December 1972 was an epical end. Perhaps nothing like it had ever happened before, and perhaps it never will again.
Though heretofore only gods and legendary heroes had made the journey, for four years, twenty-four mortal men braved the half-million mile round trip from the Earth to the moon, and twelve of them walked across its virgin soil. All of them returned home safely.
Gustave Dore, “A Voyage to the Moon.” (1868).
Now Apollo 17 was going to the moon one last time, to bring man’s first exploration of another world to a safe and successful conclusion. Gene Cernan, Jack Schmitt and Ron Evans knew they were making the final lunar launch, and Cernan carried the special weighty feeling in the knowledge that it would be he who would make that last step.
Reaching their landing site, in a spectacular valley called Taurus Littrow, in the moon’s Sea of Serenity, would demand the first nighttime launch in America’s human space program. Formed when an asteroid hit the side of a great volcano, thus excavating some of the deepest and oldest lunar rocks, Taurus Littrow offered the last best hope to unlock the secrets of the moon. In the small hours of December 7th 1972, for the last time with men aboard, the magnificent Saturn-V rocket ignited its engines and obliterated the darkness; a man-made dawn.
Apollo had inspired a generation to think of the future not as some far off abstraction, but as “tomorrow”. It fired the imaginations of people to develop new art, new culture and new technology, from which we all benefit today. It fundamentally shifted the human consciousness.
Seeing our whole world from space for the first time allowed us finally to think of ourselves globally. It was a realisation that came at a critical moment in man’s development — just as he became a threat to his own survival — and that knowledge continues in its potential to save us from ourselves.
Before the first landing on the moon, many had predicted that the feat would never be possible. Now, and very suddenly, the greatest adventure in the history of mankind was coming to an end.
The final flight of Apollo was underway.