Astronauts Criticize US Space Program

November 30, 2012

NASA Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt explored the surface of the moon during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the last time anyone has left earth's orbit or set foot on the moon. During a 40th anniversary celebration of Apollo 17 in Chicago, the astronauts said they had expected their mission would start a path toward space travel, not become a history lesson.

Retired Astronaut Eugene Cernan is one of just twelve men who walked on the moon. He currently holds the distinction of being the last man there.

"It is tremendously disappointing that I am here 40 years later and still hold that title or have that yoke on my shoulders," said Cernan.

Cernan, along with fellow Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, celebrated the 40th anniversary of the December 1972 mission with fellow astronaut Jim Lovell at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

As they returned to Earth on that long-ago December 19, Schmitt and Cernan didn't expect that 40 years later they would be commemorating it as the end of an era.

"To say that I thought it would be 40 years, or what is really going to turn out to be 50 or 60 years before Americans are back on the moon, I would not have guessed that at all," Schmitt noted.

"A half century ago, we went 250,000 miles, cracked the door open, and never walked through it into the future. The future is still out there," added Cernan.