Cernan

Personal data:

Birthdate:  14.03.1934 Birthplace:  Chicago / Illinois Marital status:  married with Jan Nanna Children:  one Selection date:  17.10.1963 Selection group:  NASA-3 Job:  CDR Status:  Ret. 01.07.1976 Date of death:  16 Jan 2017 Age:  83 yr Place of death:  Houston : Texas

Spaceflights:

EVA′s:

Backup assignments:

Additional information

• Bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Purdue University, 1956; master of science in aeronautical engineering from U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; recipient of four Honorary doctorates;
• Elected at the age of 29 in NASA′s 1963 astronaut selection, only the third group to be chosen in the young history of Americas civilian space agency, over the next nine years Gene Cernan went on to make three space flights, all of them heroic endeavours that pushed capabilities and achievements beyond normal limits. Of the 14 men selected in group 3, four would die in training for space flights they were never able to make, only five went to the Moon, either around it or on its surface. Only two - Dave Scott and Gene Cernan - commanded lunar landing missions and of that group Cernan was the only one to make two flights to the Moon.
• Cernan′s first mission was Gemini 9A, launched on 3 June 1966 and NASA′s second spacewalking flight, planned as a test of the US Air Force Astronaut Manoeuvring Unit (AMU). installed in the back of the spacecraft launch vehicle adapter it was to have allowed Cernan to conduct a tethered flight under the control of thrusters attached to the back-pack. But with a wallowing tether and with no hand holds or restraints, Cernan found it difficult to get to the back of the spacecraft. Fighting exhaustion and over-heating, Cernan struggled to position himself in weightlessness, fighting the floating movement of his body while trying to carefully back in to the AMU. lnadequate cooling and the build-up of perspiration fogged his visor and turned his electrically wired suit into a streaming sauna. With a heart rate approaching 200 beats a minute, Cernan used his nose to rub a clear patch on the inside of his visor. Exhausted and unable to complete the task he struggled to find his way back to the open hatch where commander Tom Stafford ended the attempt, concluding a 2 hour 7 min EVA, using a water pistol to refresh his swollen face overcome with heat and sweat. From these difficulties came a major programme to improve the positioning of waist tethers, restraints, foot holds and straps that would mature the feat of spacewalking into the successful practice it is today.
• Less than three years later, in May 1969 Cernan was again with Tom Stafford conducting a rehearsal of the landing mission aboard the Apollo 10 Lunar Module "Snoopy", down to an altitude of 14,300 metres above the Moon where, on a landing flight, terminal descent would commence with firing of the main engine on the Descent Stage. But "Snoopy" was a little too heavy for any safety margins and with three more launch slots available before the end of the decade, the mission was more about verifying all the complex procedures of working with two spacecraft around the Moon than seizing glory.
• Two years and seven months later, in December 1972 on a mission postponed by Richard Nixon who was paranoid about the last Moon landing being a disaster before his re-election bid that November, Gene Cernan commanded the final manned lunar mission of the century. With fellow Moonwalker Harrison H. Schmitt, a professional geologist, Cernan explored the valley of Taurus-Littrow with a Lunar Roving Vehicle which carried them further than on any of the preceding missions to the surface. When Cernan left, his voice breaking under the emotion, he appealed to a world far away in space to continue the journey, to carry the flag of exploration and to maintain the spirit of peaceful exploration which had already inspired more than one generation to do great things, achieve distant goals, stretch to exceed the possible and reach toward the future. For Gene Cernan, returning from the Moon had bitter reflection: "l can always walk on Main Street again, but l can never return to my Valley of Taurus-Littrow, and that cold fact has left me with a yearning restlessness. lt was perhaps the brightest moment of my life, and l can't go back."
• Gene Cernan lived those motivating aspirations, spending the next 44 years working tirelessly to bring a sense of hope to young and old alike, raising expectations and stirring the emotional connection between the things that are dreamed of and things that are done. Never overwhelmed by his own achievements, Cernan had a deeply philosophical view of the awesome task remaining for humanity: "Out here", he said when speaking from deep space, "confronting a foreign and hostile environment, where there was no horizon, no up and down, and where speed and time take on new meaning, we not only didn′t know the answers - we didn′t even know the questions."
• He resigned from NASA on 01.07.1976 to found his own firm, the Cernan Corporation; later he works as Director of Marketing Development, Digital Equipment Corporation in Houston, Texas.