APOLLO 17: The Significance of Human’s Last Mission To The Moon!!!

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I was out with my friend some nights ago and the moon was looking bigger than the usual and quite bright. We soon fell into a discussion about Space and how much technology has changed our understanding of things. I decided to do some extra digging on our journey into space as humans and I’m here to share with you all a few things I got to find out.

John F. Kennedy's Moon Speech to Congress - May 25, 1961; Sourced from Youtube

The United States President at that time (i.e. John F. Kennedy) gave a speech that has found a way to stick in my head for a while now. And it goes thus:

“The eyes of the world now look into Space, to the moon and the planets beyond. I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

This was in regards to the space projects; Project Apollo which he had allowed to kick start as a response to the Soviets claim of being the first people to journey into space.

Back then, it was more like a race to space against the Russians, on who would have the bragging rights to space exploration. Everyone found the Project amazing and many were enthusiastic. About 1/5th of the world population back then in July 1969 watched Neil Armstrong take those historic steps on the Moon.

It’s funny though how few years after this, people seemed to lose their enthusiasm on the projects and NASA had to cancel their last three missions. This made Apollo 17 the final mission of man to the moon.

Prime Crew for the Apollo 17 Lunar Landing Mission; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Author:NASA



The Apollo 17 mission was handled by three brave Astronauts: Eugene ‘Gene’ Cernan (one of only 3 men who have visited the Moon twice), Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt (first and only Geologist to step on the Moon) and Ronald E. Evans.

The project was massively huge and a big success in crowning the efforts of man towards space exploration. The mission came with a lot of record breaking feats such as: the crew spending 3 days on the surface of the Moon, Moonwalks for about 8 hours covering a greater distance than any other previous mission.

Saturn V Rocket on Apollo 17 LaunchPad at Night before take off; Sourced from pixabay.com

The Saturn V Rocket used to launch the Astronauts in the Kennedy Space Center was an enormously huge one, weighing about 6.8 million pounds, with a first stage thrust of 7.5 million pounds and it is actually the largest space vehicle that has transported man to space. I can only wonder what a ride in such space rockets will be!

Clip of Apollo 17 Launch; Sourced from Youtube Courtesy of International Astronautical Federation



Taking off exactly at 12:33 am on December 7th 1972, the sky was lit as the fire from the rockets, literally turned night into day upon its launch. It was a successful launch and an amazing sight to see. The spacecraft made two orbits of the earth, and at about 45,000 km the astronauts took one of the most used and popularly distributed photo image of our planet; “The Blue Marble”

The earth captured during Apollo 17 a.k.a 'Blue Marble'; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Courtesy of NASA

The spacecraft landed on a small valley; The Taurus-Littrow Valley which is closely at the edge of an Impact Basin and was formed about 3.9 billion years ago due to asteroid collision. This region was chosen because of NASA’s interest in understanding the significance of this vast Basin which had a mix of lowlands and highlands, plus the fact that there was a geologist on board the spacecraft.

Taurus-Littrow Valley; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Author:NASA

After covering a distance of about 380,000 km in 4 days, the Apollo 17 astronauts began moving around the moon. For the very first time, humans had to commit themselves to the gravitational field of another planetary body. And at 7:54 pm on December 11th 1972, the Lunar Module Challenger landed safely on the Moon’s surface. The astronauts had just touched down in a valley that was actually deeper than the Grand Canyon right on the Moon! One of the astronauts described the view of their Landing Area as “a place with illuminated mountains silhouetting against an absolute black sky”.

Without wasting time, the Astronauts got to work on the site and carried out various geological studies and experiments with the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package which contained 4 experiments that had never been done on the Moon. One of such experiments had to do with the Lunar Atmosphere and the kind of gases around. To verify this, the crew had a Mass Spectrometer that could actually detect different gases.

Also, there was an experiment with a sensitive Gravimeter that was used to measure the Moon’s gravitational Pull with a check for the existence of Moonquakes. The crew laid some explosive charges in order to carry out a seismic experiment which was conducted after they left the moon. The seismic study was aimed at understanding what the strata underneath the Moon’s Surface looks like.

Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, in the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Author:NASA

The Crew had a fantastic experience with a few setbacks from the Moon Rover. But luckily, duct tape was all that was needed to solve the problem with the Rover and the mission continued smoothly with a few tripping falls from the Astronauts trying to walk their way through the terrain of the site.

Orange soil discovered on the Apollo 17 mission; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Author:NASA

On their 2nd excursion. the crew stopped by a crater that was of particular interest to scientist because it had soil composition that was darker relative to other parts of the terrain. The Shorty Crater had Orange Soil and this is considered one of the greatest finds of the Apollo Missions. This Orange Soil could be evidence of some sort of volcanic activity. They were also able to study large boulders that had rolled down the valley.



With loads of scientific instrumentation on board while on a lunar orbit in the Command Module, Astronaut Ron Evans carried out experiments to help map the surface of the Moon accurately. Till date, the data and info collected by the Apollo 17 crew is still used by research scientists and astronomers.

And before they left the Moon, Astronaut Cerner fulfilled a promise he made to his daughter by writing her initials; ”T.D.C”on the moon. This makes her the only girl/lady who has her name written in Lunar-dust. The initials will remain there for thousands of years undisturbed! I sure wish I could have something like that. Lol!

Apollo17 turned out to be a record breaking mission. Astronauts Schmitt and Cerner Spent 3 days on the Moon and used 22 hours in total for Lunar Exploration and Research. This was the longest in the Apollo Project history. They drove a total of 34km through the Valley and put in place the most comprehensive set of instrument ever deployed on the Lunar surface. They also collected over 100kg of Moon Rock and Soil and took over 2,400 photos.

Earth rising above the lunar horizon; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Author: NASA from Apollo 8

Upon leaving the Moon, the crew made sure to capture the take-off of the Lunar Module: a view that NASA had not recorded in the previous Apollo missions.The Lunar Module docked with the command module and they continued to orbit the moon for extra three days, using the time to carry out more orbital science. They were the last men to witness what is known as the Earth Rise.

While on the return journey, Astronaut Ron Evans also had a spacewalk to collect important film from the external cameras onboard. And 3 days after, the astronauts were back in Earth’s Atmosphere and the Command Module controlled by the Computer. Broke-chutes were released at 25,000ft and the Main-chutes at 10,000ft.

Astronaut Ronald E. Evans performing extravehicular activity during the Apollo 17 spacecraft's trans-Earth coast; Sourced from Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain; Author: NASA from Apollo 8

The Apollo Project has been very significant in determining how we look at the Moon and understand it as a planetary body. The Lunar samples brought back by various missions and Apollo 17 (being the last mission) in particular serve as relics with a lot of novel science still going on about them. The instruments installed on the Moon’s surface by these projects are still in use till date. And data brought back by the missions are still in use.

The Apollo Project definitely cost a lot of money, but I believe it was actually worth it. The Apollo Missions serve as foundations on which scientists have come up with new ideas and theories making it such a valuable program.
Human Lunar explorations were a whole lot different from the usual Telescope studies.

The Ability to bring back samples and many more bonuses completely helped us to better understand how we think of the earth and the moon and even other planetary bodies. The shrewd importance of these Apollo projects in space science is comparable to none. And I believe the space program will continue to inspire future generations for many years to come. IT GOES A LONG WAY TO SHOW TO THAT HUMANS CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING AS LONG AS WE PUT OUR MINDS INTO IT!

OR WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SPACE EXPLORATION AS A WHOLE?

I leave you with this popular JFK video.Clip Cheers and thanks for reading through and do drop your comments and suggestions !

References

You can check out some of my sources for more info!

Apollo 17

Apollo 17: The Last Men on the Moon

Apollo 17 (AS-512)

Apollo Program


AS COMPOSED BY QUE



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9 comments
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Hey, you should look at the formatting of your article and tweak something.

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Thanks @gentleshaid. I was trying to explore with HTML formatting and i messed thing up a bit..😅.I guess i'll just wait till my next post to figure it out better.

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It's still not properly formatted from hive.blog interface

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I have made the correction now. Thanks boss!

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Thanks for this content. I love all things space--grew up with the space program. Astronauts were always my heros.

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I'm glad @fiberfrau, that you found this article valuable enough. Astronauts truly are heroes, and for me, they represent the ability of humans to break barriers and achieve what was deemed impossible.

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