NASA marks 50 years since the final Apollo moon mission as it works to return - NPR

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Apollo 17 commandant Eugene Cernan is covered successful lunar particulate aft the mission's 2nd moonwalk. On December 14, 1972, Cernan took his last steps connected the satellite and nary 1 has been backmost since. NASA/JSC hide caption

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NASA/JSC

Protected wrong a solid lawsuit are immoderate precious boots. Technically called astronaut "overshoes," they look perfectly preserved, astir pristine. But a person look reveals bits of grey lunar particulate embedded successful the achromatic fabric.

These overshoes made the past quality footprints successful that grey dust, astir a half-century ago.

"They look like, you know, the wintertime satellite boots that you've seen," says Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of the Apollo postulation astatine the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, wherever this footwear is connected display. "Yet they person those traces of the acquisition of walking connected the lunar surface."

Astronaut Eugene Cernan wore these overshoes during the last moonwalk ever, successful December of 1972. They're present connected show astatine the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum successful Washington, DC. Mark Avino/Smithsonian's NASM hide caption

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Mark Avino/Smithsonian's NASM

Fifty years ago, connected December 7, 1972, a almighty Saturn V rocket blasted disconnected carrying 3 astronauts, including Apollo 17 Commander Eugene Cernan, who wore those overshoes.

He knew that his unit would beryllium the past lunar visitors for immoderate clip to travel —but helium had nary thought however overmuch clip would pass.

Now, arsenic NASA commemorates the day of its Apollo program's last mission, it's person than ever to returning astronauts to the lunar surface.

Its new, multi-billion-dollar satellite rocket launched for the archetypal clip past month, sending up a unit capsule — with nary astronauts connected committee — that's presently connected its mode location from a trial formation astir the moon. The spacecraft, called Orion, is owed to splash down successful the Pacific connected December 11.

Orion's maximum region from Earth was achieved connected formation time 13, erstwhile it was 268,563 miles away. That's farther than immoderate different spacecraft built for people--but lone mannequins were connected board. NASA/JSC hide caption

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If each goes well, NASA expects to alert astronauts connected a travel astir the satellite successful 2024. And soon after, the bureau intends to instrumentality astronauts to the aboveground successful a lunar lander being built by Elon Musk's institution SpaceX.

Although 2025 is the agency's target day for a landing adjacent the lunar South Pole, astir successful the aerospace manufacture expect delays. NASA has vowed that this clip around, moonwalkers volition see a pistillate and a idiosyncratic of color.

Apollo 17's historical weight

On December 14, 1972, astatine the extremity of the last moonwalk of the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan spoke a fewer words from the aboveground of the satellite earlier pursuing astronaut Harrison Schmitt up a ladder into their ascent vehicle.

This representation taken from a TV transmission shows Harrison Schmitt starting backmost up the ladder of the lunar module connected December 14, 1972. Eugene Cernan, lasting nearby, is astir to instrumentality the last steps connected the moon. NASA/JSC hide caption

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NASA/JSC

"We permission arsenic we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with bid and anticipation for each mankind," said Cernan.

Being "the past antheral connected the moon" was Cernan's assertion to fame, but helium seemed anxious to shed the title.

"I'd similar to beryllium capable to shingle the manus of that young antheral oregon young pistillate who replaces maine successful that category," helium told NPR successful 2012, earlier his decease 5 years later. "But unfortunately, the mode things person gone and the mode things are looking for the future, astatine slightest the near-term future, that won't hap successful my lifetime."

On the last spacewalk ever, Harrison Schmitt was photographed lasting adjacent to a immense lunar boulder by his astronaut spouse Eugene Cernan, the past idiosyncratic to locomotion connected the moon. NASA/JSC hide caption

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Only a twelve radical person ever walked connected the moon. During the 3 days they spent connected its surface, Schmitt and Cernan traveled for implicit 20 miles, portion crewmate Ronald Evans orbited supra successful a bid module.

"They knew the historical value of that mission," says Muir-Harmony, who notes that different Apollo astronauts abandoned their overshoes connected the moon, to debar carrying excessively overmuch cargo location different than lunar rocks. But Cernan packed his for the instrumentality trip.

Another happening the astronauts brought home, and 1 of the astir important legacies of the Apollo 17 mission, was a photograph of the full circular globe of the Earth, looking similar a bluish marble.

"That representation was taken up by the biology movement. It was connected the Whole Earth Catalog," says Muir-Harmony, referring to the influential counterculture work launched successful 1968. "It's 1 of the astir reproduced images successful history."

"Apollo wasn't precise popular"

Like the bulk of Americans live now, Muir-Harmony isn't aged capable to retrieve the days of moonwalking, which ended earlier she was born.

Her depository has conscionable created a caller lunar exploration hall, and it has to archer the communicative of the Apollo programme to radical with nary idiosyncratic memories of it.

Back successful the 1960's and 1970's, she notes, the Apollo programme didn't person a tremendous magnitude of nationalist support.

"In general, Apollo wasn't precise fashionable domestically," explains Muir-Harmony. "It was lone astir the Apollo 11 ngo that much than fractional of Americans thought this should beryllium a nationalist priority."

Many Americans resented the wealth devoted to satellite exploration, and the federation besides faced pressing challenges similar the Vietnam War. Muir-Harmony notes that "major developments" successful that warfare were happening during the Apollo 17 ngo and generating competing headlines.

She says the Apollo programme ended due to the fact that politicians similar President Richard Nixon were nary longer consenting to enarthrosis its precocious costs and the risks to astronauts, fixed that the Cold War's contention to the satellite had been won.

NASA shifted to gathering reusable abstraction shuttles. These vehicles flew for 3 decades and made it imaginable to conception the International Space Station, which is occupied 24/7 and orbits astir 250 miles supra the Earth. But each of that enactment kept astronauts adjacent to home, alternatively than going backmost to the satellite oregon connected to Mars.

President George H. W. Bush projected a instrumentality to the moon, and President George W. Bush did arsenic well. But each time, enactment waned erstwhile a caller medication came successful with a antithetic agenda.

That hasn't been existent for NASA's existent moonshot, which the bureau calls Artemis, aft the mythical Apollo's duplicate sister.

A camera astatine the extremity of 1 of the Orion capsule's star arrays took this representation showing the acold broadside of the moon. NASA/JSC hide caption

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A camera astatine the extremity of 1 of the Orion capsule's star arrays took this representation showing the acold broadside of the moon.

NASA/JSC

"One of the things that bodes precise good for Artemis," says Muir-Harmony, "is that this is simply a programme that has had sustained enactment done aggregate administrations."

And adjacent though humans person already walked connected the moon, she says it's hard to foretell what effect a satellite landing would person connected younger Americans seeing it for the archetypal time.

During the Apollo 11 landing, fundamentally everyone connected Earth stopped what they were doing to watch, coming unneurotic "in greater numbers than ever earlier successful quality history," she points out. "What would it mean to consciousness similar a subordinate today?"

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