Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot.

After completion of this training, Duke served three years as a fighter pilot with the 526th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in West Germany.

After graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, he stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star.

His distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world, as the voice of Mission Control concerned by the long landing that almost expended all of the Lunar Module Eagle descent stage's propellant.

Shortly before the mission, he caught rubella (German measles) from a friend's child and inadvertently exposed the prime crew to the disease.

[2] After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States into World War II, his father volunteered to join the Navy, and was assigned to Naval Air Station North Island in California.

During a two-month summer cruise to Europe on the escort carrier USS Siboney, he suffered from seasickness, and began questioning his decision to join the Navy.

At his commissioning physical, Duke was shocked to find that he had a minor astigmatism in his right eye, which precluded him from becoming a naval aviator, but the Air Force said that it would still take him.

He completed six months' advanced training on the F-86 Sabre aircraft at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, where he was also a distinguished graduate.

[14] It was in Boston that he met Dotty Meade Claiborne,[15][16] a graduate of Hollins College and the University of North Carolina,[17] who had recently returned from a summer trip to Europe.

They became engaged on Christmas Day, 1962, and were married by her uncle, Randolph Claiborne, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, in the Cathedral of Saint Philip,[16] on June 1, 1963.

[18] For his dissertation, Duke teamed up with a classmate, Mike Jones, to perform statistical analysis for the Project Apollo guidance systems.

[19] For his next assignment, Duke applied for the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS), although he felt his chances of admission were slim given that he only barely met the minimum qualification.

The commandant at the time was Chuck Yeager,[20] and Duke's twelve-member class included Spence M. Armstrong, Al Worden, Stuart Roosa and Hank Hartsfield.

[22] After graduating from ARPS in September 1965, Duke stayed on as an instructor teaching control systems and flying in the F-101 Voodoo, F-104 Starfighter, and T-33 Shooting Star aircraft.

He went to see Yeager and the deputy commandant, Colonel Robert Buchanan, who informed him that there were two astronaut selections in progress: one for NASA, and one for the USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program.

[27] Duke made the list of 44 finalists selected to undergo medical examinations at Brooks Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas.

[37] Once their initial training was complete, Duke and Roosa were assigned to oversee the development of the Saturn V launch vehicle, as part of the Booster Branch of the Astronaut Office, headed by Frank Borman and C.C.

[44] George Low, the Apollo Spacecraft Program manager, convened a committee to review the situation, and Duke became the Astronaut Office representative on it.

They developed procedures, especially those for emergency situations, so these were ready for when the prime and backup crews came to train in the simulators, allowing them to concentrate on practicing and mastering them.

[43] Duke's distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world, as the voice of a Mission Control made nervous by a long landing that almost expended all of the Lunar Module Eagle's fuel.

These included the emplacement and activation of scientific equipment and experiments, the collection of nearly 97 kilograms (213 lb) of rock and soil samples, and the evaluation and use of the LRV over the roughest surface yet encountered on the Moon.

[84] On the way back to Earth, Duke assisted in a deep-space EVA that lasted 1 hour and 23 minutes, when Mattingly climbed out of the Casper spacecraft and retrieved film cassettes from the service module.

After a journey during which Casper had traveled 2,238,598 kilometers (1,208,746 nmi), the Apollo 16 mission concluded with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 19:45:05 UTC on April 27, and recovery by the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga.

He formed a partnership with former Olympic basketball player Dick Boushka, and they drew up a business plan and put in a bid for the new Coors distributorship in Austin.

[93][94] The house in El Lago was sold, and Duke and his family moved to New Braunfels, a community not far from San Antonio,[95] where, as of March 2024[update], he and wife Dotty remain.

[99] His subsequent business ventures include being president of the Orbit Corporation from 1976 to 1978; director of the Robbins Company from 1986 to 1989 and Amherst Fiber Optics in 2000; chairman of Duke Resources from 1988 to 1993 and Texcor from 1989 to 1994, and of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation from 2011 to 2012.

Duke wrote in his autobiography that his temper, ego, single-minded devotion to work, and greed had ruined his relationship with his wife and his children, and that his marriage teetered on the verge of divorce in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with Dotty suffering from depression and having considered suicide at one point.

The tapes were introduced by Merle Haggard, and other artists included Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Buck Owens, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins, and Floyd Cramer.

[116] Duke appeared in an online video asserting that he got to know the brothers as children at the home of disc jockey Bailey, and that he gave them a copy of the tapes following his return from the Moon.