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

Gene Cernan

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Gene Cernan
Age: 82 †
Born: 1934
Born: March 14
Died: 2017
Died: January 16
Aerospace Engineer
Aircraft Pilot
Astronaut
Autobiographer
Businessperson
Fighter Pilot
Military Officer
Eugene Andrew Cernan
Gene Cernan
Eugene A. Cernan
Superhuman
Astronaut
Heroic
Beings
Human
Humans
Typecasting
Trying
Typecast
People
Astronauts

More quotes by Gene Cernan

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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.
Gene Cernan
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I know the stars are my home. I learned about them, needed them for survival in terms of navigation. I know where I am when I look up at the sky. I know where I am when I look up at the Moon it's not just some abstract romantic idea, it's something very real to me. See, I've expanded my home.
Gene Cernan
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Another hundred years may pass before we understand the true significance of Apollo. Lunar exploration was not the equivalent of an American pyramid, some idle monument to technology, but more of a Rosetta stone, a key to unlocking dreams as yet undreamed.
Gene Cernan
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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].
Gene Cernan
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To become an astronaut, someone has to have a dream of his own to do something that he or she has always wanted to do, then commit himself to making that dream come true.
Gene Cernan
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The mass gross absence of sound in space is more than just silence.
Gene Cernan
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Curiosity is the essence of human existence and exploration has been part of humankind for a long time. The exploration of space, like the exploration of life, if you will, is a risk. We've got to be willing to take it.
Gene Cernan
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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.
Gene Cernan
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I do believe there is life in outer space. Mathematically, there has to be, and if you believe as I do that there is a creator of the universe, then how can we be so arrogant to believe he created life here and nowhere else?
Gene Cernan
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Get the shuttle out of the garage. It's in its prime of its life. How could we just put it away?
Gene Cernan
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I'm quite disappointed that I'm still the last man on the moon.
Gene Cernan
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We will certainly see teachers, journalists, artists and poets in space. Whatever it takes to the be the best is what it will take to get you into space.
Gene Cernan
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Prepare for the unknown, unexpected and inconceivable . . . after 50 years of flying I'm still learning every time I fly.
Gene Cernan
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Yes, I am the last man to have walked on the moon, and that's a very dubious and disappointing honor. It's been far too long.
Gene Cernan
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I think America has a responsibility to maintain its leadership in technology and its moral leadership in the world, to explore, to seek knowledge.
Gene Cernan
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It's our destiny to explore. It's our destiny to be a space-faring nation.
Gene Cernan
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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.
Gene Cernan
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If you begin to think you're something you're not, you're looking in the wrong mirror.
Gene Cernan
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Some astronauts describe the routine flushing of urine into space, where the freezing temperatures turn the droplets into a cloud of bright, drifting crystals, as being among the most amazing sights they saw on an entire voyage.
Gene Cernan
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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.
Gene Cernan