At 13:24:59 Central Standard Time on December 19, 1972, the Apollo 17 command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, about 350 nautical miles southeast of Samoa, concluding the last mission to the Moon.
During his career, Apollo 17’s commander, Eugene A. Cernan, logged 566 hours and 15 minutes in space, of which more than 73 hours were spent on the surface of the Moon. Cernan was the second American to walk in space, and the last person to leave his footprints on the surface of the Moon.
The conclusion of the Apollo 17 journey marked not only the end of a mission, but the close of an era. Between 1969 and 1972, 12 astronauts walked on the Moon over the course of six separate landings.
Half a century later, NASA is preparing to return under its Artemis program. For the Artemis II mission, set to launch on April 1, 2026, four astronauts will travel in a loop around the Moon in NASA’s next-generation Orion crew capsule.
More than 50 years is a long gap, and it is only natural to ask if Americans could reach the Moon routinely in the early 1970s, why did it take so long for them to try to go back?
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