Ronald Evans
NASA astronaut (1933-1990) · United States · Scientists · Died at 56
Ronald Evans is read about 110 times a day, in 37 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 8 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 76 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He orbited the Moon 75 times - alone - while his crewmates walked below, then performed the farthest spacewalk from any planetary body on the ride home. Apollo 17's Command Module Pilot holds the record for most time spent in lunar orbit, and he's the last human to circle the Moon solo.
Also in Deutsch
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Awards
About this person
Ronald Ellwin Evans Jr. graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas, joined the Navy in 1956, flew combat missions over Vietnam, and earned a master's in aeronautical engineering before NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1966. His only spaceflight came in December 1972: Apollo 17, the final crewed mission to the Moon, with Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. For 147 hours and 43 minutes he and five mice stayed in orbit while the others descended to the surface - a record that still stands. On the return flight he stepped outside to retrieve film cassettes, executing the third and final deep space EVA of the Apollo program. He backed up the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, helped develop the Space Shuttle, then left NASA in 1977 for the coal industry. Evans died of a heart attack in 1990 at fifty-six.
Scientists from the United States 6
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