Today marks 40th anniversary of the last mission on the moon.

**Dlazarus6660** · #1 12-14-2012, 04:40 PM

Today marks 40th anniversary of the last mission on the moon. 1972, Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan concluded their third and final moonwalk and blasted off in Lunar Module Challenger for their rendezvous with the Command Module America. Duration of the flight: 12 days, 13 hours, 52 minutes. Time on Lunar Surface: 74 hr. 59 min. 40 sec.Splashdown was December 19, 1972 Splashdown at 19:24:59 UT (2:24:59p.m. EST)

**Retired_for_now** · #2 12-14-2012, 07:26 PM

For those in the Pensacola Florida area: Jim Lovell and Fred Haise (Apollo XIII astronauts) will be speaking the National Naval Aviation Museum on board NAS Pensacola at 10am this Saturday the 15th. At 1:30pm David Scott (Apollo XV lunar rover driver), Tom Stafford (Apollo X and ASTP), and Dick Gordon (Apollo XII) will be the panel.
Then, at 5:30pm Gene Cernan (Apollo XVII and last man on the Moon) will speak as the Museum unveils a full scale model of the LEM lunar lander.
More info at: National Naval Aviation Museum - Salute to the Pioneers of Space

Yogi

**CMDRTED** · #3 12-15-2012, 12:02 AM

wait a minute! what about apollo 18?

**Swampfox** · #4 12-15-2012, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CMDRTED

wait a minute! what about apollo 18?

Apollo's 18,19 and I believe 20 are on display at various museums across the country.

Maybe someone knows exactly were.

Swampfox

**Kevin WS** · #5 12-15-2012, 09:51 AM

40 years! Time really has flown.

A sad anniversary too. All the potential, and what may have beens, lost and gone!

**joeblow321** · #6 12-15-2012, 10:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swampfox

Apollo's 18,19 and I believe 20 are on display at various museums across the country.

Maybe someone knows exactly were.

Swampfox

This site might help:
The Project Apollo Archive

Go to spacecraft on left side.

**Gixergs** · #7 12-16-2012, 04:59 AM

Ah Apollo 17 and who can forget those last imortal words as they lifted of the moon that final time " Has anybody seen my keys"

**piginapoke** · #8 12-17-2012, 04:10 AM

If the political momentum was still going after Apollo 17 then we'd probably be on Mars by now. Ah well. One day......

**Retired_for_now** · #9 12-17-2012, 08:38 PM

On the other hand, the Apollo approach of flinging a few million pounds at the moon to get a few hundred pounds of astronauts and rocks back at the end isn't viable in the long term.
What we lost in the '60s space race (that did successfully get us to the Moon) was the infrastructure of space stations and large spacecraft assembled in orbit that were prominent in many of the 1950s proposals. What we are finding out is that it's very expensive to build that infrastructure, especially if we have to bring everything up out of our home gravity well. Expect continued slow progress until we are actually getting our materials for, and are able to manufacture the parts of, space hardware using resources already out there (can you say asteroid mining?).
Yogi