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Of the 12 men to have walked on the Moon, only six are still alive. Within the coming decades we face the likelihood that there will be no living person who has set foot on a world other than Earth. “We certainly didn’t pay for our trips,” jokes Harrison Schmitt, the penultimate man on the Moon as part of Apollo 17 and the first and only scientist to set foot on the lunar surface. “There’s a great responsibility to give back, no question about it.”

Schmitt is sitting alongside Charlie Duke, the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon as part of Apollo 16 in 1972. Both speak of the great responsibility their mission handed them. “I speak a lot around the world,” says Duke, kitted-out in full Apollo memorabilia garb, his name embroidered on the left breast. Schmitt, a former Republican Senator for New Mexico, opts for a suit over an Apollo bomber jacket.


Duke and Schmitt are among the guests at this week’s Starmus science festival in Trondheim, Norway and feature on a guest list littered with Nobel Prize nominees, headlined by a talk from Professor Stephen Hawking. Despite their esteemed company, these Moon walkers are unquestionably the superstars. When they stepped off stage on Tuesday, the audience politely mobbed them with requests for photographs and handshakes. Having spent more than 40 years recounting their missions, Duke and Schmitt are happy to take time with the crowd before quietly making their escape to find somewhere to sit down.

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“This morning I spoke to 500 or 600 kids at the city market,” says Duke when I ask him about the responsibility he and his fellow Moon walkers hold to share their experience while they still can. “I challenged them to dream big, to take care of themselves and get the best education they can because who knows what the future will hold.” These are words the children have likely heard countless times, just never from someone who walked on the Moon.

It might sound trivial, but the disappearance of direct experience matters. Duke speaks about how most Apollo astronauts have written books and left “encouraging words” in the digital ether, but as with all electronic records, they lack the same impact. Comparisons could be drawn with the passing of war veterans, but the gradual loss of Earth’s 12 greatest explorers represents something more intangible.

Harrison Schmitt recalls his mission to the Moon in December 1972 during a talk at the Starmus science festival in Trondheim, Norway Max Alexander / Starmus


“We need something to strive for,” said Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the Moon, speaking to the audience in Trondheim via video link from his home in Florida. Proudly sporting a “Get Your Ass to Mars” T-shirt, the second man on the Moon wasted no time expressing his agitation at the stalling of human exploration of space beyond Earth’s orbit. It’s now 45 years since Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, lifted his foot from the lunar regolith. Many hoped a manned mission to Mars would be the next date in the diary, but that date is yet to be set. “If that’s just some time in the future, that’s not going to do it,” Aldrin said. “We must inspire the leaders and then we must inspire the next generation.”

That’s been the task ever since Apollo 17 splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean on December 19, 1972. Yet the need for inspiration now feels more acute. For all the pride and retelling of remarkable stories, the Apollo era will likely soon be the stuff of Wikipedia entries and YouTube videos rather than something you can hear about from someone who was there. “This is not anything that’s really a function of age,” says Schmitt. “Astronauts that I’m familiar with, and this includes not only the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury era, but also Shuttle and Space Station, are continually presenting their experiences as well as their ideas about the future to people throughout the world.” For Schmitt, it’s a continuing responsibility that all those fortunate enough to venture beyond Earth’s atmosphere must share.

Aldrin also made a plea to the space-faring “partners” of the United States – China, India, Russia and Europe – to help build momentum. “Without inspiring partners to be part of a global program we’re just going to stall out somewhere. And we’ve already stalled out.”