Orange County Register

Orange County space fans young and old lived a dream on Saturday in Costa Mesa: meeting astronauts from America’s first space programs.

• Commander Scott Carpenter, 84, member of the “Mercury Seven,” NASA’s first class of astronauts. Fourth American in space and the second American to orbit the Earth.
• Lieutenant General Thomas Stafford, 78, one of twenty-four human beings who have ever flown to the Moon. Veteran of groundbreaking Gemini and Apollo spaceflights.
• Captain Gene Cernan (above), 75, one of twelve human beings to have ever landed on the Moon. Third person ever to perform a space walk and the last person to walk on the lunar surface.

With a cheeky grin, Cernan thanked the one hundred-plus crowd for “taking time out of your Saturday afternoon to listen to three old fogeys talk about stuff that happened yesterday.”

More thoughts from the veteran astronauts:

General Stafford talks about the eventual cooperation between the Soviet and American space program:

Captain Cernan describes how America did the impossible — from simply orbiting in space to landing on the moon within a single decade:

“The space programs …are a mirror image of the evolution of this country in the last 250 years…the boldness… the dreamers…”

Captain Cernan talks about human endurance in space:

Captain Cernan talks about driving on the lunar surface, and the beauty of Earth from space:

Don’t Forget:

• Our interview with Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter

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