Here are the final 15 in our set of ’45 facts to mark the 45th anniversary of Apollo 17′. How many of them are new to you? 

31) Harrison Schmitt was first assigned to fly on Apollo 18, but when the mission got cancelled, he was assigned to Apollo 17 instead, replacing Joe Engle.

“Blue Marble”. Credit: NASA

32) One of the most widely used photographs ever taken is the image of Earth – nicknamed “Blue Marble” – that was taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on the way to the Moon.

33) The sixth automated lunar research station was set up on the Moon during Apollo 17.

34) Before they left the Moon, Harrison Schmitt noticed that Gene Cernan was going to throw his hammer. He asked if he could throw the hammer instead and Cernan replied “You deserve it. A hammer thrower…You’re a geologist. You ought to be able to throw it” – but warned him not to hit the lunar roving vehicle or the experiments with it!

Gene Cernan’s notes on his cuff-checklist to help him with his final words on the Moon. Credit: NASA

35) Gene Cernan didn’t plan his exact words he would say before he stepped off the surface of the Moon for the final time. He said they came to him a few minutes beforehand. Cernan did however make a note of the words on the plaque they took to the Moon, on back page of his cuff checklist.

36) Gene Cernan commissioned space artist Robert McCall to design the mission patch. The image of Apollo in the patch is directly based on the statue of Apollo displayed at the Vatican.

37) Apollo 17 was the only time cameras successfully captured astronauts launching from the surface of the Moon. The camera was mounted on the lunar rover, and was timed just right to film the ascent and keep the spacecraft in frame.

38) After launching from the surface of the Moon, the lunar module docked with the command and service module. They then jettisoned the ascent stage which crashed into the lunar surface, and the impact was recorded by scientific instruments from previous Apollo missions.

39) Apollo 17 brought back 110 kg of Moon rock – the largest haul of any Apollo mission.

40) On return to the Earth, the capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and was recovered by USS Ticonderoga.

Pocket mouse

41) Five pocket mice were taken on the Apollo 17 flight and stored in the command module for radiation tests.

42) Lunar Module Pilot Ronald Evans was previously a Navy pilot who flew planes from the USS Ticonderoga during the Vietnam war. He was serving on this ship when he learned he had been selected for the astronaut corps. This USS Ticonderoga was also the ship that recovered the Apollo 17 crew after splashdown in the Pacific!

43) The Apollo 17 command module, America, is currently at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

44) Each Apollo mission that landed on the Moon left a plaque with the astronauts’ signatures, but Apollo 17 was one of only two missions which had an inscription about the mission and President Nixon’s signature. The other was Apollo 11.

45) The lunar roving vehicle used by Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt during their time on the Moon has been sitting on the lunar surface for 45 years – and no-one has seen it clearly since they left the Moon.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of the Apollo 17 landing site, but with each pixel representing around half a metre the resolution makes it impossible to see the rover in any detail. PTScientists wants to return to the Taurus-Littrow Valley and get the first high-definition images of the original lunar rover to see what state it is in after 45 years being exposed to the harsh environment of the lunar surface.

That’s all folks! Thanks for joining in our celebration of 45 years since Apollo 17 with 45 facts. You can find facts 1-15 here and 16-30 here. Ad astra!

Gene Cernan EVA suit Moon. Credit: NASA

We’ve collected 45 facts about Apollo 17 that we’re sharing on social media and the blog – here are facts 16-30:

16) The space suits worn on the surface of the Moon had 26 layers of materials, designed to protect the astronauts from the extremes of temperature, and lack of breathable air on the lunar surface.

17) With three Moon walks, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt clocked up 22 hours and four minutes of EVA time.

18) Gene Cernan traced his daughter’s initials “TDC” in the lunar dust on the Moon.

19) The astronauts of Apollo 17 hold the record for the largest distance traversed using the lunar roving vehicle – around 35 km.

20) During the mission, Schmitt and Cernan found orange soil on the Moon – evidence of volcanic activity.

21) Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt had history’s first case of extra-terrestrial “hay fever” caused by Moon dust, which came on swiftly after his first EVA on the lunar surface. 

22) Gene Cernan wasn’t really happy with being called the “last man on the Moon” – in his words “I was just the most recent man on the Moon – I am not the last”.

23) Eugene Cernan’s camera is still on the Moon lens pointing out into space – he hoped that it would be collected by future astronauts and could be used to measure the effect of solar cosmic radiation.

24) Part of one of the original fenders from Apollo 17’s Lunar roving vehicle remains on the Moon after reattachment with duct tape didn’t hold as long as was hoped!

After a mishap with the original fender, the crew had to create a replacement using laminated maps and duct tape. Credit: NASA

25) Gene Cernan’s space suit – that he wore during his Moon walks is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

26) During their traverses, the Apollo 17 crew deployed eight explosive charges which, after the crew was back in orbit, were detonated one by one to provide signals for the Lunar Seismic Profile experiment.

27) When Ronald Evans took the first steps on his spacewalk, his first words were “hot diggity dog!”.

Apollo 17 landing site, as seen by LRO. Credit: Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

28) NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter took images from an altitude of 50 km above the lunar surface showing the Apollo 17 lander and rover tracks.

29) Harrison Schmitt’s space suit has been studied by geologists and space suit designers to find out how much damage dust from the lunar surface caused to the materials the suit was made from.

30) Gene Cernan never took a photograph of his final footstep on the Moon – something he later said he regretted. In order to bring back the maximum amount of Moon rock, astronauts left their cameras behind and only brought back the film. Gene Cernan had already left his camera behind on the surface, only realising later that he could have taken a photo of his last footprints, removed the film and thrown the camera away from the lander.

Look out for the final 15 facts in our ’45 facts for 45 years’ series coming soon. You can check out the first 15 facts here.

Gene Cernan deploys the traverse gravimeter experiment during his third Moon-walk. Credit: NASA

The ground below your feet is deceptively complex. The distance between the soles of your shoes, and the depth where rocks become too gooey to have any consistent structure, is around 30 km. For almost all human history, what lies beneath the ground has been an utter mystery.

We could dig a deep hole to see what’s at the bottom, but the maximum practical limit of this is perhaps a kilometre, and it only reveals what’s below that one spot. Ground-penetrating radar is an easier option, allowing you to scan the ground to a depth of a few hundred metres. But everything below that is a black box – without a different approach, we would have no clue what really lies below our feet.

What lies beneath? Credit: Kelvinsong/Wikimedia

Thankfully we do have a different approach. With some clever engineering and applied physics, we can peer into the ground and gain remarkably precise knowledge of the rocks beneath. A gravimeter can “see” through a kilometre of ice to survey the ruggedness of a rocky surface beneath a glacier, or detect buried seams of mineral or metal ores whose density is different from that of surrounding rock.

Simply put, a gravimeter is a ridiculously sensitive accelerometer – like the one that measures whether your phone is portrait or landscape. It can measure the gravitational field strength – with an incredibly high level of accuracy – at a chosen location. For an idea of the just how precise these measurements are, the Apollo 17 gravimeter experiment had an accuracy of 2 milligals, that’s equivalent to 0.0002 % of the strength of Earth’s gravity!

Different structures have different densities, and these cause miniscule variations in gravitational field strength at the surface above them. By measuring these changes with a gravimeter, and putting the data through complex analyses, it’s possible to create models of the subsurface structure in the sample region. Then, by correlating these density calculations with the known densities of rocks, the subsurface structure of the site can be calculated with remarkable accuracy. A gravimeter can open a window into the ground beneath us – or, for that matter, any other celestial body.

