Quotes by Eugene Cernan

About Eugene Cernan:

Eugene Andrew is a former American naval officer and aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, fighter pilot, and NASA astronaut. He launched into space three times: as 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, the final Apollo lunar landing.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If the guidance failed or started to stray or went somewhere we didn't like or the ground didn't like, I could flip a switch, and I could control seven, over seven and a half million pounds of thrust with this handle and fly the thing to the Moon mys...

Eugene Cernan

NASA has been scattered to the four winds.

Eugene Cernan

I'm quite disappointed that I'm still the last man on the moon.

Eugene Cernan

Curiosity is the essence of human existence. 'Who are we? Where are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?'... I don't know. I don't have any answers to those questions. I don't know what's over there around the corner. But I want to find out...

Eugene Cernan

If you begin to think you're something you're not, you're looking in the wrong mirror.

Eugene Cernan

People try to typecast astronauts as heroic and superhuman. We're only human beings.

Eugene Cernan

Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.

Eugene Cernan

To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.

Eugene Cernan

We don't have the capability today to put a human being in space of any kind, shape or form, which is absolutely, totally unacceptable when we got the greatest flying machine in the world sitting down at Kennedy in a garage there with nothing to do.

Eugene Cernan

After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.

Eugene Cernan

The moon is bland in color. I call it shades of gray. You know, the only color we see is what we bring or the Earth, which is looking down upon us all the time. And to find orange soil on the moon was a surprise.

Eugene Cernan

We went into darkness after being in daylight the whole time on the way to the Moon. And then we went into darkness. And we're in the shadow... of the Moon.

Eugene Cernan

The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one... and we had ignition!

Eugene Cernan

I was a child of World War Two . I saw films of pilots taking off from aircraft carriers and decided that was the only thing I wanted to do. And it had to be flying from sea carriers. Airfields were not enough.

Eugene Cernan

Author Bio

  • NameEugene Cernan
  • DescriptionRetired United States Navy officer and former NASA astronaut
  • BornMarch 14, 1934
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionOfficer; Aviator; Astronaut; Fighter Pilot
  • AwardsDistinguished Flying Cross