via Scientific American
U.S. astronaut Gene Cernan, who as the commander of the final Apollo lunar landing mission in 1972 became known as the "last man on the moon," died on Monday (Jan. 16). He was 82.Make sure you read the entire article here, what I find mind blowing is that crazy, dangerous, Murphy was out to get him with the long knives space walk that CAPT Cernan went on.
NASA confirmed Cernan's death on its website and social media channels, noting he was surrounded by his family at the time he died. The cause of death was not stated, but he was known to have been ill in recent months.
"We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon," NASA wrote. "A captain in the U.S. Navy, [he] left his mark on the history of exploration by flying three times in space, twice to the moon." [In Pictures: Astronaut Eugene Cernan Remembered]
Cernan was chosen with NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963. His first spaceflight, Gemini 9A, came three years later, after he and Thomas Stafford replaced Elliot See and Charles Bassett in the wake of a jet crash that claimed the original crew members' lives.
As the pilot of NASA's seventh Gemini Flight — a three-day mission in Earth orbit that rendezvoused but failed to dock with an unmanned target vehicle, Cernan became only the second American astronaut to go out on an extra-vehicular activity (EVA). The two-hour spacewalk though, nearly cost him his life.
This is another man of an earlier generation that had the right stuff and of the type that our nation will miss.
Oh and besides being an astronaut he was a Naval Aviator.
We're living in weird times. I see so many so called "leaders" that are well past their sell by date that are holding onto whatever power and influence they have with both hands while others that are/were truly accomplished have simply faded into the background.
2017 looks to be picking up right where 2016 left off.