Apollo 17 Traverse Gravimeter. Credit: NASA

The crew of Apollo 17 took a traverse gravimeter (one designed to be operated at a number of sites) to the Moon. The results were mostly of academic interest at that point – the landing site in the Taurus-Littrow Valley has, below the surface regolith, a thick block of basalt-like rock that fills a reasonable portion of the valley floor, which is considerably denser than the surrounding rock. This is interesting, as the lunar ‘seas’ visible from Earth are vast areas of basalt, but Apollo 17 deliberately landed in a more mountainous region. This could have yielded clues about the way the Moon formed, but we can’t really say any more about the Moon as a whole without wider sample areas.

That’s where PTScientists come in. One of the experiments that will be carried on one of the Audi lunar quattro rovers will be a gravimeter. Since the 1970s, the technology behind gravimeters has taken leaps forwards (in no small part thanks to the uses of gravimeters in oil and mineral prospecting on Earth) and it’s now possible to pack an entire gravimeter into less than 2 kg. Gedex, the Canadian company behind the new gravimeter hopes to repeat some of the readings taken by the Apollo 17 team with even greater accuracy, and take measurements in more locations to get a better picture of the ground beneath the Moon’s surface.

There’s another key difference from the Apollo era, and that’s part of the reason why the team want to ship a gravimeter to the Moon. The data about the lunar subsurface is no longer of purely academic interest – many of those advocating for a lunar colony are proposing putting it in a cave below the surface.

Imagery from lunar orbit has detected numerous “pit craters,” which suggest caves beneath, possibly being impact-generated skylights into buried lava tubes. Low-resolution gravity data from the twin lunar orbiters of NASA’s GRAIL mission hints at a very large lava-tube in the Marius Hills region of the Moon, but higher-resolution data will be needed to confirm that.

Surface gravimetry collected from a lunar rover is ideally suited to do that, being capable of detecting even fairly small (100 m diameter) buried caves and tubes. Interest in the idea of cave-dwelling settlements is steadily building and the number of potential sites is increasing at a rapid rate, but we still don’t have enough data to confidently say we should put people in lunar caves.

“Blue Marble” – one of the most reproduced photographs in history. Credit: NASA

Sure, an improvement in our understanding of the internal layers of the Moon may not be as headline-grabbing as pictures like ‘Blue Marble’ – an image of the whole Earth, taken during Apollo 17, but most of the time science works in small steps. It is by combining data from a wide-range of sources – measurements from orbiters (such as GRAIL), radio data from satellites like SELENE, and surface-based observations from the Audi lunar quattro – that we can get the best possible results and the most understanding.

There is rarely a giant leap for humanity – more often its a gradual climb towards a future where we know more, and can apply our knowledge to the great challenges that will face us.

Apollo 17 launch. Credit: NASA

The team at PTScientists is marking the 45th anniversary of Apollo 17 this month. Apollo 17 is a mission that has special significance to us, not only because it was the final time humans walked on the surface of the Moon, but because we want to return to Apollo 17 with Mission to the Moon.

We’ve collected 45 interesting facts about Apollo 17 that we’re sharing on social media – take a look at the first 15:

1) Apollo 17 was the first of NASA’s human missions to be launched at night – and the photos are spectacular as a result!

2)  None of the three crew members came from a test-pilot background. Another first for a NASA human spaceflight mission

3) Gene Cernan was the only member of the Apollo 17 crew to have any previous spaceflight experience.

4) John Young, Charlie Duke and Stuart Roosa were the back-up crew for Apollo 17. This is the first time that members of the prime crew of one mission went on to be back-up on the mission directly after theirs!

5) Just because you’re in space doesn’t mean there’s an excuse for stubble! Gene Cernan and Ron Evans were both photographed shaving on their way to the Moon!

Gene Cernan spruces himself up on the way to the Moon. Credit: NASA

6) NASA audio of Gene Cernan talking to Mission Control is used at the start of the Daft Punk song “Contact” (but no, he wasn’t talking about an UFO!)

7) Most people think of the Space Shuttle programme when they hear the name “Challenger”, however, Apollo 17’s lunar module was the first to carry the name. Apollo 17’s command/service module was called America.

8) The three stars on the Apollo 17 mission patch represent the three astronauts, Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt and Ronald Evans.

