Reddit reviews The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Space

This is a good read. The documentary on Netflix is good as well.

I am going to have to disagree with Al Bean here (or perhaps clarify what he is saying), as even Al Bean directly contradicts himself in the short audio interview titled Alan Bean Debunks Popular Apollo 17 Rumor in this article.

At the start of that interview, Bean first says "He [Cernan] didn't leave his daughter's initials on the Moon". Cernan most certainly did, by his own admission, leave his daughter Tracy's initials on the Moon - he just did not carve her initials directly into the face of a feature on the lunar surface known as "Split Boulder" (later changed to "Tracy's Boulder" or "Tracy's Rock"). It is the carving of the initials into the boulder which is the (untrue) rumor that Bean is actually referring to. Later on in the same interview, you even hear Bean confirm that Cernan did indeed scratch out his daughter's initials into the lunar regolith surface dust near the LRV rover that was left in its final parking spot to the east of the LM, doing this as a final act before finally heading inside the LM at the end of their third and final EVA.

I am well aware of Al Bean's painting that he is referring to, and actually have a print of it hanging on my wall at home. Bean is the one who used artistic license in his artwork of the boulder that came to be known as "Tracy's Rock" at the Apollo 17 site as a way of paying homage to the event, but Gene Cernan has publicly stated multiple times that he absolutely DID scrawl his daughters initials into the lunar surface dust, writing the letters "TDC" (for Tracy Dawn Cernan). Gene Cernan actually describes this event in his autobiography "The Last Man On The Moon".

Here is a link that describes Cernan doing exactly what I said for example, where it states the following -

> Initials in the dust

> Just before going back into the lunar module, Cernan drove the lunar rover roughly a mile away so that the video camera could photograph the takeoff the next day. Next, he knelt and etched his daughter Tracy's initials — T D C — into the dust, according to his autobiography, "The Last Man on the Moon."

> Years later, Cernan was looking at a painting done by fellow astronaut Alan Bean. It showed the Apollo 17 crew working near a massive boulder they had encountered during their mission. According to Bean's book, "Painting Apollo," Cernan said he wished he had put his daughter's name on the side of the rock. Bean, therefore, included her name on the rock in the painting, which is called "Tracy's Boulder."

So, Cernan DID leave his daughter's initials scratched into the lunar surface dust - and those initials scratched into the dust over by the LRV most assuredly still exist up there on the Moon, along with all the bootprints and mesh wheel tracks from the rover which also are still up there marking the regolith, virtually undisturbed since December of 1972 when those human markings were first made.

Cernan certainly has a way with words. For anyone who has not done so i urge you to read his book "The last man on the moon"
Really really i cant stress enough how good it is.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Man-Moon-Astronaut/dp/0312263511

He wrote the best book about actually being on the moon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0312263511/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0312263511


He was actually on it for the longest time too because the later missions had longer times on the moon.

He was there for something like three days.
Here is some info from President Trump's new neighborhood museum
https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/apollo/apollo-program/landing-missions/apollo17.cfm

The first one was only there for about an hour or two i think.

He also painted some cool space paintings if i am not mistaken.

Lots astronauts were quiet and didnt like to talk about their time onthe moon. Neil Armstrong was that way.
Buzz Aldrin wont talk about it if you ask him . He always referred people to Gene's book. (At least he did me)

>“As the last person to stand on the surface of the Moon,” said Francis French, the director of education at the San Diego Air & Space Museum and author of Into that Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the space Era, 1961-1965. Cernan “felt a responsibility not only to share his memories, but also to inspire young people to become explorers. He dearly hoped that he would live to see someone else take his unwanted title of the last person to stand on the moon.”

The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Space