📰 Whatever Happened to the Surviving Apollo Astronauts?

The BBC checks in on "the pioneers of space exploration — the 24 Nasa astronauts who travelled to the Moon in the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s." Ken Mattingly and Frank Borman died within a few days of each other late last year. Now only eight people who have voyaged beyond the Earth's orbit remain. Who are they, and what are their stories...? There are only four people still alive who have walked on the Moon — Charlie Duke is one of them. He did it aged 36, making him the youngest person to set foot on the lunar surface... Charlie Duke now lives outside San Antonio, Texas, with Dorothy, to whom he has been married for 60 years.... Jim Lovell is one of only three men to have travelled to the Moon twice, and following Frank Borman's death in November 2023, he became the oldest living astronaut.... After leaving Nasa in 1975, [Harrison Schmitt] was elected to the U.S. Senate from his home state of New Mexico, but only served one term. Since then he has worked as a consultant in various industries as well as continuing in academia. And when confronted by a man claiming Apollo 11 was an elaborate lie, 72-year-old Buzz Aldrin "punched him on the jaw." Despite struggles in later life, he never lost his thirst for adventure and joined expeditions to both the North and South Poles, the latter at the age of 86. While embracing his celebrity, he has remained an advocate for the space programme, especially the need to explore Mars. "I don't think we should just go there and come back — we did that with Apollo," he says. Last 93-year-old Buzz Aldrin got married — and thanked his fans for remembering his birthday. "It means a lot and I hope to continue serving a greater cause for many more revolutions around the sun."

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