Announcer: “Ten, nine, eight, seven -
Ignition sequence started.
All engines are started.
We have ignition.
Two, one, zero. We have a liftoff.
We have a lift off and it's lighting up the area -
it’s just like daylight here at Kennedy Space Center.
The Saturn five is moving off
the pad. It is now clear of the tower.”
NASA's now celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Apollo 17.
This was the final mission of the Apollo program and most notably,
the last time humans set foot on the Moon's surface.
The landing site in the Taurus-Littrow Valley was selected so that astronauts
could collect samples of the lunar
highlands and investigate the volcanic history of the area.
So - what was it like to actually be there, and
how does this mission connect with NASA's current exploration of the Moon
and our future plans to return humans to the surface?
These questions are best answered by the Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 17,
Jack Schmitt, whose background as a geologist offers
unique insight about studying the lunar terrain.
For Jack, being on the Moon was an unparalleled experience,
and future astronauts should expect the same.
The experience is going to be more than you ever anticipated,
and it was that way for me to get onto the Moon.
Seeing this valley of Taurus-Littrow,
which is deeper than the Grand Canyon, as a matter of fact, mountains
to six and seven thousand feet above you on either side of the valley,
all silhouetted against a
black sky with brilliantly illuminated mountain slopes.
And the Earth, of course, in one spot above the southern part of the Massifs -
that all was a new experience, of course.
And you can’t . . .
you can hear people talk about it, but you can't absorb it until you're there.
Being there is the essential human ingredient
in any kind of experience of that kind.
Schmitt: “As I step off at the surface at Taurus-Littrow,
I'd like to dedicate the first steps
of Apollo 17
to all those who made it possible.”
Schmitt and Commander Gene Cernan completed three moonwalks on the surface,
taking rock samples and deploying scientific instruments.
Difficult work considering the surface gravity is only about one-sixth
that of Earth's.
Cernan: “What are you working on, Jack?” Schmitt: “I'm taking a pan.”
Cernan: “Very good. I'm coming right now . . .
I bet you a dollar to doughnuts that you don’t get a TGE reading.”
Mission Control: “Yeah, Gene. If it’s easy enough to take it off,
why don't you take it off the Rover
and we’ll try and and level it in the stuff.”
Schmitt: “Ah, come on . . . ”[Laughter]
Cernan: “I'm not sure there's any place to put it on the ground level.”
Schmitt: “No. You have to dig a place.” Cernan: “Yes, I’ll do it. Okay it’s coming off.”
Cernan: “Well, I'll set it right up here.”
Schmitt: “It's gonna fall down the hill . . .”
Schmitt: “You’d better stomp off a good place.” Cernan: “Yeah.”
The conditions on the Moon, however, were also ripe
for the astronauts to have a little fun on the surface as well.
Schmitt [Singing]: “I was strolling on the Moon one day . . .”
Cernan and Schmitt [Singing]: “in the marry marry month of . . .”
Schmitt: “December!”
Cernan: “No, May.” - Schmitt: “May. “ Cernan: ”May’s the month this year.”
Schmitt: “May - That's right.” Cernan: “May is the year of the Month”
Schmitt: “Go ahead. Oh, there . . . there.
Schmitt: “Let me throw the hammer.”
Cernan: “Okay.” Schmitt: “Let me throw the hammer, please.”
Cernan: “It’s all yours.” Schmitt: “You got the gravimeter.”
Cernan: “You deserve it. A hammer thrower . . .”
Cernan: “You’re a geologist. You ought to be able to throw it.”
Schmitt: “You ready?” Cernan: “Go ahead.”
Schmitt: “You ready for this? Ready for this?”
Cernan: “Yeah”
Cernan: “Don't hit the LM . . . or the ALSEP”
Schmitt: “Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!”
Cernan: “Beautiful.”
Cernan: “Looked like it was going a million miles, but it really didn’t.”
Schmitt: “Didn’t it?”
The crew managed to gather around 245 pounds
of moon rocks and dust samples during their EVAs.
It was an impressive collection for scientific analysis back on Earth.
Cernan: “Let's see if I can’t crack the corner and get that contact.”
The quality and diversity of the Apollo sample collection is just remarkable.
Absolutely remarkable.
And it's a gift that keeps on giving.
The researchers continue to go back to these samples.
New analytical technology comes along where you can apply new techniques,
get more higher resolution information, and that'll be going on indefinitely.
I don't think the lunar sample collection from Apollo will ever be out of date.
Over three decades after Apollo 17,
NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009.
The scientific instruments aboard this robotic spacecraft
collect a wide variety of scientific data on the Moon's environment,
including surface and subsurface properties.
And since LRO has now been in operation for over 13 years,
it has provided a treasure trove of new information about the Moon,
as well as the capacity to help scientists re-interpret older data
and answer scientific questions that had been lingering from the days of Apollo 17.
One such case involved the debate over the origins of a light colored mantle
seen at the base of the South Massif in Taurus-Littrow.
LRO imagery provided a key discovery
that enabled scientists to put together the many pieces of the puzzle.
One of the highest sun angle LRO photographs
made it very clear that there was an older, slightly darker
avalanche underlying - partially underlying- the light colored light mantle avalanche.
And that immediately brought into question whether or not the light mantle
avalanche, as people had thought, was triggered by secondary material
thrown from the crater Tycho, some 2000
kilometers to the southwest.
It would seem not impossible, but it would seem to be very coincidental
to have two avalanches, one of which was triggered by those impacts.
And that, in turn, took us to looking at what might be an alternative
triggering mechanism.
And the more we began to understand the Lee Lincoln scarp, and that it was
indeed as a result of other LRO analyses elsewhere on the Moon,
that it was indeed a thrust fault scarp -
Then you start to think, well, maybe these are being triggered
by seismic activity, moonquakes.
And so it sort of snowballs.
You see one thing, and then you start to explain that
and it leads you to a number of other analyses.
Clearly, LRO imagery and other sensor data
has made a great difference in our ability to augment
the interpretation of the geology of the valley of Taurus-Littrow.
As the LRO mission continues enhancing our ability to interpret
Apollo era data while also collecting new information about the lunar terrain,
Jack sees a clear roadmap for the future exploration of the Moon
and where we should go next.
It's apparent to me that based on
just general considerations
as well as the magnificent imagery
coming from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera,
that South Pole Aiken is clearly
the place you'd like to have an extended human
presence for exploration.
With this all this new knowledge, I think South Pole Aiken becomes
a much higher priority for the next human mission to the Moon.
Sure enough, NASA has recently announced that the Artemis missions
which will eventually have humans
returning to the lunar surface, will focus on the Moon's South Pole.
In fact, the 13 landing sites currently under consideration
sit within the South Pole Aiken Basin, or on its rim.
Data shows the presence of water ice in some of the permanently shadowed
regions, a discovery that is crucial for understanding
the geologic history of the Moon, as well as helping establish
a sustained human presence there in the future.
Overall, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17 reminds us
that this mission was a crucial stepping stone in the history of lunar science,
laying the groundwork for missions like LRO,
which in turn help open the door on a new era of human exploration
with Artemis.
And while these missions may be separated by decades of time,
they all interconnect with the central premise and understanding
of how the Moon is the cornerstone to understanding our universe.
The main reason the Moon is important in the general
understanding of the solar system is that it has no atmosphere.
It's never had any water erosion, it has no dynamic plates being formed
and eaten up as the Earth does.
And it tells us what the early solar system was like up
to about three and a half billion years ago.
And that's information we can't really get from any other accessible planet.
The Apollo 17 anniversary allows us to reflect on all the moments,
big and small, that led to the success of that historic mission.
For Jack, it's a time to reflect on those days, months and years
spent out in the field preparing for the duties of an astronaut.
And it was during this time training that Jack learned the invaluable
scientific lesson that not everything goes exactly as planned.
Well, those excursions had all of their
their interesting aspects.
One time, I believe it was in Nevada, we’re getting off the rover, even
without a suit, I had slipped on something and fell onto this . . . surface.
And my good friend, the late
Gordon Swan, said over the communication system, “Well, Schmitt just hit the fan!”
[Laughing] . . .
It was, by the way, an alluvial fan.
[Laughing]
I don't think you can use that! [Laughing]
Interviewer: “I’ll use that someday.”
[Laughter]
Interviewer: “That’s Great. Thank you very much Jack.”
Yeah, thank you.