Will this be out last? Apollo XVII

No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult, or expensive to accomplish. But, in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon. If we make this jugment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation...(John F. Kennedy)

Apollo XVII with its Command/Service Module named “America” and the Lunar module named “Challenger” was the last of the Apollo program.

It was a very ambitious mission with many experiments on board that had not been done on any other mission.

There was the traverse gravimeter that used the local gravity to find out the local density of the rocks below. Also was a gravity wave detector to test Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. It was meant to measure gravity waves, except the designers had not designed it properly for the gravity of the moon and it never worked, and they were unable to perform the test.

The Crew of Apollo XVII did finally find evidence that they had been looking for. On this mission they finally found evidence of lunar volcanic activity. During their second EVA they came across a plain of orange soil. When core samples were taken, it was found that the orange was little balls of Comma volcanic glass. Evidence of volcanic activity had finally been found on the moon.

The Final Apollo mission had a total of 3 EVAs that lasted 22 hours, 04 minutes. It also had the firs scientist astronaut to ever land on the surface of the moon Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt. The had traversed a total of 30.0 km across the surface of the moon in the LRV a new and right now final record. They also gathered 234 pounds (110.4kg) of material form the moon. There was also the performance of the trans-Earth EVA that was done by Ronald Evans it lasted 01 hour, 06 minutes.

With the splash down of the Apollo XVII module our days on the moon ended. The last time that a man walked on the moon I was not born. There has not been a flight to the moon for over 30 years. I personally feel that this is a true tragedy. I have seen it written that if the Apollo program had continued to receive funding as it had in the early 70’s we would have a base on the moon. If so we would have unmanned lunar Modules to bring supplies to the moon. These may be dreams but as someone that has grown up in the space age I feel that we could achieve these dreams if we really wanted to. I hope that some day, before I am to old, we return to the moon.