Gene Cernan, last astronaut on the moon, dies at 82

Gene Cernan, last astronaut on the moon, dies at 82

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Former astronaut Gene Cernan, the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon who returned to Earth with a message of “peace and hope for all mankind,” has died. He was 82.

NASA announced that Cernan died Monday surrounded by his family. NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs confirmed the death but had no immediately details

Cernan, commander of NASA’s Apollo 17 mission, set foot on the lunar surface in December 1972 during his third space flight. He became the last person to walk on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972, tracing his only child’s initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own.

“Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make,” Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. “I didn’t want to go up. I wanted to stay a while.”