Apollo 17 Commander Capt. Gene Cernan Discusses Being THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON

Photo: M.Craig

Georges Méliès’ A TRIP TO THE MOON, APOLLO 13, THE RIGHT STUFF, HBO’s “From The Earth To The Moon.” Since the birth of cinema, audiences have been preoccupied with trips to our closest celestial body. Hollywood and NASA merge once again – this time to tell the story of Captain Gene Cernan in the documentary THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON.

This is the story of one of the very few men who went to the moon not only once, but twice.  He first went to the moon on the Apollo 10 mission.  It was the dress rehearsal for Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 landing on the Moon.  His next flight was Apollo 17, the last time men would go to the moon.  Riding aboard a Saturn V rocket, the largest and most powerful and impressive rocket that ever successfully flew, he was on man’s last mission to explore earth’s closest neighbor.  The first moon landing had one moonwalk which lasted a little over two hours.  He had three moonwalks, averaging around 6 hours each.  He drove an electric car on the moon, saw and recovered orange soil on the lunar surface, and stood next to lunar boulders that were larger than a house.

There is a small, elite club – with only 12 members.  These are the men who actually walked on the moon.  They were able to stand on the “ground” and with their own eyes, look up and see the earth.  He is one of them.

His first flight into space, aboard Gemini 9, gave him experience rendezvousing with target spacecraft.  The ‘Angry Alligator’ gave him practice with what he would need to know later on when docking with the lunar landing crafts “Snoopy” and “Challenger” for his Apollo missions.

Facts about Apollo 17

Crew
Eugene A. Cernan, Commander
Harrison H. Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot
Ronald E. Evans, Command Module Pilot

Launch
Dec. 7, 1972; 12:33 a.m. EST
Launch Pad 39A
Saturn-V SA-512

Landing
Dec. 19, 1972
Pacific Ocean
Recovery Ship: USS Ticonderoga

Apollo 17 hosted the first scientist-astronaut to land on moon: Harrison Schmitt.

The new documentary is from filmmaker Mark Craig and includes a powerful, emotional score from composer Lorne Balfe (13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI). Read Jim Batts’ review here.

Recently I spoke with Capt. Cernan about the documentary that gives an overall, detailed look at NASA, the space program and his voyage to the Moon.

WAMG: When were you first approached about the documentary and telling your story?

Capt. Gene Cernan:  I wrote a personal book about what it’s like to be in space answering questions such as “Were you scared?” “What did it feel like?”.  In the book I wanted to give back something in terms of sharing what I was able to do with everyone. I’ve taken people where I’ve been – the spacewalk, the surface of the moon – so at first I didn’t want to do a documentary.  I mean, who really cares about a movie about me? Finally between the producer and director, who both read my book, said, “Gene, the story of your life has got to be available to kids who are 10 to 20 years old.” Then another friend of mine said, “Gene, it’s not about you, it’s about the story.”

I was a young kid from Anytown USA, a kid born during World War II with a dream about flying and becoming a naval aviator. It gave me the opportunity to eventually go to the Moon. It’s the story itself.

WAMG: The film, which contains some great archival footage, is such a personal story. We hear from your friends, colleagues, wife and especially your daughter.

Capt. Gene Cernan:  It’s not about me, it’s about this kid who had friends and a family and grandkids and what he did to get to the Moon. What he believed in.

WAMG: You were the last man on the Moon and that in itself carries so much weight. There have only been a handful of you who have walked on the Moon.

Capt. Gene Cernan:  We’re losing some of my colleagues at this stage in our lives. I need to leave something that will inspire kids to do the same thing. Something they didn’t think they were good enough to do.

WAMG: How did you prepare for Apollo 17?

Capt. Gene Cernan:  I had flown three times. My first flight was Gemini and it only relates to Apollo because it taught us the things we needed to know for going to the Moon. I went to the Moon with Apollo 10 and the lunar landing, we did everything it took to get there and started our descent except for the landing itself.

Neil Armstrong was a good friend of mine and I used to kid him about painting a white line in the sky so we wouldn’t get lost. Every flight is a first flight, I’m not going to tell you it was routine and Apollo 17 was a real challenge. That last 47,000 feet is what really makes the difference.

WAMG: Who came up with the names “Challenger” and “America” for the LM (lunar module) and CSM (command and service module) for Apollo 17?

Capt. Gene Cernan: Being the commander you carry a little weight and my command module pilot was a Naval Aviator (Ronald E. Evans) and the guy I walked the Moon with was non-military, a geologist (Harrison H. Schmitt), and I wanted to go back and pick up a piece of Naval history. “Challenger” is an old historical boat and there’s a lot of history in the Navy. We wanted to recognize the country and our patch reflects that.

We couldn’t do this by ourselves – we had several hundreds of thousands of people with us in that spacecraft, who spent their lives putting the wires and nuts and bolts together and spiritually took that trip with us! We wanted to say thank you. This is where America came from and it’s us who went to the Moon, not somebody else.

WAMG: Tell me about your experiences with NASA icons Chris Kraft and Gene Krantz.

Capt. Gene Cernan: They’re both great. Chris is a very unique person. It’s not enough to say they are both capable. We had Chris Kraft, we had Gene Krantz, as well as Glynn Lunney and Gerry Griffin, we had the whole team in Mission Control – those are some of the unsung heroes. You go back to Apollo 13 and the guys who recognized and helped solved the problem, were all in Mission Control.

When we started this trip to the Moon the average age was only 26 years old.  We got to know those guys really well and we needed to! We worked with them, we trained with them because they were going to help us if we got into trouble and make the decisions that had to be made. Krantz, Kraft, Lunney and Griffin – those were some of the principals I worked with on my flight.

The thing about Kraft – he recognized talent. When he promoted someone into the position of Flight Director, like Krantz, Lunney and Griffin, he empowered them to make decisions and its one of his greatest assets. All the Flight Directors were pretty damn good.

WAMG: Was a bronze plaque left on the Moon with the names of all the space explorers – both American and Russian?

Capt. Gene Cernan: Apollo 15 left a plaque with all the names of the American Astronauts and the Russian Cosmonauts, who up until that time, lost and gave their lives to help us get where we got. Someone asks how long will that be there, and how long will your daughter’s initials be there that I left there and how long will the flag stand on the Moon, my answer to that is forever. There’s nothing on the Moon except cosmic radiation that has to honor what’s there.

WAMG: There are no plans to go back to the Moon anytime soon. What are your thoughts on today’s Space Program?

Capt. Gene Cernan: Think about it. 43 years ago this past December I was walking on the Moon. Here we are today, over four decades later, and we don’t even have a spacecraft that will take us to our own orbiting laboratory at the International Space Station. I don’t think that’s what President Kennedy had in mind back in 1961. It’s disappointing.

Listen to what Cernan has to say on the next Giant Leap to our neighbor, Mars.

Playing now in select cities, THE LAST MAN ON THE MOON is available via iTunes and other streaming services.

For theater screenings: http://thelastmanonthemoon.com/screenings … and On Demand on iTunes: http://apple.co/1SoY3KQ  – Google Play: http://bit.ly/1T60gef  – Amazon: http://amzn.to/1T60hik  – Microsoft Store (Xbox 360): http://bit.ly/1QjUK47  – VUDU: http://bit.ly/1QpSABk  – YouTube: http://bit.ly/1XXMucU

For more on the mission, visit NASA’s page: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo17.html