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Five Apollo astronauts to visit San Diego

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Five Apollo astronauts -- including three who walked on the moon -- will visit the San Diego Air & Space Museum on June 23rd to attend “To the Moon and Back: An Evening with America’s Space Heroes.”

The public celebration, which will begin at 5:30 p.m., will feature Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Gene Cernan (Apollo 17); Walt Cunningham (Apollo 7); Charlie Duke (Apollo 16); and Al Worden (Apollo 15).

Three Apollo flight directors also will attend. The guests include Gerry Griffin, lead flight director for Apollo 12, 15 and 17 (and a key role player in Apollo 13); Glynn Lunney, flight director for Apollo 13, and Milt Winder, who also served as a flight director during Apollo 13.

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“These are American heroes and its important to keep the legacy of Apollo alive,” said Jim Kidrick, the museum’s chief executive officer. “We won’t have many more opportunities to do this. The astronauts aren’t getting any younger.”

Of the moonwalkers, Aldrin is the oldest. He’s 86. Cernan is 82 and Duke is 80.

Project Apollo reached its peak from 1969 to 1972, when NASA placed 12 men on the moon during a series of missions that were broadcast across Earth.

“Historians have speculated that Apollo may one day be the only thing the 20th century is remembered for,” said Francis French, a space historian who serves as education director at the Air & Space Museum.

“To voyage from our own planet for the first time and visit another place in the universe is a moment in human history that has yet to be equaled. To be able to sit in a room with people who made that journey is an experience that will stay with you forever.

“Apollo achieved, in a very short period of time, what many considered to be impossible -- to voyage to the moon and spend days circling it, studying its surface and learning its ancient secrets. To land on the moon and leave the first footprints, return the first rocks. And then, over the next couple of years, spend many days there, exploring mountains and valleys, driving across the surface in special electric cars. it still sounds like the stuff of science fiction, over 40 years later.

“Equally important are the team of people on the ground who made it possible. It was tough enough to oversee a mission when everything went right. But in moments like the Apollo 13 crisis, people such as the Flight Directors we will have at this event stayed up for days at a time to devise ways to bring the crew back home. According to the rule book, that crew would have died. It took the imaginative teamwork of the best minds around the country to get them back alive.”

Tickets are still available. The museum is charging $250 per seat for a reception and dinner, and $2,500 for a table of 10.

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