Charles Moss Duke

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Charles Duke
Charles Duke
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on April 4, 1966
(5th NASA Group)
Calls: 1 space flight
Begin: April 16, 1972
Landing: April 27, 1972
Time in space: 11d 1h 51min
EVA inserts: 3
EVA total duration: 20h 15min
retired on December 1975
Space flights
Charlie Duke on October 2nd, 2008 in the Technik-Museum Speyer
Charlie Duke on April 21, 1972 on the moon, photographed by John W. Young
Charles Duke's voice (English)

Charles Moss "Charlie" Duke, Jr. (born October 3, 1935 in Charlotte , North Carolina ) is a retired American astronaut . He was the tenth person to step on the moon .

Life

Charles Duke grew up in South Carolina and studied marine engineering after high school . The US Naval Academy awarded him a bachelor's degree in 1957 . He then served as a fighter pilot for three years at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. In 1964 he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Masters degree in aerospace engineering. In 1965 he became an instructor at the US Air Force Test Pilot School .

In 1966 Duke was inducted into NASA 's astronaut group. He was Capcom on the first moon landing ( Apollo 11 ) and later a replacement pilot for the Apollo 13 Lunar Module . Due to Duke's disease of rubella , the actual pilot of the command capsule, Thomas Mattingly, was unable to take part in the mission because he had no antibodies in his blood and an outbreak of the disease was considered likely, but this did not happen.

Thereupon he was pilot of the Apollo 16 lander under the command of John Watts Young , pilot of the command module was Thomas Mattingly. For this fifth manned moon landing, he spent a total of around 20 hours on the free lunar surface during three excursions in April 1972. At 36, Duke is the youngest person to have been on the moon. In the documentary The Secrets of History II - The Secrets of the Moon Landing , he revealed that he almost had a fatal accident on the moon. While he tried to jump up with a salute, he fell backwards. The backpack could hardly have withstood this load. Duke turned on his side at the last moment to prevent the impending accident.

Duke was a replacement pilot for Apollo 17 .

Duke, who is married and has two sons, left NASA in December 1975. He is an honorary member of the board of trustees of the Christian Publicists' Working Group .

On May 18, 2019, an asteroid was named after him: (26382) Charlieduke .

Works

  • Charles M. Duke, Moonwalker , Thomas Nelson Inc, 1990, ISBN 0-8407-9106-2
  • Lunar Tribute , documentary, 2017

See also

Web links

Commons : Charlie Duke  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Astronaut and moonwalker Charlie Duke, Apollo 16

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.aargauerzeitung.ch/ausland/astronaut-charlie-duke-ich-waere-auf-dem-mond-beinahe-gestorben-130645392
  2. ↑ Board of Trustees and Honorary Members. ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Lunar Tribute
personal data
SURNAME Duke, Charles Moss
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duke, Jr., Charles Moss (full name); Duke, Charlie (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronaut
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlotte , North Carolina