Last man on the moon reveals he left his camera behind as an experiment (but says he hoped someone would have returned it by now)
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | December 8, 2012 16:24
Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan, the last man on the moon, has revealed he left a camera on the lunar surface, hoping it would be recovered by future astronauts to measure radiation levels.
The camera, a Hasselblad used to capture many of the iconic images from the mission, was left with its lens pointing into space.
Cernan had hoped it could be used as the mission’s final experiment, with future astronauts measuring the radiation collected on the lens.
Speaking on the 40th anniversary of the mission, Cernan expressed regret his footprints are still the last left on the moon.
Now 78, he told Bloomberg he thought his voyage ‘wasn’t the end but the beginning’ for manned exploration of the Moon.
Three further missions planned to follow Cernan’s crew were scrapped due to budget cuts.
Now, he admits leaving his camera may have been a mistake.
‘Wouldn’t it have been better to take the camera with me, get the shot, take the film pack off and then (for weight restrictions) throw the camera away?
He called for manned space exploration programmes to be accelerated.
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