Eugene Cernan, Last Man to Walk on Moon, Dies at 82

HOUSTON, TX — He was a daredevil test pilot with a fighter's competitive personality, and he was also a leader. Eugene Cernan, who commanded the NASA Apollo 17 mission, died on Monday in Houston. NASA announced his passing.

"The Challenger has landed," Cernan said to the world when the mission successfully reached the moon, in 1972. "I’d like to dedicate the first step of Apollo 17 to all those who made it possible." During the mission, he scratched the letters "TDC" in lunar dust, the initials of his daughter, Teresa Dawn Cernan. In all, Cernan spent 73 hours on the surface of the moon, a NASA record, and 566 hours in space, also a record.

Cernan was the last human to walk on the moon and one of only 12 Americans to stand on its surface. He was born in Chicago on March 14, 1934, the son of the former Rose Cihlar and Andrew Cernan, a supervisor at a naval installation. He graduated from Proviso Township High School in Maywood, Ill., in 1952, and earned an electrical engineering degree from Purdue in 1956 and a master’s in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., in 1963. He logged 5,000 hours of flying time and 200 landings on carriers during his Navy career. He is survived by his second wife, Jan Nanna, his daughter, Teresa Cernan Woolie, two stepdaughters, nine grandchildren, and his sister, Dolores Riley.

Cernan, who lived in the Piney Point section of Houston, had an active life after his astronaut days. He wrote an autobiography entitled "The Last Man on the Moon" that was published in 1999 and served as a space analyst on ABC.

These were Cernan's words as he left the moon for the final time: " ... America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow," he said. "And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

— Images courtesy NASA