Apollo 17: Encyclopedia II - Apollo 17 - Mission highlights

Apollo 17 - Mission highlights

One of the last two men to set foot on the Moon was also the first scientist-astronaut, geologist Harrison Schmitt. While Evans circled in "America," Schmitt and Cernan collected a record 240 pounds (109 kilograms) of rocks during three Moonwalks. The crew roamed for 21 miles (34 kilometers) through the Taurus-Littrow valley in their rover, discovered orange-colored soil, and left the most comprehensive set of instruments in the ALSEP on the lunar surface. Their mission was the last in the Apollo lunar program.

Apollo 17 - Introduction

Crew members were Gene Cernan, commander; Ron Evans, command module pilot; and Harrison Schmitt, lunar module pilot.

The landing site for this mission was on the southeastern rim of the Mare Serenitatis, in the southwestern Montes Taurus. This was a dark mantle between three high, steep massifs, in an area known as the Taurus-Littrow region. Pre-mission photographs showed boulders deposited along the bases of the mountains, which could provide bedrock samples. The area also contained a landslide, several impact craters, and some dark craters which could be volcanic.

A J-class mission, featuring the Lunar Rover, they conducted three lunar surface excursions, lasting 7.2, 7.6 and 7.3 hours. The mission returned 243.6 lbs (110.5 kg) of samples from the Moon.

The Command module is currently on display at NASA's Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas. The lunar module impacted the Moon on 15 December 1972 at 06:50:20.8 UT (1:50 AM EST) at 19.96 N, 30.50 E.

On this mission the astronauts took a famous photograph of the earth known as "The Blue Marble".

Apollo 17 - Mission notes

• Schmitt, a geologist, was the first (and to date, only) scientist to walk on the Moon.

• Like the astronauts of Apollos 10, 12, 13, and 14 before it, the Apollo 17 crew were recovered in Pacific waters near American Samoa after splashdown, and were flown from the recovery ship to the airport at Tafuna where they were greeted with an enthusiastic (and well practiced!) Samoan reception before being flown on to Honolulu, thence to Houston.

• The plaque left on the ladder of the descent stage of Challenger read: Here Man completed his first explorations of the moon. December 1972 AD. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind. The plaque showed two hemispheres of Earth and the near side of the Moon, plus the signatures of Cernan, Evans, Schmitt, and President Nixon.

• Commander Eugene Cernan left a Czechoslovak flag on the Moon because his ancestors came from Czechoslovakia.

• Schmitt was originally due to fly on the cancelled Apollo 18 but following pressure from the science community was moved up to LM pilot on Apollo 17 in place of Joe Engle.

• Apollo 17 broke several records set by previous flights, including longest manned lunar landing flight; longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities; largest lunar sample return, and longest time in lunar orbit.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Mission highlights", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki