50 years on, Apollo 16 moonwalker still 'excited' by space

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Fifty years after his Apollo 16 mission to the moon, retired NASA astronaut Charlie Duke says he's ready for the U.S. to get back to lunar exploration.

Part of that effort, Duke said Friday, will come in the form of the Artemis program, which includes NASA’s upcoming flight to the moon using its new Space Launch System rocket. The first of the huge rockets is supposed to blast off without crew later this year, with crewed flights planned subsequently.

“With Artemis, NASA is going to be focused on deep space, to the moon and beyond, and I’m excited about that,” Duke told The Associated Press in an interview in Columbia.

Duke, 86, is one of four surviving moonwalkers from the Apollo program, taking Apollo 16 to the lunar surface in 1972. He has been making the rounds to mark the 50th anniversary of his voyage, recently taking a trip to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to visit his spaceship, which made the next-to-the-last U.S. mission to land on the moon.

The late John Young was first out of the lander and walked on the moon with Duke. Ken Mattingly orbited the moon in the command module, nicknamed “Casper.”

Duke said he does not begrudge NASA for ending the Apollo program to focus on space shuttles, the international space station and other missions in more remote parts of space. But he looks forward to future missions that build off of what he and others have learned from their time on the moon, which called “a great platform for science.”

Duke also noted that he’s encouraged by the commercial partnerships that have developed around space exploration, like Space X and Blue Origin. Those options, he said, “make space available for more people and more science and engineering and unmanned stuff.”

“That compliment is going...