Former US astronaut Eugene "Gene" Cernan has died, according to the US space agency NASA. The ex-naval officer made three trips into space, including two to the moon.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
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Cernan died on Monday surrounded by his family, according to a press release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He was 82.
The former naval officer had the distinction of being the commander of the last human mission to the moon in December 1972. Prior to that, he had made two trips into outer space: One in 1966, when he piloted the Gemini 9 mission for a three-day flight, and one in 1969, when he served as Apollo 10's lunar module pilot.
As part of the latter mission, Cernan helped test the Apollo lunar lander in preparation for the first manned moon landing, by the Apollo 11 that same year. "I keep telling Neil Armstrong that we painted that white line in the sky all the way to the Moon down to 47,000 feet so he wouldn't get lost, and all he had to do was land. Made it sort of easy for him," Cernan said in an interview for an oral history of NASA, according to the press release.
Last man on the moon
As part of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, Cernan spent more than three days on the moon, investigating nearby craters and the Taurus-Littrow mountains. Upon leaving the moon, Cernan said: "America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. As we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind."
The Apollo 17 crew is also notable for having taken one of the most iconic photos of Earth, a full view of the planet showing Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the South Pole.
Cernan was born on March 14, 1934. After retiring from the Navy and ending his NASA career in 1976, he went into private business and became a television commentator.
Space station Mir - memories of a legend in orbit
Twenty years ago, Russia decided to take its first space station Mir – meaning both "world" and "peace" – out of commission. It was in service for 15 years housing cosmonauts from the East and astronauts from the West.
Image: NASA
A Soviet outpost
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union decided to build the first permanently inhabited space station. For Moscow, this meant winning back ground that was lost in the space race with the US. From 1986 on, Mir circled the Earth for 15 years. On January 5, 2001, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed the order to let the space station drop into the Pacific.
Image: NASA
Breaking the ice between East and West
After the end of the Cold War, the future belonged to the International Space Station (ISS). But cross-country collaboration in space had its start on the Mir. The first western astronaut to visit was the French Jean-Loup Chretien in 1988. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, even US Space shuttles like Atlantis (pictured here) began traveling to the station. Four Germans spent time on Mir as well.
Image: Imago/ITAR-TASS
Many visitors
More than 100 astronauts and cosmonauts from all over the world spent time on the Soviet space station. One of the Germans was the astronaut Reinhold Ewald (above, top row, second from the right). A Soyuz space ship took him to the Mir in 1997. A fire broke out during his stay, but fortunately the crew managed to put it out quickly.
Image: DLR German Aerospace Center
Not everything went as planned
The crews on space station Mir had to cope with numerous technical failures and accidents. Once, liquids came out of a cooling system. Another time the board computer suffered a black out. A progress supply ship even crashed into the solar panels. Ewald took the accidents with an astronaut's spirit: "A space station is not a business lounge with cozy armchairs," he once said.
Image: NASA
A fossile in space
The US, which contributed to maintaining the space station after the collapse of the Soviet Union, pushed for a new International Space Station (ISS). Construction of the successor started in 1998. At the same time, Mir was gradually taken apart. After 15 years in orbit and 86,000 flights around the globe, the project came to an end.
Image: Imago/ITAR-TASS
What goes up must come down
Mir was a milestone in human space travel and international cooperation in space. "Without the experience of Mir, we would still be just at the beginning," German astronaut Thomas Reiter said. In March 2001, the last fragments of the space station burned up in the atmosphere above the South Pacific, the last intact pieces crashing into the ocean.
