Eugene Cernan

Eugene Andrew Cernan is a retired United States Navy officer and a former NASA astronaut of Czechoslovakian ancestry. He has been into space three times: as co-pilot of Gemini 9A in June 1966; as lunar module pilot of Apollo 10 in May 1969; and as commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972. In that final lunar landing mission, Cernan became "the last man on the moon" since he was the last to re-enter the Apollo Lunar Module during its third and final extra-vehicular activity. He was also a backup crew member for the Gemini 12, Apollo 7 and Apollo 14 missions.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, son of a Czech mother and a Slovak father, he received his father's name, originally spelled Ondrej Čerňan. Cernan grew up in the towns of Bellwood and Maywood. He graduated from Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois and Purdue University, where he became a member of Phi Gamma Delta, in 1956, with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He was commissioned into the United States Navy through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps at Purdue, and became a Naval Aviator flying jets. He also holds a M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. In 1976, Cernan retired both from the Navy and from NASA, and went into private business.