NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Gene Cernan, NASA astronaut, aviator, and engineer who was part of Gemini 9A, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17, part 3 of 3

Well, you know, picking a landing site was not just simply saying, we want to go there. And of course, the geologist scientists had a major role in what the landing site was. But number one, we had to get there, dynamic. Our spacecraft propulsion and performance capability had a lot to get there. We had to consider a number of things in the flight dynamics realm that were complicated to me then and are still complicated to me today. But there were a lot of factors that went in and a lot of compromises that had to be made on both sides of the fence. Because there are places that people want us to go that were challenging enough that we might not have made it. How about moving around on the moon? Just tell me the physical experience being on the moon. I've had a lot of experience in zero gravity. And I'm one of those 12 guys who knows what one sixth gravity is, something other than

Earth gravity. And I will take one sixth gravity over anything, over zero gravity, over Earth gravity. A little gravity is far more important than gravity at all. It allows you to do things and go places and move around with a finesse that you can't do on Earth. And when you're encumbered with the spacesuit, you know, it's many, many layers in the backpack and all the equipment you got to carry. You take a 180 pound human being to turn them into a 300 pound monster. And on Earth it's almost impossible to move that way. You get on the moon and something up here says, if I want to go from here there, you don't take a step. You start leaping and leaps and bonds or skipping like you did when you're a kid or like a bunny rabbit. It's just, you get acclimated very, very quickly. The thing you have to remember is when it comes time to stop, when it comes time to change direction, you got to think ahead because if you don't prepare yourself to make that turn or prepare yourself to stop, which so, such a small amount of gravity holding you

down in your center of gravity being so hot, it's going to go end over T-cattle. And we did, I mean, and it scared me to death one time. I had to pull one of these cordials out of the subsurface of the moon and I was having problems, which is difficult, Jack says, I'll come over and help you and he comes over and grabs the whole other thing. I know thinking it would be very easy. We had a little small Jack and hit that Jack and he just rolled over a couple of three or four times. I might come into that, it was a science that worked on the moon, but it concerned me. I mean, at the time it happened to concern me because if he had punctured his suit, we would have been in deep trouble. We were, we were a long way from the lamb. We only had a certain amount of, you know, depends on the size of a hole, certain amount of oxygen that can keep bleeding through that hole and it would have shortened our, it would have shortened at best, would have shortened our lunar stay and at worst could have been catastrophic for Jack.

So we had to, we had to learn how to move with grace and with ease and with caution. But that came very, very quickly, very, very, the human being is a very adaptable creature. Um, excuse me, come for a second, I'm in the market. What's it like in the last day of the year? Someone of a dubious honor, disappointing, certainly an honor, certainly, I'm proud to have been in, it's a tag that I can't escape, you know, either the first or the last. I've always said if you're going to be in the last few months, this will be the best. I had a big hill acclimed to attain that honor, but it's disappointing because when we came back from Apollo 17 over 25 years ago, you know, I said, you know, this isn't the end, it's just the beginning and I truly believe that not only would we have been back to the moon by now, that we'd be on our way to Mars by the turn of the century and that's just not going to happen. Tell me about stepping off the lunar surface and what went through your mind. Well, you know, I knew long before we went that I was going to be a last guy to a left

of my footsteps on the moon and Neil said something so historical when he was on the first and the press kept saying, what are you going to say to your last man? What are you going to leave for posterity for history? Why not honestly, I didn't know and I really didn't know and I thought about it on the way to the moon and when we were on the surface, I didn't let it, it wasn't something I kept thinking about, but when I started walking up that ladder, I realized, hey, this is it. Somewhat of an nostalgic moment, you looked around, I looked back at the earth and realized I'm never going to be here again. Somebody will, but I'm not and I wanted to sort of leave a challenge for those who would follow and I wasn't sure what I was going to say until I said it quite frankly and I wanted to have our challenge, a challenge of Apollo, sort of have something to do with the destiny of those who follow, you know, here's the challenge, the doors open, the doors cracked, you now have the opportunity to go on from here and you know my exact words, we now leave as we once came and God willing as we shall return with peace and hope for

all mankind and may America's destiny of today be man's challenge of tomorrow and I think that's what it was. Those words came to me quite frankly as I was walking up the ladder. But what were the real last words on the moon? Well, it depends, you've got to define where you are when you're on a moon, are you on a moon, when you're a foot on a moon or are you on a moon when you're in the spacecraft? The last words the next morning, just before we were in the spacecraft, just before the spacecraft left the surface of the moon with Jack Schmidt and I in it, we had gone through our checklist and we're way ahead and you know, once you get, we were didn't want to leave quite yet, but once you get ready to leave, you're ready. About 10 seconds before we were to ignite the engine and lift off and run it with Ron Evans up there. You know, I looked over at Jack and said, you're ready and he said, yeah, and I said, okay, let's get this mother out of here. The last thing is, you look back at that capsule back there. I know it's special to you.

You look back at it one time and tell me what goes through your mind. I've, you know, I've looked at it many times and it's a part of my life, it's a part of American history, it's a part of, it's a part of a lot of things in yet. I know what happened, you know, it's not a dream. I was part of that. I went to the moon. It was really me. I guess the best way I can look, I can explain it is one of my best friends said, Gene, other people look at you differently than you look at yourself. And I suppose it's good because it's, I know I did it, I'm proud I did it, it's sometimes hard to believe I did it. Yes, and I do look up at the moon every once in a while, particularly with my grandkids. You know, it's Poppy's moon, you know, Poppy lived there, you know, all far away the moon is. And, you know, kindergarten class with your own grandkids is a little different than going to a first grade class with someone else's child. Now it's your grandkids.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's all real and I know it's real. And sometimes I, I just try and be the same person I was before I went to the moon. I, and I don't think I've changed. I think I've accepted the responsibility that goes with it. I, one of the biggest challenges is to give it back, is to share, is to inspire, to say we just, you know, truly Apollo 17 truly was just the beginning. I mean, and this today is still, is an old rattle track, but it's a monolith forward compared to what we're doing today. But, but the big difference is we went somewhere. This spacecraft took, took us to the moon, took civilization, took America to the moon, as, as obsolete as it is today. Computer technology, you know, we, we, our computer was this big. You can, you got more computer technology under the dashboard of your car than we had in that spacecraft to go to the moon. We did it, and we did it under some challenging times, and maybe we, maybe we wouldn't do it the same way if we did it again. We did it under duress, in some cases, we overcame adversity, we overcame the loss of,

of some of our colleagues, we, we bounced back after Apollo 13, where I think a lesser nation might have given up and said we've had enough, we've done it. I think it says something about the American spirit. And when I look at that spacecraft, it's as much a part of, of, of, of, of the space program as those human beings who had a chance to come back and talk and tell you about it. Great. Thank you very much. All right.