The mass gross absence of sound in space is more than just silence.

I'm quite disappointed that I'm still the last man on the moon.

Perhaps the two greatest moments of my life were standing on the moon and being outside of the room when my granddaughter was born! We tend not to remember the worst.

Once I finally stepped on the moon, no matter what was to come of the next three days - or the rest of my life - nobody could take those steps from me. People ask how long will they be there, and I say forever, however long forever is, like my daughter’s initials that I scribbled in the sand [TDC for Tracy Dawn Cernan].

We don't have the capability today to put a human being in space of any kind, shape or form, which is absolutely, totally unacceptable when we got the greatest flying machine in the world sitting down at Kennedy in a garage there with nothing to do.

Today, we are on a path of decay. We are seeing the book close on five decades of accomplishment as the leader in human space exploration.

Am I willing to go to Mars? Yes, but I'm not willing to spend nine months getting there, then wait 18 more months until the planets align to come home.