![]() ![]() Slayton ultimately chose Cernan and Evans, though support for assigning Cernan to Apollo 17 was not unanimous within NASA. Schmitt's selection to the Apollo 17 crew left NASA Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton with the question of who would fill the two other Apollo 17 slots: the rest of the Apollo 15 backup crew ( Dick Gordon and Vance Brand) or the Apollo 14 backup crew (except for Engle). NASA subsequently assigned Schmitt to Apollo 17 as the Lunar Module Pilot. The scientific community pressed NASA to assign a geologist, rather than a pilot with non-professional geological training, to an Apollo landing. In September 1970, Apollo 18 was cancelled. ![]() Harrison Schmitt, a professional geologist in addition to an astronaut, served on the backup crew of Apollo 15 and would be due to fly as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 18 as a result of the rotation. This put them in line to be prime crew of Apollo 17, as the Apollo program's crew rotation generally meant that a backup crew would fly as prime crew three missions later. In 1969, NASA announced that the backup crew of Apollo 14 would be Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and former X-15 pilot Joe Engle. 4.3.3 Light-flash phenomenon and other experimentsĬrew and key Mission Control personnel Position.3.1 Scheduling and landing site selection.1 Crew and key Mission Control personnel.The mission broke several records for crewed spaceflight, including the longest crewed lunar landing mission (12 days 14 hours), greatest distance from a spacecraft during an extravehicular activity of any type (7.6 kilometers or 4.7 miles), longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours 4 minutes), largest lunar sample return (approximately 115 kg or 254 lb), longest time in lunar orbit (6 days 4 hours), and most lunar orbits (75). The spacecraft returned to Earth on December 19. Evans remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), taking scientific measurements and photographs. Orange soil was discovered at Shorty crater, and proved to be volcanic in origin, although from early in the Moon's history. Cernan and Schmitt landed in the Taurus–Littrow valley and completed three moonwalks, taking lunar samples and deploying scientific instruments. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, after the only launch-pad delay in the Apollo program caused by a hardware problem, Apollo 17 was a "J-type" mission that included three days on the lunar surface, extended scientific capability, and the use of the third Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV). Since all three crew members had backed up previous Apollo lunar missions, they were familiar with the Apollo spacecraft and had more time for geology training. They thus selected Taurus–Littrow, where formations that had been viewed and pictured from orbit were thought to be volcanic in nature. ![]() Mission planners considered two primary goals in selecting the landing site: to sample lunar highland material older than Mare Imbrium and to investigate the possibility of relatively recent volcanic activity. The mission's heavy emphasis on science meant the inclusion of a number of new experiments, including a biological experiment containing five mice carried in the command module. ![]() Schmitt was the only professional geologist to land on the Moon, selected in place of Joe Engle with NASA under pressure to send a scientist to the Moon. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans orbited above. ![]()
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