20
years and one child and in 1987 he married Jan Nanna with whom he
had two daughters.
Cernan is survived by his wife, Jan Nanna Cernan, his daughter and
son-in-law, Tracy Cernan Woolie and Marion Woolie, step-daughters
Kelly Nanna Taff and husband, Michael, and Danielle Nanna Ellis and
nine grandchildren.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Paul
Simao, Cynthia Osterman and Alan Crosby)
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