Olds64

I saw that this was just posted yesterday.


It's too bad we haven't been back since the 70s.

scottv442

Rest in Peace Gene

jaunty75

I saw this headline yesterday, and I was confused at first. I though it meant that Cernan was the last living astronaut to walk on the moon. But by "last," they mean most recent. Cernan was part of Apollo 17, the last moon mission, and he was the second of the two astronauts (the other being Harrison Schmitt) to climb the ladder into the lunar module before they departed the moon.

With the passing of Cernan, of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon, six are still alive. Harrison Schmitt is among them, so while the last person to walk on the moon is now gone, the second last person to walk on the moon is still with us.

I'm not sure I'd call it "the end of an era" just yet. When all 12 astronauts who walked on the moon are gone, THAT will be the end of an era.

oldcutlass

RIP Gene Cernan.

Olds64

I wasn't aware there were 6 remaining astronauts who had walked on the moon.

jensenracing77

I believe that him and his other two crew members are still the fastest men ever. I was told it is a record that will not likely ever be beaten till a return trip from Mars? Not sure if this is true but I can't find anything about it with Google.

Just found it. It was on Apollo 10

jaunty75

Yes, there are still six living moon-walkers. They're all in their 80s now.

Buzz Aldrin (86) - Apollo 11
Alan Bean (84) - Apollo 12
Charles Duke (81) - Apollo 16
Harrison Schmitt (81) - Apollo 17
David Scott (84) - Apollo 15
John Young (86) - Apollo 16


The six who are no longer with us.

Neil Armstrong (died 2012 age 82) - Apollo 11
Eugene Cernan (died 2017 age 82) - Apollo 17
Pete Conrad (died 1999 age 69) - Apollo 12
James Irwin (died 1991 age 61) - Apollo 15
Edgar Mitchell (died 2016 age 85) - Apollo 14
Alan Shepard (died 1998 age 74) - Apollo 14


Out of all of these men, Alan Shepard was the oldest.


Three men were supposed to walk on the moon on Apollo 13, and two of them are still alive.

James Lovell (88)
Jack Swigart (died 1982 age 51 - of cancer)
Fred Haise (83)

Olds64

Very cool info. Thanks for sharing. I thought briefly about Googling who had walked on the moon when I saw the video, but I was too lazy.

TripDeuces

One of the men on Apollo 13 would not have walked on the moon as he would have been the command module pilot and remained aloft orbiting. Just to clarify, Swigert was the command module pilot and would have never set foot on the moon.

jaunty75

Good point! My mistake.

It would be worth acknowledging the six astronauts who took part in these missions but whose job it was to stay in the command module and orbit the moon while the other two were down on the surface having all the fun. Four of them are still alive.


Apollo 11 - Michael Collins (86)
Apollo 12 - Richard Gordon (87)
Apollo 14 - Stuart Roosa (died 1994 from inflammation of the pancreas at age 61)
Apollo 15 - Alfred Worden (84)
Apollo 16 - Ken Mattingly (80)
Apollo 17 - Ronald Evans (died 1990 of a heart attack at age 56)

oldcutlass

It was an exciting era, we need to get our space program going again. So much technology came out of it to the private sector.

Olds64

x2

I wish our politicians saw the importance of investing in science even though there isn't a "bad guy" anymore like the Soviet Union was during the Cold War.

TripDeuces

I remember being in grade school and they would roll out the TV for every launch and splash down. Was very exciting.

jaunty75

In one sense the space program has never really stopped. We had the shuttles and then the space station, which is still there. NASA has been very busy sending unmanned probes everywhere (Earth itself, the Moon, the sun, Mars, asteroids, comets, recent flyby of Pluto).

The next step for manned flight that everyone talks about is Mars. We hear occasionally that the Chinese plan manned missions to the Moon. We'll see if that ever happens. I watched that series "Mars" on the National Geographic Channel last fall, and that was pretty interesting.

But, as many people have said, going to Mars is nothing like going to the Moon. Enormously expensive and VERY risky. I think the latter point will be the most difficult to overcome. I think the odds would FAVOR that the astronauts would die on the first attempt to go to Mars. A zillion things could go wrong, and there is no way to rescue them. Getting the Apollo 13 astronauts back safely was a cake-walk compared to what would be needed to save any imperiled Mars astronauts.

I'm sure we could get volunteers for a Mars trip in spite of the risks, but is the general public ready for the risks involved? That's the hard sell. I think the astronauts would have to accept the idea that they would likely never return to Earth. If they didn't die en-route or in attempting to land on Mars and were successful in setting up a base, they would likely live out their lives there. Again, I'm thinking that people would volunteer for a mission like this knowing they would likely never see Earth again.

Going to Mars would be an entirely different universe in terms of risks and expense compared to going to the Moon.

Koda

Mars will also take a long time. Orbital mechanics are interesting, and you often have to burn at the bottom of the orbit to affect your place at the top, and vice versa. The problem is, even if the Earth and Mars were aligned for such a thing, you are talking about a year to get there, and a year to get back. This isn't 3 days to the moon, zero G, **** in a bag stuff, this is like flying the space station there and back.

I am sure we could get volunteers to go to Mars, but, you need the right people to volunteer. Engineers and scientists and doctors, who also have great physical and mental fortitude, and who can stand each others' company. Most of the people saying they'd volunteer for going to Mars are snowflake barista millenial idiots.

Olds64

LoL

joe_padavano

Sadly, at the rate we're going, he's likely to be the last American to walk on the moon in my lifetime.

It took us less than a decade to get to the moon the first time, but we haven't been able to duplicate that in nearly half a century. Pretty sad.