9) Harrison Schmitt was the first geologist on the lunar surface – in fact he was the first scientist-astronaut, and was due to fly on Apollo 18. When that mission was cancelled due to budget cuts, Schmitt was moved to Apollo 17 and replaced test-pilot Joe Engle.

10) It’s not just something that happens on Earth – losing scissors is possible in space too! Ronald Evans lost his scissors, on the way to the Moon, and this was more than just an inconvenience because the surgical scissors were vital for opening food packets! Since Evans was going to be alone while Cernan and Schmitt were on the surface of the Moon, they had to leave him with one of their pairs of scissors before they descended to the lunar surface.

(Harrison Schmitt found the lost scissors as they were stowing equipment ready for Earth re-entry, but he and Gene Cernan kept that a secret until about a month later, when they presented the “lost” scissors to him at splashdown party with the flight control division!)

11) Apollo 17 landed just 200 m away from its preferred landing point on the Moon– following a nominal descent.

12) The landing site of Taurus-Littrow was selected as rocks that were older and younger than those collected by previous Apollo missions were thought to be located there.

Credit: NASA

13) Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt landed on the lunar surface at 19:54 UTC on 11th December, 1972. The crew spent 74 hr 59 min 40 sec on the lunar surface – breaking the record for the longest stay on the Moon.

14) A year after their mission, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt presented a US flag that they flew to the Moon to the team at mission control, Flight Director Eugene Kranz accepted it on their behalf.

15) Lunar Module Pilot Ronald Evans spent more time in lunar orbit than any other human, according to NASA.

45 years since Apollo 17 – the final Apollo mission – launched, PTScientists announces we are working with For All Moonkind to safeguard sites of historical and cultural significance on the Moon, and elsewhere in outer space. We spoke to For All Moonkind Co-Founder Michelle Hanlon to find out why she thinks it’s so important to protect these sites for the future…

Why is it important to preserve the sites?

Archaeologists make the point these sites are crucial to understanding and guiding humanity’s migration into space. Scientists want to study how materials eroded over time, and of course, they memorialise the achievements of centuries of thinkers and scientists who have worked to unlock the secrets of space and send humans there.

These sites of historical and cultural significance are unique in human history, and they are almost perfectly preserved. Certainly, they have thus far been untouched by other humans. They are essentially frozen in time by the lack of atmospheric conditions on the Moon.  For these reasons, initially at least, we must have the opportunity to study or photograph objects in situ so that we can create a narrative of actual events.

What exactly do you mean by “sites of historical and cultural significance?”

Lascaux cave paintings. Credit: Prof Saxx/Wikimedia

Think about things that we have determined to protect here on Earth:  The cave paintings in Lascaux, France, Stonehenge, a ring of standing stones in Wiltshire, England, a trail of barefoot steps in Tanzania. These all mark and memorialise tremendous human achievements: art, astronomy and the very act of walking upright. The landing sites on the Moon mark humankind’s greatest technological achievement to date: reaching another celestial body. They also mark the dawn of our space age and human evolution into spacefaring explorers. They hold tremendous historical and cultural significance to our species as a whole.

For All Moonkind was founded in America, are you only interested in protecting Apollo sites?

No. We are not just about Apollo. While we are, indeed, legally organised in the United States, we are an international entity.

Our team already includes lawyers, scientists and policymakers from Germany, the UK, Russia, India, Canada, Australia and the UAE, among many others.  And we are continuing to recruit individuals from all regions of the globe.

China’s Yutu rover on the Moon

This is an international effort to recognise and protect all our common human heritage: from Luna 2, the first human-made object to land on a celestial body, to Apollo 17 which marks the last human visit to the Moon, to Yutu, the Chinese robot which set the record for the longest operational period for a rover on the Moon. We want to create a framework which recognises that we are moving into space as a species, not one private organisation or single nation. We are all in this together.

Aren’t all these sites already protected?

