Word: apollo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...leave as we came and, God willing, we shall return with peace and hope for all mankind." As he uttered those hopeful and heartfelt words, Apollo 17's commander, Gene Cernan, stepped from the surface of the moon and clambered up the ladder of lunar module Challenger. Cernan's departure may not be remembered as long as Neil Armstrong's historic arrival three years ago. Nonetheless it was a profound and moving moment that was put in perspective by a presidential pronouncement: "This may be the last time in this century," said Richard Nixon, "that men will...
...terms of its scientific payoff, the last Apollo mission will probably turn out to be the best. During their record 22 hours outside their moonship, Cernan and Schmitt collected some 250 lbs. of lunar rocks, more than any of the ten moonwalkers before them. They set up the moon's fifth scientific station and drove their battery-powered rover across 22.5 miles of the cratered valley. They took more than 2,000 photographs, and turned up what may well be the first positive evidence of relatively recent volcanic activity on the moon. Said Schmitt, the first scientist to walk...
Those transmissions were by far the clearest yet sent from the moon. The red, white and blue of the U.S. flag were displayed in brilliant hues on TV screens as the astronauts raised a banner that had hung in Mission Control since the first moon landing of Apollo 11 in July 1969. Expertly operated by technicians at remote control consoles in Houston, the camera picked up the puffs of dust raised by the astronauts as they walked, awkwardly learning to cope with the moon's weak gravity-a sixth that of the earth-and the bulkiness of their space...
...fender with gaffer tape. But because of the everpresent, clinging fine-grained lunar dust, it would not stick. As precious minutes ticked away. Mission Control suggested that the astronauts abandon the fender repair work and get on with the more important job of setting up the five ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package) experiments...
...experiments also posed problems. Cernan worked so hard trying to drill holes for the important heat-flow experiment-which had been inadvertently disconnected on the Apollo 16 mission-that his pulse climbed to 150 beats per minute. NASA doctors, monitoring his heartbeat, ordered him to rest. Coming to Cernan's aid, Schmitt took a dramatic spill as he tried to extract a balky core tube from the ground. All of the experiments were finally set up, but it was learned later that a key instrument-the surface gravimeter-had jammed. It was a bitter disappointment to scientists...