🚀 Apollo 17 - Les derniers pas sur la Lune - Documentaire
Video from the channel Stardust - La Chaîne Air & Espace about Apollo 17, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:05:38. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
French-language documentary about Apollo 17, the last mission of the Apollo program to reach the lunar surface. It is narrated in the first person drawing on commander Gene Cernan's memoir, "The Last Man on the Moon," and illustrated with original mission audio. It covers the mission from the crew selection to splashdown, with special attention to the astronauts' work on the surface.
Historical context
The mission was prepared in 1972, with the Vietnam War drawing to a close and NASA facing budget cuts while seeking funding for the space shuttle. Deke Slayton proposed a crew made up of Cernan, Ron Evans, and Joe Engle, but agency leadership imposed geologist Harrison Schmitt in place of Engle. After Apollo 18 and 19 were cancelled, Apollo 17 became the program's last lunar mission. The command module was named America and the lunar module, Challenger. The mission emblem was designed with artist Robert McCall.
Key facts
It was the first crewed night launch by the United States. It was scheduled for 9:53 p.m. on December 6, 1972, but the automatic sequencer halted the countdown due to a pressurization problem in the third stage's oxygen tank. After about a two-hour delay, liftoff took place on December 7. The S-IVB stage was later sent to impact the Moon.
Challenger landed in the Taurus-Littrow valley, an area Al Worden had observed from orbit during Apollo 15. The astronauts deployed the lunar rover and the ALSEP experiment package, powered by a nuclear source. A broken fender on the rover covered them in dust. The rover reached a record speed of 18 km/h. Near Shorty crater they found orange-colored soil. It turned out to be ancient glass, not evidence of recent volcanism, but it contained volatile elements originating from the lunar interior. In total they covered more than 30 km and gathered about 100 kg of rocks. Cernan wrote his daughter Tracy's initials, TDC, in the dust.
Liftoff from the Moon took place at 16:56 Houston time. During the return trip, Evans went outside to retrieve the film. The capsule splashed down in the Pacific on December 19, near the USS Ticonderoga. The documentary notes that Evans died in 1990.