Credit For All Moonkind

No – they are not. No enforceable laws exist to prevent defilement or vandalism. The sites themselves fall within gaps in the international space law framework, and they pose a distinctive issue. Pursuant to international treaties, no nation may claim sovereignty over any part of the Moon, and that means no single nation can purport to protect these sites. They must be recognised and protected by the international community, after all, they represent our common human heritage.

So what can be done to protect them?

We are working on two approaches. The first is through public international law.  We are preparing an international Convention on the Management and Preservation of Human Heritage in Outer Space for consideration by the United Nations. The second path is through private outreach. We are delighted and gratified that PTScientists is among our first supporters. Already they have pledged to be the first signatory of a declaration to effectively “do no harm” to heritage sites in outer space.  Indeed, PTScientists offers a model of behavior – they have been working with NASA as they plan their mission to Apollo 17. We hope that all private companies will agree to take the same painstaking care and attention as part of their exploratory protocols.

Will new regulations prevent research being done at these sites?

Absolutely not. Nor will our proposal prevent or hinder exploration. As we straddle the threshold of true spacefaring capability we have an extraordinary opportunity. We have time, and now is the time to pause and consider how to manage the preservation of our human heritage. Do we need to protect all 23 miles of rover tracks from the Apollo 17 mission? Do we want to keep every single Luna or Surveyor landing site pristine? These are questions we owe it to ourselves to decide as a human community. There is no need to go crashing through our history as we build our future.

Some people suggest we should make use of the equipment that is already on the Moon – bringing a new battery for a lunar rover for example – what’s your view on this?

This is just one of the many things we must consider as we prepare our Convention on Management and Preservation. The intent of our framework is not to cut off all interaction with these sites, but rather to ensure we stop and think before we act.

Can people get involved and support you?

We are an entirely volunteer-based organization and no-one on our team is compensated for their service. Despite this, we do need funds to help us spread awareness and to assist in research and drafting efforts, so donations are welcome.  Spreading the word and increasing awareness of our aims is just as important. Energetic public support will increase the influence we have with public and private decisionmakers, so please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and Join Us. It may seem like a small step, but preserving our history is vital to our future success. Let’s move into space together, with history and our humanity intact.

You can find out more about For All Moonkind on their website: www.forallmoonkind.org

On the 45^th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last mission to take humans to the surface of the Moon, commercial space company PTScientists formally pledges that it will respect this site of incredible historical interest. Announcing a partnership with For All Moonkind, Inc., PTScientists is making a public pledge of support for their initiative to safeguard sites of historical and cultural significance on the Moon and elsewhere in outer space.

In a human first, PTScientists – working with Key Technology Partners Audi and Vodafone Germany – will revisit the Apollo 17 landing site during Mission to the Moon. This is the first time any organisation – private or public – has planned to return to any of the historic landing sites on the Moon. The team hopes to capture the first high-definition images of Apollo 17’s lunar roving vehicle, which was left on the Moon by astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Gene Cernan in 1972.

Since Cernan and Schmitt left the surface of the Moon on 14^th December 1972, no-one has seen the lunar roving vehicle (LRV) clearly. Grainy images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show signs of what is believed to be the LRV on the Moon’s surface, but no-one can tell how well the Moon buggy has survived decades of radiation exposure, lunar dust, and extremes of temperature.

“The inspirational power of the Apollo missions even touches people who, like me, weren’t alive to see them first-hand” explains Robert Boehme, CEO and Founder of PTScientists. “Apollo 17 marked the end of one chapter of exploration, but as we enter a new era of private exploration I want to create a new ‘Apollo moment’ to inspire a new generation of explorers, engineers and scientists.”

“We want to visit the Apollo 17 landing site not just to celebrate human achievement, but also to continue scientific learning” – Robert Boehme

Credit: For All Moonkind, Inc

Recognising the historic and cultural significance of the Apollo 17 landing site, PTScientists has been working with engineers from NASA specifically to assure Mission to the Moon does not damage any important human heritage. This experience highlighted the need for a wider conversation on protection and preservation of site, and how this should be covered in a formal legal framework to ensure the protection of all human heritage sites in outer space for future generations.

