Eugene Cernan is still the last person to walk on the Moon
On this day · 14 December 1972
Apollo 17's commander left the Moon on December 14, 1972, expecting others to follow soon. More than half a century later, nobody has.
Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, is still the last person to have walked on the Moon. He stepped off the lunar surface for the last time on December 14, 1972, at the end of the mission’s third moonwalk in the Taurus–Littrow valley.
He and geologist Harrison Schmitt spent more than three days there, logging over 22 hours outside across three moonwalks and driving about 19 miles in their rover while Ronald Evans orbited overhead. Apollo 17 set records for the longest lunar surface excursions and the largest sample haul, nearly 249 pounds of rock and soil.
Before climbing the ladder, Cernan spoke words that sounded like a short goodbye:
“As I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come - but we believe not too long into the future - I’d like to just (say) what I believe history will record.” (Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17 on-board transcript)
No one has followed, and “some time to come” has lasted more than five decades. Cernan knew lean years were ahead: two years earlier NASA had cancelled Apollos 18 and 19 to save money and focus on the Space Shuttle, and Congress had been cutting the agency’s budget since 1967. Later plans to return, George H.W. Bush’s 1989 initiative and the 2000s Constellation programme, collapsed over cost before the Artemis programme took shape.
Cernan died on January 16, 2017. His family said that even at 82 he urged the nation’s leaders and young people not to let him remain the last man to walk on the Moon.
The nearest anyone has come since is Artemis II, which launched on April 1, 2026 and carried four astronauts around the Moon without landing. Cernan’s bootprints are still the last ones.
Sources & references
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