Apollo 17 makes the last crewed Moon landing
Gene Cernan leaves the final human footprint on the Moon, so far
Quick facts
- Agency
- NASA
- Crew
- Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, Ronald Evans
- Landing site
- Taurus-Littrow valley
- Surface time (moonwalks)
- ~22 hours
What happened
Apollo 17 launched on 7 December 1972, the eleventh and final crewed mission of the Apollo program. Commander Eugene Cernan and lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt, a professional geologist selected in place of astronaut Joe Engle specifically so a trained scientist would walk on the Moon, landed in the Taurus-Littrow valley while command module pilot Ronald Evans orbited above. Using a lunar rover, Cernan and Schmitt covered ground including a point 7.4 kilometers from the lunar module, the farthest any Apollo crew traveled from their spacecraft, and conducted three moonwalks totaling just over 22 hours, a program record. The mission splashed down on 19 December 1972. When Cernan climbed back into the lunar module to leave the surface, he became, and remains, the last person to have walked on the Moon.
Why it matters
No human being has returned to the lunar surface since Apollo 17, making Cernan's final steps a marker that has now stood for more than fifty years. The choice to send a geologist rather than another military test pilot also reflected NASA finally prioritizing pure science over demonstrating spaceflight capability, now that the political race against the Soviets had effectively already been won.
How we know
NASA's own mission page for Apollo 17 documents the launch and splashdown dates and crew roles; the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum account of the mission corroborates the same dates and Cernan's status as the last person on the Moon.
Sources
- NASA. Apollo 17 · Primary source (author-declared)nasa.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Apollo 17 · Primary source (author-declared)airandspace.si.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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