On December 19, 1972, a charred and weather-beaten space capsule called America splashed down into the Pacific Ocean about 350 miles south of American Samoa. The U.S. Navy ship Ticonderoga raced to pick it up. Inside were three tired but triumphant astronauts - Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evans. They were the crew of Apollo 17, and they had just become the last humans to visit the Moon. They didn't know it yet, but no one has been back since.
The mission had been the longest and most scientific Moon trip ever. Cernan and Schmitt, who was the only trained geologist to ever walk on the Moon, spent three days exploring a valley called Taurus-Littrow. They drove the electric lunar rover for nearly 22 miles, collected 243 pounds of Moon rocks, and discovered orange volcanic soil that turned out to be 3.64 billion years old. Cernan even scratched his daughter Tracy's initials, TDC, into the gray Moon dust before climbing back into the lander. Those initials are probably still there today.
Before he climbed up the ladder for the last time, Cernan said, "We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind." Then he lifted off and headed home. The Apollo program had landed 12 men on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. After Apollo 17 splashed down, the program ended, and humans turned their attention closer to Earth. But the dream never died - NASA's Artemis program is now planning to send people back, including the first woman to walk on the Moon.
