Stories about the last moons men

They were the pioneers of the space study -the 24 NASA astronauts who traveled to the moon in the missions of Apollo from the 60s and 70s.

The loss of Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovelwho is guided Covered mission safely back to Earth in 1970It means that there are now only five people left who have escaped the relative safety of the Earth’s orbit and have embarked deeper into space.

For more than 50 years from the last foot of the man on the moon, the race to return people to the moon’s surface is again heated.

NASA hopes that his Artemis program will lead to astronauts living on the moon during this decade. China is also intended to have people on the lunar surface by 2030, having perched the probe On the far side of the moon in June 2024.

A number of private companies have tried to send a scientific craft to the moon, although accidents have been superior to successS

NASA intended to launch Artemis 2, its first crew on the lunar expedition from Apollo 17 in 1972, last year, but This date has sown in 2026.As the space agency says it needs more time to prepare.

Meanwhile, companies like SpaceX and Boeing continue to develop their own technology, though not without their failures.

Problems with Starliner on Boeing who left two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station were disturbing the aerospace giant while The “Fast unplanned Disassembly” on the Star Ship of SpaceX have become a common view of cosmic observers.

These delays emphasize the sad fact that the number of other astronauts of Apollo is decreasing.

Together with Frank Borman and Bill Anders, Jim Lovell made a story when the three launched Apollo 8’s first lunar mission, testing the command/service module and his life support systems in the late landing of Apollo 11.

Their craft actually made 10 orbit on the moon before returning home. It was later assumed that Lovell was the fifth man who walks on the moon’s surface as the commander of Apollo 13 – but of course, that never happened.

Instead, the story of his death brush was immortalized in the movie Apollo 13, in which he was played by Tom Hanks.

Following his retirement from NASA in 1973, Lovell worked in the telecommunications industry. Marilyn, his wife for more than 60 years, who became the focus of the media during the scandalous incident, died in August 2023.

But what of the other five men in the moon?

Who are they and what are their stories?

On July 21, 1969, former fighter Edwin pilot “Buzz” Oldrin left his lunar landing craft and became the second man to step to the surface of the moon. Almost 20 minutes earlier, his commander Neil Armstrong was the first.

Oldrin’s first words were: “Beautiful view.”

“Isn’t that something?” Armstrong asked. “Magnificent views here.”

“Magnificent emptiness,” Oldrin replied.

The fact that he is second is never sitting comfortably with him. His teammate Michael Collins said that Aldrin “resents that he was not the first to the moon more than he appreciated to be second.”

But Oldrin was still proud of his achievement; Many years later, when he was confronted with a man who claims that Apollo 11 was a complicated lie, 72-year-old Aldrin hit him on the jaw.

And after Neil Armstrong’s death in 2012, Aldrin said: “I know many millions of others from around the world have joined me to complain about the passage of a true American hero and the best pilot I’ve ever known.”

Despite the struggles in the short life, he has never lost his thirst for adventure and joins the expeditions of both the North and South Pole, the last at the age of 86.

While perceiving his celebrity, he remains a defender of the space program, especially the need to study MarsS

“I don’t think we just have to go there and go back – we did it with Apollo,” he says.

And his name became known to the new generations as the inspiration for Buzz Lightyear from the series of Toy Story movies. In January 2023, at the age of 93, he married for the fourth time.

There are only four people who went to the moon – Charlie Duke is one of them. He did it 36 years old, making it the youngest man to step on the moon’s surface.

In a later interview with the BBC, he talks about a “grandiose terrain.”

“The beauty of him … the sharp contrast between the blackness of the space and the horizon of the moon … I will never forget it. It was so dramatic.”

But he had already played another significant role in the NASA moon exploration. After Apollo 11 touched in 1969, he was the Duke – in the control of the mission as a capsule communicator, or capcom – who waited nervously at the other end of the line when Neil Armstrong said, “Houston, the base of calm here. The eagle is landed.”

In his distinctive southern towing, Duke replied: “Roger, tranquility. We copy you to the ground, you have a bunch of guys who will become blue, we breathe again.”

“I really meant that, I had a breath in the last minute or so,” Later he told the BBCS

In 2022, Duke told the BBC that he was excited by NASA’s artemis mission – but warned that it would not be easy for the new generation of astronauts.

“They chose near the South Pole for landing, because if there is ice on the moon, it would be in this region. So it will be difficult – because it is really rough. But we will pull it.”

Charlie Duke now lives outside San Antonio, Texas, with Dorothy, whom he has been married to for 60 years.

Fred Haise was part of Apollo 13 crew narrowly avoided the disaster In 1970, after an on -board explosion, it caused the mission to be interrupted when the craft was more than 200,000 miles (321,000 km) from Earth.

The whole world watched nervously as NASA tried to regain the safely damaged spacecraft and its crew. After they returned, Haise and his teammates James Lovell and Jack Swigert became celebrities, to their obvious surprise.

“I feel that I may have missed something while I was up,” he told the host show, Johnny Carson, when the crew appeared on the Tonight show.

Haise has never reached the moon. Although planned to be the commander of Apollo 19, this mission was canceled due to a budget cut, as well as all other flights after Apollo 17.

Later, it serves as a test pilot in the space shuttle of the prototype, Enterprise.

Like many of his fellow graduates of Apollo, after leaving NASA, Haise continues to work in the aerospace industry until his retirement.

Unlike most other astronauts of that time, Schmidt had not served as a pilot in US forces.

Geologist and Academic, he initially instructed NASA astronauts what to look for during their geological lunar fields before becoming astronaut himself in 1965.

Schmidt was part of the crew’s latest mission to the moon, Apollo 17, and together with Commander Eugene Chernon, one of the last two men to step on the moon’s surface, in December 1972.

After leaving NASA in 1975, he was chosen in the US Senate from his hometown of New Mexico, but is serving only one term. Since then, he has worked as a consultant in various industries, as well as continues in academic circles.

He is also known for talking against scientific consensus on climate change.

David Scott, the commander of Apollo 15, is one of only four living men who went to the moon – but he was also one of the first to drive on it.

In 1971, Scott and crew James Irwin tried the moon’s lunar vehicle (LRV), the “first wheels of the man of the moon” as it was called. Traveling at speeds of up to 8 mph (12 km/h) LRV allowed astronauts to travel long distances than lunar ibidation much faster than they could walk.

“On the first mission, you never know if it will work,” he recalled later. “The biggest thrill was to take it out, turn it on and actually works.”

After returning from the moon, Scott works in various management roles within NASA before joining the private sector.

He also acted as a consultant on several film and television projects, including Apollo 13 and HBO Miniseries from Earth to the moon.

What will the next generation of lunar adventurers achieve?