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from the May-the-spirit-of-peace-in-which-we-came-be-reflected-in-the-lives-of-all-mankind dept.
Former astronaut Gene Cernan, the last person to walk on the moon who returned to Earth with a message of "peace and hope for all mankind," died on Monday in Texas following ongoing heath issues, his family said. He was 82.
Cernan was with his relatives when he died at a Houston hospital, family spokeswoman Melissa Wren told The Associated Press. His family said his devotion to lunar exploration never waned.
"Even at the age of 82, Gene was passionate about sharing his desire to see the continued human exploration of space and encouraged our nation's leaders and young people to not let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon," his family said in a statement released by NASA.
Cernan was commander of NASA's Apollo 17 mission and on his third space flight when he set foot on the lunar surface in December 1972. He became the last of only a dozen men to walk on the moon on Dec. 14, 1972 — tracing his only child's initials in the dust before climbing the ladder of the lunar module the last time. It was a moment that forever defined him in both the public eye and his own.
"Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make," Cernan recalled in a 2007 oral history. "I didn't want to go up. I wanted to stay a while."
Source: ABCNews
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 17 2017, @01:48PM
Individuals might care if they live on Mars.
People might not have to care at all if space travel costs decline. That means we need reusable rockets, hybrid spaceplanes (SABRE/SKYLON), or new types of propulsion (fusion rockets, EmDrive) at a minimum.
Things are not so bad. Ion engines have allowed for a lot of interesting robotic exploration missions in recent years. We've revisited Jupiter and Saturn, visited Ceres, Vesta, Pluto, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (ESA counts, right?). We may find a new nearby gas giant (Planet Nine) in the next few years. In 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope goes up. That scope will fill the gaps in our knowledge of the solar system and have a decent chance of finding extraterrestrial life or at least image some Earth-like exoplanets.
A lot will happen in the next 5-10 years, but given additional decades, we may be able to do stuff like explore some of the many subsurface oceans in the solar system. Or send a (very fast) probe to Planet Nine. People will be sent to Mars within 30 years or so. If the U.S. gives up on it, China will probably do it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]