Last Man To Walk On The Moon Dies; Remembered By Local Friend

January 17, 2017

Former U.S. astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the surface of the moon, died Monday at age 82.

Cernan was a Navy captain that trained in Pensacola. NASA chose him and 13 other astronauts for the pioneering Apollo program, created after President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. When Cernan stepped off the moon in December 1972, he left his footprints and his daughter’s initials in the lunar dust.

“He was very kind and enjoyed sharing his knowledge and experiences,” pilot David Gehman of Atmore said. Gehman and Cernan met a few years ago at a Learjet pilot meeting Kansas. They became friends, years after Gehman had watched him blast off of Kennedy Space Center on Apollo 17.

“He was a Navy pilot, and flew out of Pensacola. He was familiar with Atmore. We talked about having him come to Atmore but it never happened,” Gehman said.

“He was very kind and enjoyed sharing his knowledge and experiences.”

Cernan flew on Apollo 10 in May 1969, the final test flight before the actual moon landing two months later.

He was part of the last manned moon mission in December 1972 — Apollo 17.

“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 later recalled of the mission.

Just before leaving the moon as the last man to walk on it, Cernan said man would return there one day “with peace and hope.”

He was still waiting at the time of his death. Speaking on the 40th anniversary of the last mission, Cernan said he is not proud to be the last man to walk on the moon because of a fading interest in space travel.

“It is tremendously disappointing that here I am, 40 years later, and still hold that title,” he said.

Cernan retired from the Navy and NASA in 1976 and later did television commentary for early space shuttle flights.

Pictured top: Cernan on the moon. Pictured bottom: Cernan in the lunar module of Apollo 17. NASA photos, click to enlarge.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under FEATURE TOP STORY, Features, News