50 Years Ago Was The Last Time Humans Walked On The Moon

Today marks the 50-year anniversary of mankind’s last excursion on the surface of the moon. On that day, Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene “Gene” Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt undertook their third and final venture outside their lunar module “Challenger.” Ronald Evans remained in lunar orbit in the command/service module “America,” photographing the sun and stars. The winged warriors retired from escorting their chosen ones through the sky.

Of the 24 American men who traveled that far from Earth, 10 remain alive today. Of those, half descended to the moon’s crust and left their footprints there. Only four continue to be with us, including Schmitt, the sole professional geologist among them. (Evans passed away in 1990, and Cernan in 2017.)

Our voluntary termination of these endeavors — after less than five years from achieving that milestone — leaves a melancholy reminder of foregone opportunities. Then again, maybe that lost ability wasn’t so important. After all, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reminded us a few years ago, our country “was never that great.”

Some of us beg to differ.

The Apollo 17 emblem features the Hellenic sun god Apollo of Belvedere as a golden sculpture portrait, including a stylized eagle, the moon, Saturn, and a spiral galaxy. Around the grey border reads “APOLLO XVII” and the astronauts’ surnames. All of the manned Apollo missions (except Apollo-Soyuz) identified their designations with either Roman or Hindu-Arabic numerals, and most included the crew, the exceptions being Apollo 11 and Apollo 13.

Of the manned missions that involved Apollo spacecraft, five were launched on the Saturn IB: Apollo 7, Skylab 1, Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Apollo 18 (that docked with Soyuz 19 on the first and only American-Soviet joint orbital mission). The remainder launched on the behemoth Saturn V with 4,000 tons of thrust from 1968 to 1972. The last Saturn V launched America’s first space station “Skylab” in 1973.

A pair of articles on Apollo 11 provides a brief overview of Saturn V’s development. Six missions successfully landed on the moon, and one (Apollo 13) had to abort. Not only was Apollo 17 the program’s finalé, but it also featured the sole launch at night. The awe-inspiring image of the fiery torch rising in the night sky lends visual testimony to human creative ability when assigned a herculean task.

Apollo 17 was former Navy aviator Cernan’s third and final spaceflight. He had previously flown on Gemini 9A to practice rendezvous and docking and Apollo 10 as a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. This was the first and only space mission for Evans and Schmitt, the latter of whom later served as senator from New Mexico from 1977-1983.

Following its Florida launch a half-hour after midnight EST on Dec. 7, Apollo 17 spacecraft “America” and “Challenger” docked and entered lunar orbit three days later. The lunar module “Challenger” with Cernan and Schmitt descended on Dec. 11 and touched down in the Taurus-Littrow valley at the southeastern edge of