For All Moonkind is an international citizen-based not-for-profit group working to develop and implement binding international law designed to manage the preservation of humankind’s heritage in outer space starting with the Apollo landing sites.

“Each of the Apollo lunar landing and similar sites in outer space, including, for example, Russia’s Luna sites, are a fundamental part of our human heritage” said For All Moonkind Co-Founder Michelle Hanlon.

“They mark an achievement unparalleled in human history, and one that is common to all humankind. They also hold valuable scientific and archaeological information and serve as poignant memorials to all those who work — and have worked in the past — to evolve humans into a spacefaring species.  In short, they are unique and irreplaceable cultural and scientific resources.  And they must be protected from intentional or accidental disturbance or desecration.”

PTScientists is one of the first private space companies to support the For All Moonkind initiative.  The company has endorsed the mission of the organisation and is helping to spearhead an initiative to encourage all organisations in the space sector to sign a binding pledge to respect the lunar landing sites and all our human heritage in outer space.

“We are very grateful for the support of PTScientists,” continued Hanlon. “Robert and his team are the embodiment of our new spacefaring age. They aren’t just committed to exploring space, they understand that our human return to the Moon is based on a deep, rich and shared history – one that must be preserved to guide into this new frontier.”

“The original space race was dominated by two countries, but today the competition between private companies is just as intense,” said Boehme. “I hope we all share one overriding goal: to make space accessible to all humanity.”

“As we take the next giant leap, we must be careful not to trample on the footsteps of those that came before us” he added. “As space fans ourselves, PTScientists is happy to support For All Moonkind and its mission to preserve our human heritage.”

Notes to Editors:

• Hi-res images available on request
• For information about PTScientists: contact media@ptscientists.com
• For information on For All Moonkind contact tim@forallmoonkind.org

About PTScientists

PTScientists is a German private space company, headquartered in Berlin. Their first lunar mission, Mission to the Moon, aims to send two Audi lunar quattro rovers to the lunar surface, to the Taurus-Littrow Valley. Using one of the rovers the team will carefully approach the site of the original lunar roving vehicle, and will work closely with NASA to ensure that they don’t disturb any sites of potential interest for the future. They aim to be the first private mission to land on the Moon, and plan to launch in 2019 – which is also the 50^th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the first humans on the Moon.

PTScientists is working with Key Technology Partners Audi (on the Audi lunar quattro Moon rover) and Vodafone Germany (for lunar surface communications). They will carry a range of scientific and artistic payloads to the Moon and conduct technology demonstrations on the lunar surface as well as visiting the Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle.

The lunar roving vehicle

The lunar roving vehicle has been on the Moon for 45 years, undisturbed. It is hoped that valuable data can be collected about the presence (or absence) of dust, whether the vehicle is still in one piece, and how well various materials have stood the test of time in the harsh environment of space. This information could be useful when considering which materials to use for future long duration missions.

Apollo 17

• Apollo 17 was the final mission to send humans to the lunar surface.
• It launched on 7^th December, 1972 with three astronauts on board: Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt and Ronald Evans.
• Astronauts Cernan and Schmitt landed on the lunar surface on December 11^th, carried out three Moon-walks, and launched from the surface of the Moon on December 14^th.
• Gene Cernan was the last person to step on the Moon, but before his death in January 2017, shook off the term “Last Man on the Moon” saying he was just “the most recent”.
• Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific on December 19^th, 1972.

About For All Moonkind, Inc. 

For All Moonkind, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation formed in June 2017. It is an entirely volunteer organisation whose mission is to preserve human heritage in outer space. Currently, the leadership team includes space lawyers, scientists and communications executives representing more than 15 nations. The ultimate goal of For All Moonkind is the execution and ratification of an international Convention on the Management and Preservation of Human Heritage in Outer Space. For more information, please visit www.forallmoonkind.org