Half a century after Apollo 17; The reconstructed images of the last manned journey to the moon are in stunning detail

50 years ago, shortly after midnight on December 7th, the Apollo 17 mission lifted off from the launch pad in Florida. The presence Eugene Cernan And Harrison Jack Schmidt And Ronald EvansThis was the sixth and last NASA space flight to the surface of the moon.

Cernan and Schmidt spent three days on the moon and with their rover broke the records for the longest distance traveled on the surface of the moon (7.6 km) and the amount of lunar rock returned; But today, what is probably most remembered about this mission is the fact that Apollo 17 was the last human landing on the moon, or even the last human journey beyond near-Earth orbit.

One of the memorable moments of the mission was the message that Cernan sent to mission control on Earth before the lunar module took off from the surface of the moon. He said that man will return to the moon in the not too distant future. Much later, speaking to the media, it turned out that he did not mean decades later. When Cernan died five years ago at the age of 82, he was still the last person to walk on the moon.

Earlier this year, a British photographer named Andy Saunders Published a book titled “Apollo Recreated” which contains 400 photographs from the Apollo missions. Astronauts took approximately 20,000 photos with Hasselblad cameras during the Apollo program. Saunders of various image editing techniques, including Focus accumulation It used 16mm video footage to recreate images of these iconic missions with far greater clarity than had been seen before.

On the occasion of the historic launch of Apollo 17, Saunderser released eight images with remarkable clarity from his book, along with the caption Technica currency website shared Next, stay with Zoomit as we review these memorable images.

Apollo 17 images

Dressed in his overalls, Harrison Schmidt enters the lunar module through the corridor to check it out. He points the Minolta light meter at Ronald Evans, who is in the hallway, to assess the light for the camera settings. Eugene Cernan’s mobile life support system backpack is located near Schmidt’s right elbow.

Schmidt looks around from the edge of a crater 100 meters wide and approximately 14 meters deep. On the left side of the photo, you can see the tracks of the lunar rover’s wheels up to the edge of the crater and the orange material, “very dark bluish” according to Cernan. “From where I’m standing, about a hundred meters around the west side of the crater rim, there’s a lot of orange material falling into the crater,” Cernan said.

Cernan: “I want to get the land… Let’s try once, then we’ll be carefree and go to work. Take it a little higher, okay?” Schmidt: “I don’t know, Eugene, let me get closer to you… okay, it’s probably fixed.” Schmidt finally took the photo and the result was this image of the heads of the flag and the ground. Schmidt can be seen in the light reflection from the golden shield of Cernan’s helmet as he kneels and tries to get the right angle.

Schmidt is opening the solar panels on the surface coordinate transmitter. A 35-meter-long four-wire cross-dipole antenna was placed over a cross-pattern of the rover’s wheel tracks that Cernan had purposely constructed. Cernan checks the list of tasks at hand: “Okay, get the locator photo entry to the lunar module.” At the end of the activities on the moon, Cernan says: “Do you want to walk back or ride the rover?” Schmidt: “Oh, I’ll walk back.”

Cernan: “Let’s see if there’s life in here, dear…and judging by the way it steers, I think the rear wheels will too…what do you see, Jack?” Cernan tests the rover and its steering (each pair of wheels can turn in opposite directions to improve the vehicle’s maneuverability). Schmidt: “Come to me baby! It seems to be moving… Don’t cross me!” Above the right shoulder of Cernan, Bear Mountain can be seen, and approximately 7 kilometers to the right is Tudeh Kouh South.

Schmidt and Cernan undressed and set up their sleeping quarters for an eight-hour rest before joining Evans in lunar orbit. Cernan: “I have never seen so much dust in my whole life. never.” The weary commander’s biomedical sensors are visible beneath his liquid cooling suit. Caps and suits are placed on the engine cover of the ascent module and the hatch is visible on top.

Schmidt: “Burning.” [موتور]! We’re on our way to Houston!” Evans: “I’m glad you’re both back here… Boy, that Challenger is a beautiful spaceship!” I have to take a picture of him!” The unbalanced and ill-shaped lunar module is located in the darkness of space. With a slight improvement in the picture, Commander Cernan is now seen through the window commanding and guiding the spacecraft over the surface of the moon for the last time. Cernan: “Can you see me?” Evans: “Yeah, I can see you right there!”

After receiving the signal, in the sixty-sixth orbit, the crew observed the Earth’s sunrise and its spectacular crescent. Evans: “Houston, America, apparently we’re back with you… actually we know we are. As soon as we came up, we took your picture!” This photo was taken near Ritz, an impact crater that lies beyond the edge of the Moon visible from Earth. The wake-up music for the last day in orbit was “Light Up the Fire” by the Doors, fitting with the upcoming injection maneuver into Earth’s orbit.

The eight images you saw were just a small part of the amazing collection of historic photos in Saunders’ book. Man has not been to the moon for a long time; But soon, with the Artemis program, we will finally be able to step on the surface of the moon again.