| EDWIN "BUZZ" ALDRIN | 
THEN
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NOW
| Apollo 11, Lunar Module Pilot and the 2nd man to walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz landed the Lunar Module “Eagle” to the historic landing in the “Sea of Tranquility” on July 20th, 1969. Buzz and Neil collected what turned out to be very important samples of the moon’s regolith in their 2 hour, 31 minute EVA. “That even in the glory of our first public appearance, students threw eggs at us. To give a sense that not everyone was so exuberant at what we’ve been doing.”
| | ALAN BEAN | 
THEN | 
NOW | Apollo 12, Lunar Module Pilot and 4th man to walk on the moon. He piloted the Lunar Module “Intrepid” along with his fellow commander, Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr .to a landing in the “Ocean of Storms” on November 19, 1969. The total EVA duration of Apollo 12 was 7 hours and 45 minutes, and over 34 kilos of samples were collected. “Never thought about going into space. Never imagined that that would happen. Couldn’t even spell astronaut, probably.”
| | EDGAR D. MITCHELL | 
THEN
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NOW
| Apollo 14, Lunar Module Pilot, and the 6th man to leave his footprints on the moon. Along with his commander, Alan B. Shepard, they landed their Lunar Module “Antares” to a landing in the “Fra Mauro” region of the moon on February 5, 1971. Together, the two men spent over 9 hours and 22 minutes collecting samples from the surface, hauling over 42 kilos back to Earth. “Every civilization and every generation has asked from the time beginning. Who are we? How did we get here? What’s this really all about? That question occurred in space to me and it occurred to me that the answer was very much tied up in the modern period with the science that we have”
| | JOHN W. YOUNG | 
THEN | 
NOW | Apollo 16, Commander of Lunar Module “Orion” and the 9th man to walk on the moon. John Young had flown to the moon as the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 10 along with Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan in May of 1969. His chance to walk in the Plains of “Descartes” came in 1972 as Orion's commander along with Charles Duke. “I thought we would go to the moon, put up a base and stay there. If we had, the world would be infinitely better off than we are today, but we didn’t.”
| | CHARLES DUKE | 
THEN
| 
NOW
| Apollo 16, Lunar Module Pilot and 10th man to walk on the moon’s surface. Along with John W. Young as commander, Charlie negotiated their Lunar Module “Orion” to a landing at “Descartes” on April 21, 1972. Using their Lunar Roving Vehicle, the two astronaut / explorers traversed the moon for 20 hours and 14 minutes in three EVA’s. They collected over 95 kilos of samples before returning to Earth. “You just look up and think, man, we have been there! America put 12 men on the moon and I was fortunate enough to be one of them.”
| | EUGENE CERNAN | 
THEN
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NOW
| Apollo 17 Commander for the last of the “J” series flights to the moon on December 7th 1972 along with Ron Evans, Command Module Pilot and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, LM Pilot. Gene and Jack landed the LM “Challenger” in a valley at Taurus-Littrow. Their 3 EVA’s lasted a total of
22 hrs. and 5 minutes and they collected and returned 243 lbs. of lunar material. They also traversed the lunar landscape a total of 21 miles in their LRV. Gene Cernan was the last Apollo astronaut to leave his footprints on the moon, making him the last of the 12 men to set foot on
Earth’s nearest neighbor. These 12 had a total of 160 man hours on another world. When asked about the meaning of Apollo, Gene said: “You know, underlying all this technology was a unique human endeavor by the American people. People who just didn’t know it couldn’t be done. And that’s the real key, that’s the essence of Apollo. That’s the message we have to pass on to our young kids. You know, if you want to do it badly enough, you can truly make it happen.”
| | HARRISON "Jack" SCHMITT | 
THEN | 
NOW | LM pilot Harrison W. Schmitt became the 12th man to explore the Moon along with Gene Cernan in December of 1972. Dr. Schmitt was the only scientist to travel to the Moon, and after being a "teacher" to the Apollo astronauts to train them to be accurate geological observers and competent field workers during their EVA's, he took on the role of "student" for over 22 hours of exploration of the surface. When asked about his feelings toward the people of NASA and Apollo Harrison said: "The astronauts were merely the tip of the spear. We had the privilege and the honor of carrying the hopes, the aspirations, the hard work of 450,000 Americans . the astronauts represented them in the endeavor that John Kennedy and before him President Eisenhower had put before us. And that gives you a very massive feeling of humbleness."
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