November 23, 2022
Apollo 17 50th Anniversary Celebration
Triton College’s Cernan Earth and Space Center will host a 50th anniversary Apollo 17 Mission celebration beginning Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022, and running through Monday, April 10, 2023. This event will recognize astronaut Capt. Eugene “Gene” Cernan (United States Navy, Retired) and showcase what Capt. Cernan and the Apollo 17 crew (also including Ronald E. Evans and Harrison Schmitt) accomplished.
The five-month exhibit will include varied activities geared to educate young students as well as adults.
A permanent addition to the Cernan Center will be an interactive activity presented on a large, flat-touch-screen-table. The table will run a program called “Colonize Mars” in which multiple users can work to develop a colony on Mars through several stages of objectives. Players can work individually or together to build their colony as quickly as possible.
On a loan from the Kansas City Cosmophere, attendees will have a chance to see what astronauts ate during the Apollo missions and their other space necessities.
Other activities include a variety of spacecraft models and iconic pictures from Apollo 17, as well as public shows during the exhibit, including Dawn of the Space Age and Forward! To the Moon.
Admission to the exhibits is free. The Planetarium admission is $4 for youth ages 2-17 and seniors 55+, and $8 for adults.
The celebration is to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the December 1972 Apollo 17 mission. During the mission, Capt. Cernan left his footprints on the moon’s surface. He is the last astronaut to leave his footprints on the moon.
Eugene A. Cernan was born on March 14, 1934, and raised in Bellwood, Ill. (within Triton’s district) and attended Proviso Township High School. He then attended Purdue University and earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. Before becoming an astronaut, he was a naval officer, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer and fighter pilot. Capt. Cernan passed away on Jan. 17, 2017, in Houston, Texas.
The Cernan Earth and Space Center is named after our own local boy who became an American hero.
For more information, contact cernan@triton.edu or visit triton.edu/Cernan.