50 Years Later

50 years after it had taken him and his fellow astronauts John Young and Ken Mattingly to the Moon, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Duke (ret.) visits the command module of the Apollo 16 spacecraft.¹ (Young passed away in 2018, and Mattingly in 2023).

The photos below show “Charlie” Duke as a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman in 1957², and (back row, third from left) as a student at the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School class 64-C³, which commenced in August 1964 at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The commandant at the time was Chuck Yeager.