Cernan, Eugene Andrew (1934-2017), a United States astronaut , commanded the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972. This mission was the final moon landing of the Apollo program. Cernan and astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt stayed on the moon for 75 hours while Ronald E. Evans , the third member of the Apollo 17 crew, remained in lunar orbit .
Cernan was born in Chicago and graduated from Purdue University in 1956. He became a naval officer after graduation. In 1963, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (NASA) chose him to be an astronaut. That same year, he received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey , California.
Cernan made two space flights before the Apollo 17 mission. In June 1966, he and Thomas P. Stafford flew the Gemini 9 mission. In May 1969, Cernan, Stafford, and John W. Young carried out the Apollo 10 mission. Cernan also served as a negotiator on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (1975), the first joint mission of U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts. He entered private business after retiring from the Navy and NASA in 1976. Cernan was the coauthor of a book, The Last Man on the Moon (1999), that describes his experiences as an astronaut. He died on Jan. 16, 2017.
