After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.

We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.

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 went into darkness after being in daylight the whole time on the way to the Moon. And then we went into darkness. And we're in the shadow... of the Moon.

People try to typecast astronauts as heroic and superhuman. We're only human beings.

When you head on out to the Moon, in very short order, and you get a chance to look back at the Earth, that horizon slowly curves around in upon himself, and all of sudden you're looking at something that is very strange, but yet is very, very familiar, because you're beginning to see the Earth evolve.

Mom was always doing something for somebody. She came from a Czech background, one that made her a devout Catholic and gave her a strong belief in the family.