Pop culture says Gene Cernan carved his daughter's initials into a rock in the Taurus-Littrow valley. According to the biographical sources in this episode, that is a myth. What he actually did was simpler and more poetic: before climbing the ladder for the last time, he traced the letters TDC into the lunar dust with his finger. This deep dive examines the life of the last human to walk on the Moon as a study in pressure, career gambles, and operating at the limits of capability.

We follow Cernan from Chicago and Purdue to more than 200 carrier landings and two engineering degrees, then to Gemini 9A, where he became prime crew after the deaths of Elliot See and Charles Bassett and endured a near-fatal spacewalk without restraints. We revisit Apollo 10, the dress rehearsal that skimmed within 8.5 nautical miles of the surface and set a crew ...