Wednesday marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission — the final one which put people on the moon. NPR takes a have a look at the mission and what it means for future journey to our lunar companion.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
On today 50 years in the past, Apollo 17 left Earth.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We now have ignition. Two, one, zero – we’ve a liftoff.
CHANG: It was NASA’s final mission to ship astronauts to the dusty lunar floor. NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce studies that this anniversary comes as NASA is nearer than ever to going again.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Solely 12 folks have ever walked on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronauts did not simply stroll. Generally, they rode in a high-tech moon buggy. And typically, they strolled.
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HARRISON SCHMITT: (Singing) I used to be strolling on the moon at some point…
HARRISON SCHMITT AND GENE CERNAN: (Singing) …Within the merry, merry month of…
SCHMITT: (Singing) …December.
EUGENE CERNAN: No, Could.
SCHMITT: (Singing) Could.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: That is Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan. They explored the moon for 3 days, touring greater than 20 miles. On the finish of their last tour on December 14, Harrison Schmitt climbed a ladder into their return spacecraft. Eugene Cernan received able to do the identical.
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CERNAN: We depart as we got here and, God keen, as we will return – with peace and hope for all mankind.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The pair of moonwalkers knew they’d be the final for some time, however that they had no concept that a long time would go. Their reminiscences of the moon remained vivid. Harrison Schmitt as soon as advised me he might recall strolling in a lunar valley with mountains throughout.
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SCHMITT: They had been illuminated by as sensible a solar as you may think about. And, after all, hanging over the southwestern mountain was this apparently small planet that we name the Earth.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: {A photograph} of the Earth, the complete spherical globe wanting like a marble, is without doubt one of the most essential legacies of the Apollo 17 mission.
TEASEL MUIR-HARMONY: That picture was taken up by the environmental motion. It was on the Complete Earth Catalog. It is one of the crucial reproduced pictures in historical past.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Teasel Muir-Concord is curator of the Apollo assortment on the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Air and Area Museum. She reveals me round its brand-new lunar exploration corridor and factors out that aside from the primary moon touchdown, the Apollo program wasn’t that in style with the general public, which was targeted on different issues.
MUIR-HARMONY: The Vietnam Warfare particularly was one thing that will have been competing with headlines through the Apollo 17 mission. Main developments had been taking place within the Vietnam Warfare throughout this mission.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Having achieved the Chilly Warfare purpose of a moon touchdown, politicians had been not keen to shoulder the Apollo program’s excessive prices and dangers. However now the house company is poised to return to the moon within the not-so-distant future. NASA’s new moon shot is named Artemis, after Apollo’s twin sister.
MUIR-HARMONY: One of many issues that bodes very effectively for Artemis is that this can be a program that has sustained assist via a number of administrations.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: She says that hasn’t been true for earlier applications that aimed on the moon. This time, NASA really has an area capsule that is at the moment on its first check journey across the moon. It is on account of return to Earth on Sunday. The primary flight with astronauts is deliberate for 2024. Shortly after that, NASA desires to land the primary lady and first individual of shade on the lunar floor. On the museum, Muir-Concord reveals me a glass case with Eugene Cernan’s overshoes, which he wore whereas making his last lunar footprints.
MUIR-HARMONY: They seem like, , the winter moon boots that you have seen. And but they’ve these traces of the expertise of strolling on the lunar floor.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: There’s grey moon mud embedded within the white material. They appear good, completely preserved, like somebody might simply slip them on and go for a stroll.
Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR Information.
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