Being last means being forgotten, and the late U.S. Navy Captain Eugene "Gene" Cernan -- the last human to walk on the Moon -- was a proud exception to that curse.

After taking the last human steps on the Moon on Dec. 14, 1972 as Commander of Apollo 17, Cernan retired from the Navy in 1976 but spent much of his retirement urging the United States return to the Moon in his lifetime.

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Cernan's death on Jan. 16 at his home in Houston, Texas left that promise unfulfilled. He was 82.

And in 2011, Cernan realized Americans would never return to the Moon while he was alive. The U.S. neither had the plans nor the will to do so.

"Neil (Armstrong, the first human on the Moon) and I aren't going to see those next young Americans who walk on the moon. And God help us if they're not Americans," Cernan told Congress in 2011.

In retirement, his goal was to make certain he wasn't the Last Man on the Moon. But Cernan did appreciate the role history gave him as the Last Man on the Moon.

Cernan described that moment as "perhaps the brightest moment of my life ... It's like you would want to freeze that moment and take it home with you. But you can't."

"Those steps up that ladder, they were tough to make," Cernan recalled in 2007. "I didn't want to go up. I wanted to stay a while."

Before climbing up the lander's steps for the trip home, Cernan drew the letters "TDC" -- the initials of his then 9-year-old daughter, Teresa Dawn -- with his finger on the dusty gray lunar surface.

In addition to this fascinating bit of trivia is another bit of trivia not many persons are even aware of: man's last words on the Moon spoken by Cernan:

"Bob, this is Gene, and I'm on the surface. And as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come -- but we believe not too long into the future -- I'd like to just (say) what I believe history will record: that America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow.

"And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

Apollo 17 consisted of Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt. The two-man crews of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 preceded it to the Moon's surface. Apollo 13's mission was aborted after a near catastrophic accident on the way to the Moon.

Apollo 17 achieved a number of historic firsts: the longest moon landing; the longest total extravehicular activities (moonwalks); the largest lunar sample and longest time in lunar orbit.

TagsEugene "Gene" Cernan, Last Man on the Moon, Apollo 17, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt