Gene Cernan Pilot Harrison Schmitt's recollections, were used by the band Public Service Broadcasting for the song "Tomorrow", the final track of their 2015 album "The Race for Space". Gene Cernan Eugene Andrew Cernan (; March 14, 1934 – January 16, 2017) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the eleventh person to walk on the Moon. Since he re-entered the lunar module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he is the last person to have walked on the Moon. Cernan traveled into space three
Far side of the Moon 17 missions since that time, and photographed by multiple lunar probes. Spacecraft passing behind the Moon were out of direct radio communication with the Earth, and had to wait until the orbit allowed transmission. During the Apollo missions, the main engine of the Service Module was fired when the vessel was behind the Moon, producing some tense moments in Mission Control before the craft reappeared. Geologist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who became the last to step onto the Moon, had aggressively lobbied for his landing site to be on the far side of the Moon, targeting the lava-filled crater Tsiolkovskiy. Schmitt's ambitious