Gene Cernan dead aged 82 – legendary astronaut was last person to set foot on moon in 1972
The Apollo 17 commander was also the 11th person to set foot on the lunar surface in NASA's final manned mission
The last man to walk on the moon, Gene Cernan, has died aged 82.
The Apollo 17 astronaut was the commander of the NASA's final manned lunar mission in 1972.
When Cernan stepped out from lunar module 'Challenger' he became the 11th person to walk on the moon.
His co-pilot Jack Schmitt was the 12th person to set foot on earth's only satellite but as commander Cernan was the last to re-enter the module he was the last person to walk on the lunar surface.
The former Navy captain had previously served as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 10 and was a pilot on the Gemini 9 mission - becoming the second American to walk in space in 1966.
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The veteran explorer logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in outer space, of which 73 hours were spent on the surface of the moon, according to NASA.
While not as iconic as Neil Armstrong's first sentence on the moon, Cernan's final goodbye was just as poetic.
He said: "America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow.
"And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus- Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."
In the 2007 documentary 'In The Shadow Of The Moon', Cernan spoke of the epiphany he experienced while standing on the awe-inspiring lunar surface.
He said: "There is too much purpose, too much logic, it was just too beautiful to happen by accident.
"There has to be somebody bigger than you and bigger than me and I mean this in a spiritual sense, not in a religious sense, there has to be a creator of the universe who stands above the religions that we ourselves create to govern our lives."
Born in Chicago in 1934, he received an electrical engineering degree from Indiana's Purdue University and a Masters of Science in aeronautical engineering from the US Naval Postgraduate School.
A captain in the Navy, the pioneering moonwalker was selected by NASA in the space agency's third ever group of astronauts in 1963.
He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1976 four years after his landmark lunar adventure.
Following Cernan's death, only six living astronauts have walked on the moon.
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