Missione #apollo 17 la storia

Video from the channel eurofox71 about Apollo 17, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 55:19. Language: Italian. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary in Italian about Apollo 17, the last crewed mission of the Apollo program to the Moon. It combines NASA footage, original mission audio and testimony from engineers, scientists and the crew themselves to tell how the expedition that closed out that generation's lunar exploration was prepared, flown and concluded.

The story begins with President Kennedy's commitment of 25 May 1961 and the impact of Yuri Gagarin's flight, which pushed the United States into the space race to the Moon. After the success of Apollo 11 in 1969, public and political interest declined and NASA cancelled missions 18, 19 and 20, making Apollo 17 the last one. Pressure from the scientific community led to Joe Engle being replaced by Harrison Schmitt, a geologist and the first scientist-astronaut to walk on the Moon, alongside commander Eugene Cernan, a veteran of Gemini and Apollo 10, and command module pilot Ronald Evans.

The Saturn V lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 00:33 on 7 December 1972, the only night launch of this rocket. During the journey the crew took the photograph of Earth known as the Blue Marble. The lunar module Challenger landed on 11 December in the Taurus-Littrow valley, chosen for its geological variety, while Evans mapped the surface from the command module America with a panoramic camera and a laser altimeter. On the surface, Cernan and Schmitt deployed the ALSEP experiment package and repaired a fender on the lunar rover with duct tape and a laminated map, with help from John Young in Houston. At Shorty crater they found orange soil, formed by tiny spheres of volcanic glass. In total they logged 22 hours of exploration, covered 34 km and collected more than 110 kg of samples and over 2,400 photographs. The documentary ends with the lunar module's liftoff, filmed by Ed Fendell from mission control, Evans' spacewalk on the return trip, and the splashdown in the Pacific.