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Charles Duke

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Charles Moss Duke, Jr.
File:Official NASA portrait of Apollo 16 lunar module pilot Charles Moss Duke, Jr.jpg
NationalityAmerican
OccupationTest Pilot
Space career
Astronaut
RankBrigadier General, USAF
Time in space
11d 01h 51m
Selection1966 NASA Group
MissionsApollo 16
Mission insignia

Charles Moss Duke, Jr. (born 3 October 1935), a retired USAF Brigadier General, was a United States astronaut for NASA. He is one of only twelve men who have walked on the moon.

Duke is married to the former Dorothy Meade Claiborne, and has two sons, Charles III born in 1965 and Thomas born in 1967, and five grandchildren. He and his wife reside in New Braunfels, Texas.

Personal data

Duke was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on October 3, 1935. He married Dorothy Meade Clairborne of Atlanta, Georgia. They have two grown sons. Recreational interests include hunting, fishing, reading, and playing golf. Duke is an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America.

Education

Duke attended Lancaster High School in Lancaster, South Carolina, and graduated as valedictorian from the Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1953. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Naval Sciences from the United States Naval Academy in 1957 and a Master's degree in Aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964.

In 1973, he was presented an honorary doctorate of Philosophy from the University of South Carolina. Duke also received an honorary doctorate of Humanities from Francis Marion University in 1990.

Experience

Duke was commissioned upon graduation from the Naval Academy in 1957. Entering the Air Force, he went to Spence Air Base in Georgia for primary flight training, then to Webb Air Force Base in Texas for basic flying training, where he graduated with distinction in 1958. Duke completed advanced training on the F-86 Sabre aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, where he is a distinguished graduate. After completion of this training, Duke served three years as a fighter interceptor pilot with the 526th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

He has logged 4,147 hours flying time, which includes 3,632 hours in jet aircraft.

NASA experience

File:Charliedukeonmoon.jpg
Charlie Duke on lunar EVA, April 1972.

After graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, Duke stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star aircraft. In April 1966 he was one of the 19 selected for NASA's fifth group of astronauts.

In 1969 Duke was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 10. He then served as capcom for Apollo 11, the first landing on the Moon, where his distinctive southern drawl became familiar to viewers around the world. As capcom, he became the voice of a Mission Control made nervous by a long landing that almost expended all of the lunar module Eagle's fuel. Duke's famous first words to the Apollo 11 crew on the surface of the moon were "Roger Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue here. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot!" Duke was backup Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 13, however shortly before the mission he caught German measles from a friend's child and inadvertently exposed the prime crew to the disease. As Ken Mattingly had no natural immunity to the disease, Mattingly was then replaced as command module pilot by Jack Swigert. Ironically, Mattingly would be reassigned as command module pilot of Duke's flight, Apollo 16.

Duke served as lunar module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972 where he and John W. Young landed at the Descartes Highlands and conducted three EVAs, making Duke the tenth man to walk upon the surface of the Moon. He also served as backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 17.

He logged 265 hours in space, plus 21 hours and 28 minutes of extra vehicular activity.

Space flight experience

Apollo 16 (April 16 – April 27 1972) was launched from John F. Kennedy Space Center and was the fifth manned lunar landing mission. The crew consisted of John W. Young as spacecraft commander, Ken Mattingly as command module pilot, and Duke as lunar module pilot. Apollo 16 was the first scientific expedition to inspect, survey, and sample materials and surface features in the Descartes region of the rugged lunar highlands. Duke commenced the record setting lunar surface stay of 71 hours and 14 minutes by maneuvering the lunar module Orion to a landing on the rough Cayley Plains. In three subsequent excursions onto the lunar surface, he logged 20 hours and 15 minutes in extravehicular activities involving the emplacement and activation of scientific equipment and experiments, the collection of nearly 213 lb (96 kg) of rock and soil samples, and the evaluation and use of Rover-2 over the roughest and blockiest surface yet encountered on the moon.

Other Apollo 16 achievements included the largest payload placed in lunar orbit (76,109 lb or 34,595 kg); first cosmic ray detector deployed on the lunar surface; first lunar observatory with the far UV camera; and longest in-flight EVA from a command module during transearth coast (1 hour and 13 minutes). The Apollo 16 mission was concluded with a Pacific Ocean splashdown and subsequent recovery by the USS Ticonderoga.

Duke portrayed in the movies

In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon Duke was portrayed by J. Downing.

Trivia

Six months before Apollo 16, Duke had a vivid dream that he and crewmate John Young discovered mysterious rover tracks while riding across the lunar surface. They turned to follow the tracks and eventually came upon another rover upon which sat two unmoving, spacesuited figures. Duke lifted the reflective sun visor on one suit to discover his own face. The other figure proved to be Young's double. They took suit and rover samples at Mission Control's request, and subsequent testing proved them to be over 100,000 years old.[1]

Duke has compared his walking on the moon to that of a "duck waddle," saying that John Young's moonwalking was much more graceful.

Special honors

Organizations

  1. ^ Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon, pp. 485-486.

Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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