Universe Today
A wonderful travel moment of serendipity: While sitting near a convention centre in Chicago, I punched in nearby points of interest in my GPS and found something called the
Cernan Earth and Space Center
.
Suspecting it had something to do with Eugene Cernan,
one of the last two men to walk on the moon
, I drove to a small building on the Triton College campus, walked inside the front door, and was astounded at what was visible from the entrance.
An Apollo spacesuit. A helmet. A spacecraft gimbal. A diorama of lunar and Martian vehicles. Various pictures, tokens and artifacts showing Eugene Cernan's aerospace life -- all for free.
While I gaped at these artifacts, center director Bart Benjamin approached me and explained Cernan had grown up in the neighbourhood -- in fact, his high school is just a few miles away, Benjamin explained. The artifacts are mostly loans from the Smithsonian (the spacesuit was briefly returned there for cleaning and restoration recently); revenues for the center come from its gift shop and laser/planetarium shows, which run several evenings a week.
I unfortunately was not able to stay for a laser show, but I did ask Benjamin for directions to Cernan's school. Cernan went to Proviso Township High School, now known as Proviso East.
According to Cernan's biography
Last Man on the Moon
, at high school he played varsity basketball, baseball and football and was courted by a couple of schools offering football scholarships.
But influenced by the Korean War, he instead applied for a Naval scholarship and did not get his first choice, receiving only partial financing to head to Purdue, as he recalls:
I didn't want it, because I knew my entire family would have to work hard to pay for me to attend Purdue as an out-of-state student. But at Dad's insistence, I reluctantly agreed, knowing that not only would I get a degree, but I could still get a commission in the Navy, albeit in the reserves, and maybe somehow could spin that into my dream of flying.
Cernan graduated in 1952 and he flew, all right -- including walking on the Moon just 20 years later.
All pictures by Elizabeth Howell.
Elizabeth Howell (M.Sc. Space Studies '12) is a contributing editor for SpaceRef and award-winning space freelance journalist living in Ottawa, Canada. Her work has appeared in publications such as SPACE.com, Air & Space Smithsonian, Physics Today, the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., CTV and the Ottawa Business Journal.