Evans, Ronald Ellwin (1933-1990), a United States astronaut, piloted the command module on the Apollo 17 mission. This 12-day mission in December 1972 was the last flight of the Apollo program.
Evans orbited the moon while astronauts Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt spent 75 hours on the lunar surface. Evans operated cameras and other instruments that recorded scientific information about the moon and space.
Evans was born in St. Francis, Kansas, on Nov. 10, 1933. In 1956, he graduated from the University of Kansas and received a commission in the U.S. Navy. In 1964, Evans earned a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School. In 1966, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) chose Evans to be an astronaut. After Apollo 17, Evans was a member of the backup crew for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (1975), the first joint mission of U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts. After he left NASA in 1977, Evans entered private business. He became director of marketing for Sperry Flight Systems, a company that made aircraft navigation systems. He died on April 6, 1990.
