The Last Man on the Moon Quotes

“Enriched by a singular event that is larger than life, I no longer have the luxury of being ordinary. To stand on the lunar surface and look back at our Earth creates such a personal sense of awe that even Alan Shepard wept at the view. Trying to exist within the paradox of being in this world after visiting another may be why some Moon voyagers tend to be reclusive.”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“our curiosity as a species will not allow us to remain locked to our home planet much longer. Humankind must explore, for we want to learn what lies over the hill or around the corner. Inspiration, sweat, challenges, and dreams got us to the Moon and they will get us to Mars and beyond. It is our destiny.”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“On many a Friday night, coming home from a week-long training mission in a T-38 just like the one I was in now, Roger and I would buzz our houses just before turning sharply left, dropping the gear and landing at Ellington Air Force Base. From as far as San Antonio, we would point the needle nose of our plane directly at the driveway separating our houses and roar over Barbuda Lane, shaking the shingles and rattling the dishes at 600 knots. The noisy message let our wives (and neighbors) know that we would be home soon. We would land, jump into our cars, and race down the two-lane Old Galveston Highway, through the single stoplight in the town of Webster at eighty miles per hour and screech up to our houses in less than ten minutes. It was all somewhat illegal, but what the hell, we were astronauts!”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“I spent years searching for the Next Big Thing to replace my grand Moon adventure, constantly asking myself, Where now, Columbus? I realize that other people look at me differently than I look at myself, for I am one of only twelve human beings to have stood on the Moon. I have come to accept that, and the enormous responsibility it carries, but as for finding a suitable encore, nothing has ever come close. *”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Enriched by a singular event that is larger than life, I no longer have the luxury of being ordinary. To stand on the lunar surface and look back at our Earth creates such a personal sense of awe that even Alan Shepard wept at the view. Trying to exist within the paradox of being in this world after visiting another may be why some Moon voyagers tend to be reclusive. I”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Black September.”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“My task to keep everyone focused wasn’t easy. A cartoonist pictured two workers in hard hats on a scaffold, one about to jump, holding a notice that he had been fired. The other guy was on a telephone, asking: “Can we get Gene Cernan up here to give Smith that ‘It’s not the end, it’s the beginning’ speech again?” There were a lot of Smiths out there, for some 13,000 Cape workers had lost their jobs over the past several years, and another 900 would get pink slips as soon as we blasted off. Many of the Grumman troops literally worked themselves into unemployment when our lunar module went out the door at Bethpage, and more would be gone at the moment of liftoff. But during one visit there, a supervisor told me, “We’re giving you our heart and soul on this one, Geno. This is the best LM that’s ever gonna fly.” That”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Television networks were getting tight with free broadcast time because pictures of guys floating in zero gravity and bunny-hopping around on the Moon were not competing well with soap powder, beer and toothpaste advertisements.”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Mommy,” she asked, “Is Daddy on the Moon yet?” *”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Colorless NASA technocrats never liked personalizing spacecraft with names. Imagination wasn’t their strong point, and they decreed that the mission of Saturn rocket number 205 and Command Module 101 (it would not carry an LM) would be known as Apollo 7. The United States was ready to fly again. Throughout”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Stafford, John Young … and me. *”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Get your … uh … selves into space”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Therefore, the NASA thinkers came up with the idea of beating them to the punch by sending Gemini 12 around the Moon, if all tests were successful through the first eleven missions. The last five Gemini flight plans already included docking with an Agena rocket, which would go into orbit first. So our engineers figured they could soup up the thrust of the Agena enough to give the final Gemini mission a deep-space capability. In this theory, when Gemini 12 reached orbit and docked with the improved Agena, the bigger rocket engine would provide enough kick to throw the spacecraft onto a course that would result in a single loop around the far side of the Moon. They counted on the slingshot effect of lunar gravity to fling the spacecraft back toward Earth for our reentry. People were seriously considering sending Tom Stafford and me around the Moon! Looking back, I’m glad they came to their senses and recognized a really bad idea when they had one. We weren’t anywhere near being ready to send a crew on a journey of half a million miles. *”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“With the blessing of NASA and the White House, the publishers had made the deal to pay the Original Seven an astounding total of 500,000 dollars, to be split equally and spread over several years, a fortune in those days. When the Next Nine came aboard, the pie was cut into thinner pieces, but was still a chunk of money. And when we joined the team, the funding was again reapportioned in equal shares and each of us received 16,250 dollars each year. On top of being astronauts, now we were rich!”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Purdue eventually would be able to list among its alumni both the first and the last men to walk on the Moon.”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“and still suffer the annual heartbreak of watching the Cubs fold, because they haven’t won a pennant since.”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure

“Our Lady of Loreto,”
― Eugene Cernan, The Last Man on the Moon: One Man's Part in Mankind's Greatest Adventure