He occupied the pilot seat alongside of command pilot Tom Stafford on the Gemini IX mission. On his second space flight, he was lunar module pilot of Apollo 10, the first comprehensive lunar-orbital qualification and verification flight test of an Apollo lunar module. He made his third space flight as spacecraft commander of Apollo 17, with him on the voyage of the command module "America" and the lunar module "Challenger" were Ronald Evans (command module pilot) and Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt (lunar module pilot). In maneuvering "Challenger" to a landing at Taurus-Littrow, located on the southeast edge of Mare Serenitatis, Cernan and Schmitt activated a base of operations from which they completed three highly successful excursions to the nearby craters and the Taurus mountains, making the Moon their home for over three days. This last mission to the moon established several records for manned space flight that will on day soon be broken, that include: longest manned lunar landing flight (301 hours 51 minutes); longest lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours 6 minutes); largest lunar sample return (an estimated 115 kg (249 lbs.); and longest time in lunar orbit (147 hours 48 minutes). Gene has logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space-of which more than 73 hours were spent on the surface of the moon. Gene currently has the distinction of being the last man to have left his footprints on the surface of the moon.
