Gene Cernan
NASA astronaut, Naval aviator, aeronautical engineer, electrical engineer, fighter pilot, eleventh human to walk on the Moon (Apollo 10 and Apollo 17) · United States · Writers · Lived 1934 to 2017 · aged 82
Gene Cernan is read about 489 times a day, in 56 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?The last human being to leave footprints on the Moon. Cernan commanded Apollo 17 in December 1972, and when he climbed back into the lunar module, he closed an era - no one has returned since.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
Cernan s71-51308_(3665604765).jpg?width=1200)
'Gene Cernan' (actor) (3665604765)
AMERICAN AND SOVIET ASTRONAUTS - CERNAN - GEMINI 9 - APOLLO 10 - APOLLO 17 - NARA - 17447531
Apollo A7L Spacesuit, training suit made for Gene Cernan, ILC Industries, c. 1970 - Kennedy Space Center - Cape Canaveral, Florida - DSC02877
Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan on Saipan
Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan portrait
Eugene A Cernan Space Center, Triton College
Eugene Cernan - podpisIn their own words 2
, I felt that I was literally standing on a plateau somewhere out there in space. A plateau that science and technology had allowed me to get to.
It's the last steps that are perhaps more memorable to me than that first step, because I'd been in this valley on the Moon, almost living in a paradox.
Awards
About this person
Cernan came out of Purdue with an electrical engineering degree in the late fifties and went straight into Navy flight training, flying fighters before earning a graduate degree in aeronautical engineering. NASA picked him in 1963. His first trip off-world was Gemini 9A in June 1966; three years later he flew Apollo 10, the full dress rehearsal that swooped within miles of the lunar surface but didn't land. Then in December 1972 he got Apollo 17, the last mission of the programme. He walked the Moon for over twenty-two hours across three days - longer than anyone - and when he left, he knew he was closing the door. Cernan died in January 2017, forty-four years after that final step.
In common with Gene
Buzz AldrinAlso in The Wonder of It All (2007)
Michael CollinsAlso in Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004)
Jim LovellAlso in In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)
Alan BeanAlso in The Wonder of It All (2007)
Neil ArmstrongAlso in Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004)
John YoungAlso in Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004)Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.