The American astronaut, Eugene Andrew Cernan, was born on 14th March 1934 in Chicago, where he grew up together with his parents, Andrew G. Cernan and Rose A. Cihlar and his sister Dolores Ann. His grandparents, on his father’s side, emigrated to the USA from the municipality of Vysoká nad Kysucou in 1903. His mother was of Czech ancestry. After he completed his secondary school studies, he joined Purdue University in Lafayette (Indiana). He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1956. In May 1961, he married Barbara J. Atchley and in June of the same year he began to attend the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey (California), from where he received a degree in aeronautical engineering in January 1964. He became a father in March 1963, when his daughter, Teresa “Tracy” Dawn, was born. Along with thirteen other candidates, he was selected to become a NASA astronaut on 17th October 1963.
Cernan travelled into space three times: in 1966 (3rd – 6th June) as part of the Gemini 9A mission and then in 1969 (18th – 26th May) when he took part in the Apollo 10 mission as the lunar module pilot. However, the mission where he made his greatest mark on history, and which he commanded, was Apollo 17. Cernan was also a backup crew member for the Gemini 12, Apollo 7 and Apollo 14 space missions. Apollo 17, which launched from Cape Kennedy on 7th December 1972, was the last manned mission to the Moon. Cernan and geologist Harrison H. Schmitt landed the lunar module Challenger in the Taurus-Littrow valley, that is situated on the south-eastern edge of the Sea of Serenity, on 11th December 1972. They left the lander three times and spent a record-breaking amount of time on the lunar surface (22 hours 3 minutes and 57 seconds). They also travelled more than 35 km in the LRV and collected more than 115 kg of samples of lunar regolith. Cernan also became the last of the twelve astronauts to leave a trace on the lunar surface and was the only one who flew to the Moon twice. Leaving the Moon on 14th December 1972, the pair of astronauts, together with the third member of the crew, Ronald E. Evans, who piloted the command module America on the lunar orbit, returned to Earth on 19th December 1972. Cernan ended his active career in the U.S. Navy and NASA on 1st July 1976. He divorced in 1981 and married again in 1987, to Janis E. Nanna, née Jones.
He was always proud of his origins and never forgot the homeland of his ancestors. He visited Slovakia three times, in 1974, 1994 and 2004. Eugene Andrew Cernan died on 16th January 2017 and was buried in the Housten National Cemetery (Texas).
Pavol Horňák
