Eugene "Gene" Cernan is one of only three men to have gone to the Moon twice, the other two being Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13) and John Young (Apollo 10 and 16). Cernan was the second US astronaut to walk in space, the senior negotiator on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project; the commander of the first manned mission to launch after sunset, Apollo 17, which was the longest manned lunar landing flight at 301h 51min and had the longest lunar surface extra-vehicular activity at 22h 6min. Cernan, to date, is also the last man to have walked on the Moon.
When Cernan spoke to Flight about his work with NASA on its return to the Moon Constellation programme in Houston, Texas in December 2006 he was only being asked to contribute to lunar mission related medical issues but since then he has been contributing to the work of the US space agency's lunar lander team. Cernan was lunar module pilot for Apollo 10 and flew the lunar module of Apollo 17 as its mission commander. See his comments, praising and criticising, the ideas of NASA's new lunar lander project engineers here. Cernan spoke exclusively to Flight about his work now for Bombardier, his love of aviation and his time as an astronaut at the Autographica event in London on 12 October.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
