
As NASA’s #ArtemisTeam prepares to return humans to the Moon, AmericaSpace looks back on the last time people were on the lunar surface, OTD in 1972. […]
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![]() The Apollo 10 and 11 crews in discussion, after the completion of the Apollo 10 mission. Around the table from foreground are Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot (CMP) Mike Collins, Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 10 LMP Gene Cernan, Apollo 10 Commander Tom Stafford, Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong and […] ![]() The rugged, forbidding lunar landscape, seen from Apollo 10. Photo Credit: NASA Four hours after a bone-jarring launch from Cape Kennedy—marking the first-ever space mission to originate from Pad 39B—and an equally rattling ride through Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI), on 18 May 1969 the crew of Apollo 10 were finally on their way to the […] ![]() It was no understatement that Charlie Brown and Snoopy were everywhere in the days leading up to (and during) the Apollo 10 mission. Here Snoopy, clad in bubble helmet and trademark scarf, sits with Charlie on a console in Mission Control. Photo Credit: NASA Snoopy, the little black-and-white dog from the Peanuts comic strip, […] ![]() Over the years, many have questioned the need for Apollo 10 and why it could not be retasked to perform a lunar landing. In reality, the mission was critical in clearing up many unknowns before a landing could go ahead. Photo Credit: NASA Five decades ago, this week, Americans could almost taste the Moon, […] ![]() Apollo 16 Commander John Young gazes across the rugged terrain during humanity’s fifth piloted lunar landing. Photo Credit: NASA John Young, one of only 12 humans to have walked the dusty surface of the Moon, one of only three of mankind’s sons to have traveled twice to lunar distance, the only astronaut to […] ![]() Apollo 17 astronaut Ron Evans hauls the cylindrical film canister from the SIMbay mapping camera back to the safety of the command module, during humanity’s most recent deep-space EVA, 45 years ago, today. Photo Credit: NASA Forty-five years ago, today, a fully-suited astronaut poked his helmeted head out of the side hatch of […] ![]() Apollo 17 launches into the night at 12:33 a.m. EST on 7 December 1972. Photo Credit: NASA, via Joachim Becker/SpaceFacts.de Forty-five years ago, the combined spacecraft of Apollo 17—the Command and Service Module (CSM), named “America”, and the spider-like Lunar Module (LM), dubbed “Challenger”—slipped smoothly into lunar orbit. In doing so, it represented […] ![]() Gene Cernan salutes the U.S. flag at Taurus-Littrow in December 1972. Photo Credit: NASA A little more than a week since his passing, aged 82, veteran astronaut and Navy Capt. Eugene Cernan—the last man to have left his footprints on the surface of the Moon—was honored today in a touching funeral service at […] ![]() Gene Cernan salutes the U.S. flag at Taurus-Littrow in December 1972. Photo Credit: NASA On 16 January, a day of reflection—the 14th anniversary of the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on her final mission—the world lost a shining light in the early annals of human space exploration. Retired Navy Capt. Gene Cernan, veteran […] |