credit: NASA / caption: (L-R) foreground, Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, background, Wayne Ottinger, Jack Schmitt
NASA has released this image of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong and Apollo 17 commander Eugene ‘Gene’ Cernan touring one of the agency’s Altair Lunar Lander mock-ups at its Johnson Space Center on 9 December. Behind Cernan is Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt, Cernan’s fellow Apollo 17 crew member and lunar module pilot
Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, and Cernan, the last for now, were looking at concepts for Altair living quarters. Cernan is the only man to have flown the Apollo lunar module on two missions in lunar orbit. Once on a practice descent to 40,000ft above the lunar surface during the May 1969 Apollo 10 flight and again for the final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, in 1972
Armstrong and Cernan visited Johnson and talked with the Altair project office team about design concepts. In the background is Wayne Ottinger, who worked on the Apollo lunar lander training vehicle
“I can let you have this whole package for $500 million, if it’s cash…” Also, seriously, this is history. Rarely do we get to see it, are do we notice it, until it becomes history.
“Rumours of my Death are premature” it would seem. I was very surprised to see Jack Schmitt who had been reported by the American space media to have died of Cancer in 2005! Good to see them all alive, hale and hearty; my having seen Gene and Jack take off for the moon live at the Cape: WELL worth staying up for – the launch was at night.