[ART] The Last Men on the Moon

This coming 14th of December it will be 44 years since the last time men actually stood on the face of the moon. Currently there are no soon to happen plans for this long standing record to be terminated, although both Russia and China have voiced plans to send manned missions to the moon, the Russians for 2029, while the Chinese for 2036, there are still no concrete evidence that this will be happening as of yet. NASA seems to also have plans to send manned missions to the Moon in coming years, but not to land there, just to orbit it and fly past it to reach farther into deep space as a previous step and testing mission for a full manned mission to Mars sometime in the 2030s. Another option is Elon Musk's SpaceX private effort, but they are only aiming for a Mars manned mission, although he has optimistically dated it for 2024. So no manned mission to the moon will arrive there before 2030 with any certainty.

I have performed ten digital artistic variations based on a popular picture taken during the last Apollo mission that landed on the Moon and that I included as the last image below. Each variation was given a title and additional information on the Apollo XVII mission was included, so view, read, and I hope you enjoy, don't forget to comment on your favorite variation below.

Chromatic Evaporation Moon

The last manned lunar landing happened during NASA's Apollo XVII mission in 1972, and although it has been called the last of the Apollo missions after the previously planned Apollo XVIII, XIX, and XX were cancelled due to alleged budgetary reasons, the truth is that another Apollo mission was launched in 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), that was sometimes labeled as Apollo XVIII. ASTP was a rendezvous mission between a US and a Russian space craft that would dock in space orbit and perform some joint scientific experiments. The Skylab space station also used Apollo Command and Service Modules to shuttle astronauts to and fro the space station in 1973-74.

Autumn Moon

The Apollo XVII mission was launched on 12:33am (EST) December 7th, 1972. The crew members were Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Mission Commander Eugene Cernan. Cernan and Schmitt became the last humans to literally moonwalk for the last 44 years and counting. The whole mission lasted 12 days, the lunar landing part lasted 3 days.

Chaos Moon

Curiously this Apollo mission contains a combination of several broken records, and a couple of firsts and lasts. It was the last use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose, as well as the final manned launch of a Saturn V rocket. Apart from being the latest time humans walked on the face of the moon, it was also the last time we traveled past low Earth orbit. On the other hand it was the first time a manned rocket launch was performed at night, and it was also the first mission commanded by someone without any test pilot background, as a matter of fact no one on board had been a test pilot previously.

Pret a Porter Moon

This mission experienced the first recorded use of good old duct tape for emergency lunar rover vehicle fender repairs. A hammer in astronaut Eugene Cernan’s shin pocket was snagged on the rear right fender of the lunar rover partly tearing it off during EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) #1 of the Apollo XVII Moon landing. The following conversation happened during the first fender repair attempt between Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt:

-Cernan: “And I hate to say it, but I’m going to have to take some time to try … to get that fender back on. Jack, is the tape under my seat, do you remember?”

-Schmitt: “Yes.”

-Cernan: “Okay. I can’t say I’m very adept at putting fenders back on. But I sure don’t want to start without it. I’m just going to put a couple of pieces of good old-fashioned American grey tape on it...(and) see whether we can’t make sure it stays.”

-Cernan: “…good old-fashioned grey tape doesn’t want to stick very well.” [At a post-flight briefing he explained: “Because there was dust on everything, once you got a piece of tape off the roll, the first thing the tape stuck to was dust; and then it didn’t stick to anything else.”]

-Cernan: “I am done! If that fender stays on ... I’d like some sort of mending award.”
Quote Source

Monet Moon

Well, it so happens he didn't get the award, the repair only worked for a time and the fender piece fell off inadvertently not long after.

Since only half fender was left on that wheel lunar regolith dust, which is extremely fine, got thrown up in a rooster tail when the rover moved and since it is electrostatically charged it stuck to all surfaces, spacesuits, visors, etc. The nature of this moon dust makes it incredibly abrasive and it damaged visors and spacesuit joints as well as affecting visibility. These problems made the astronauts seek suggestions for a fix for the fender. Astronaut John Young at Mission Control suggested they use lunar cronopaque maps held together with clamps from the optical alignment telescope and plenty of grey duct tape as a substitute fender extension. The astronauts went to work on their second Moon EVA and this did the job for the rest of their explorations at the Taurus-Littrow landing site. Once again duct tape saved the day and a space mission to boot. The "map fix" of the lunar rover fender was brought back and is exhibited at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum at Washington D.C.

Fire Moon

Regarding records, the mission broke several of them. It was the longest Moon landing mission of them all lasting 3 days, as well as being the one with longest total extravehicular activities (moonwalks and spacewalks totaling over 23 hours), it also brought back to Earth the largest amount and weight of lunar samples (110.52 kilograms or 243.7 lb of rocks and lunar dust), likewise it spent the longest time in lunar orbit (6 days) and performed the largest amount of consecutive moon orbits to date (75).

Carnival Moon

Another noteworthy aspect of this last lunar walk were Eugene Cernan's words spoken shortly before reentering the Lunar Module after the last lunar walk:

"...I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come - but we believe not too long into the future - I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."

Laser Moon

While the Command Module named "America" is currently on display at Space Center Houston at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, other parts of the Apollo XVII mission have been left behind on the moon, namely the lunar rover, the remains of the ascent stage of the lunar module named "Challenger" (which impacted the Moon after being jettisoned), and the descent stage which remains on the Moon where it landed.

The landing site of this Apollo mission has been photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter both in 2009 and in 2011 from low orbits showing the descent stage remains together with lunar rover tracks and footprints, and these pictures have become tangible proof of man's presence on the Moon.

Fashion Gold Moon

The Apollo XVII mission did not only carry human passengers, as 5 pocket mice were also included for an experiment on the effects of cosmic radiation on biology. According to Commander Eugene Cernan, the crew dubbed these additional passengers as "Fe", "Fi", "Fo", "Fum" and "Phooey".

Graffiti Moon

In popular culture the Apollo XVII mission story has been included in the story line or referenced several times, a couple of the most notable instances happened in a TV series and a Movie.

In the popular 1972 TV series The Six Million Dollar Man, character Steve Austin had supposedly been a member of the Apollo XVII crew, since on the science fiction novel "Cyborg" by Martin Caidin, upon which the TV series was originally based on, Austin remembers having watched Earth "fall away during Apollo XVII."

On the more recent film from 1998 "Deep Impact", the fictional astronaut character Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner, which is portrayed by actor Robert Duvall in the movie, was described at a press conference by the movie's fictional President of the United States, portrayed by actor Morgan Freeman, as the "last man to walk on the moon," providing the implied connection to Apollo XVII.

Astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt on a picture taken by astronaut Eugene A. Cernan. Last men on the moon.

"Astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 lunar module pilot, stands near the deployed United States flag on the lunar surface during extravehicular activity (EVA) of NASA's final lunar landing mission in the Apollo series. The Lunar Module (LM) is at left background and the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) at right background (partially obscured). The photo was made by astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, commander."
Image and text source

Dig any one of these variations in particular? Shoot me a comment below and let me know.

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“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space