Saturday, April 26, 2008

Cernan tells of Apollo 17 during Earth Day

Irene Liguori, Buffalo News: Not everyone gets to meet the man in the moon. But a group of kindergartners and older pupils did Tuesday, when the man who most recently had set foot on the moon landed in Buffalo aboard a hybrid, chauffeured vehicle to take part in Earth Day festivities.

Now 74, Capt. Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, looked fit, handsome and vigorous as he faced his young inquisitors from the controls of a rocking chair in their classroom in Orchard Park’s South Davis Elementary School.

“Who wants to go to the moon?” Cernan asked the 6-year-olds seated on the floor before him. All hands shot into the air. “Great,” Cernan beamed. “I’ve got a crew.”

Cernan — who paused and knelt on the moon’s surface in 1972 to trace his daughter Tracy’s initials in the lunar dust with his spacesuit’s glove just before leaving for home — clearly loves children.
Read more HERE.

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