For a lot of obvious reasons, the U.S. is filled with space enthusiasts. Most space enthusiasts, you’ll find, have a favorite mission. For many, it’s Mercury-Atlas 6, John Glenn’s orbital flight. For many it’s Gemini 4, when Ed Young made the first American Spacewalk, or Gemini 6, the first ever space rendezvous. For most, perhaps, it’s Apollo 11. Apollo 13 has it’s own cult following, as does STS-1, the first Space Shuttle flight. For me, it’s Apollo 17.
Apollo 17 was the perfect moon landing. Needless to say, the Apollo program was remarkably successful—7 attempted moon landings, 6 successes, and no fatalities after the tragic launch-pad fire that killed the crew of Apollo 1. The Apollo program was the greatest engineering feat in history, the greatest feat of exploration and arguably the greatest feat of science. Nonetheless, every one of the moon mission was either nearly aborted due to a critical malfunction (Apollos 11, 14 and 16), or saw the near-fatality of a crewman (Apollos 12, 13 and 15). But not 17; 17 was perfect. The biggest problem Apollo 17 faced was the loss of a pair of scissors, which delayed dinner for Command Module pilot Ron Evans as he orbited 60 miles above the Lunar surface.
Things went well right off the bat. The Palestinian terror organization Black September threatened to murder or kidnap the Apollo 17 crew or their families; those threats were thwarted. A computer glitch was detected and fixed shortly before the mission’s Saturn V firing sequence began. The launch—the only nighttime Apollo launch—went off without a hitch, as did the flight to the moon, as did the landing on the Moon’s surface. Apollo 17’s moonwalks were longer and broader than than those of any other mission, and for the only time during the Apollo program, they featured a professional geologist: Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, PhD. Schmitt was joined on the surface by his mission commander, Eugene Cernan. Cernan exited the Lunar Module after Schmitt and go back in after him; consequently, he holds the record for most time spent moon-walking. He was also the last man to walk on the moon’s surface, and the pilot of the most difficult moon landing—into the narrow lunar valley of Taurus-Littrow. He also shares the records for most trips to the moon: two, on Apollos 17 and 10 (which didn’t land), and for the highest speed ever achieved by a human being, during Apollo 10’s reentry into the earth’s atmosphere.
He was a hell of a man; he died this past Wednesday.
Besides his moon credentials, Gene Cernan a navy pilot with a masters in aeronautical engineering, more than 5,000 flight hours and 200 carrier landings. He was also a spacewalker on the Gemini 9 mission. After his retirement, he joined Neil Armstrong and John Lovell (of Apollos 8 and 13) in vigorously opposing President Obama’s cancellation of the Bush moon program. No column eulogizing his life could possibly cover its remarkable breadth; if that’s what you’re looking for, I strongly suggest you read his memoir, “The Last Man on the Moon.” Instead of a heavily abridged biography, here’s one story about Cernan on the ground that I think sums up his character pretty well:
The Apollo missions were supposed to run to at least Apollo 20. Congressional budget cuts eliminated Apollos 19 and 20, and then later, Apollo 18 too. Apollo 18 already had a tentative crew picked; it would be the mission that finally sent a geologist to the moon. Apollo 17 also, tentatively, had a crew selected: Ron Evans would orbit the moon in the Command Module, Gene Cernan and Joe Engle would walk on the moon’s surface. Crew selection was the responsibility of Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury astronauts and head of the Astronaut Office. When Apollo 18 was cancelled, it fell to Deke to choose between the two crews he had assembled: Cernan’s crew, which was next in line, or Dick Gordon’s Apollo 18 crew, which included geologist Jack Schmitt. It was a head scratcher.
Gene Cernan—if given the nod—would be the mission commander, and would fly the Lunar Module down to the moon’s surface. Like all mission commanders, he practiced the lunar descent by flying a helicopter, to get his eye in for vertical movement. As Deke scratched his head choosing a flight crew, Cernan crashed his helicopter into the Indian River, west of Cape Canaveral. Cernan was flying low—too low; absurdly low—and dipped his left helicopter skid into the water. In his memoir, he says he was showing off for sunbathers on a nearby beach.
“I crashed with a spectacular explosion. Spinning rotor blades shredded the water, then ripped apart and cartwheeled away in jagged fragments. The big transmission behind me tore free and bounced like a steel ball for a hundred yards before going down. The lattice like tail boom broke off and skittered away in ever-smaller pieces, the Plexiglas canopy surrounding me disintegrated, one of the gas tanks blew up, and what remained of the demolished chopper, with me strapped inside, sank like a rock … I recall settling to the bottom, my hands still clutching the controls, still trying to fly the thing. Fortunately, the chopper had not flipped over and I was sitting upright, harnessed securely to the seat, and had not been pinned by the crumbling wreckage or the twisted steel panel of dials near my knees … Not realizing the canopy around me had vanished, I undid my buckles and leaned towards where the side hatch should have been. Nothing was there … Moving in slow motion as my flight suit and combat boots grew heavy with water, I stepped through the empty space and was free of the helicopter. I pushed off the bottom and swam of the surface, my lungs screaming for air.
“The whole river seemed ablaze as I bobbed up in the midst of hellfire and brimstone. The hottest flames I had ever felt burned all around me and the inferno’s incredible heat singed my eyebrows and face. When I tried to gulp air, I swallowed fire.”
Cernan dove under the flames and swam to shore, where he watched his hopes of walking on the moon sink with the remains of his helicopter. A passing police-car took Cernan to a nearby air force base for a medical check. He was remarkably in tact, suffering just scrapes, bruises and minor burns. From there, he went back to Cape Canaveral to face the music. Deke Slayton was waiting for him.
Deke was mad, but he was also a perennial class act; he knew Cernan had served his country honorably for years, and didn’t want to see him dragged through the mud (however much he might have deserved it). When he saw Cernan, instead of asking how he could possibly have done something so stupid, he gave Cernan a chance to cover himself. Deke asked, “So, exactly when did the engine quit on you?”
All Cernan had to do was agree that the machine had failed, not him, and that would be the end of it. But—as Deke confirms in his own autobiography—Cernan steadfastly refused to cop out. He told Deke, “the engine didn’t quit. I just flew the son-of-a-bitch into the water.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me right, Geno” said Deke. “Exactly when did the engine start to sputter?”
“Like I said Deke,” said Cernan again, “It didn’t quit, I just screwed up.”
“Well, if that’s the way you want it,” said Deke.
“That’s the way it happened,” said Cernan. Deke told him to go get cleaned up and call his wife. Cernan confided to his wife that his Apollo career was over: “I’ve blown it.” But as it turned out, he hadn’t. Deke was so impressed by the way that Cernan had manned up that Deke sent him to the moon. Cernan repaid his confidence by commanding the perfect moon mission; the mission where we finally got everything right. And, in the process, left the final footprint in the lunar regolith.
Gene Cernan: Space traveller, moon walker, American hero, man’s man and mensch, dead at 82. May his memory be a blessing.
