
forty years ago tonight, mankind’s last mission to the moon touched down in the Taurus-Littrow valley, located in the Taurus mountains just east of the Sea of Serenity. for the next three days, commander Eugene Cernan and geologist Harrison Schmitt lived and worked in this most dramatic of Apollo landscapes, collecting a record haul of moon rocks, taking measurements, setting up experiments and taking pictures on a range of cameras. some, like this one showing Schmitt next to big boulder, became well-known while hundreds of others languish in the archives. here is just a small sample…
above: a calibration chart for the Apollo 17 cameras

a Down-Sun picture of the Lunar Mass Spectrometer (LMS) with the RTG and Central Station in the background. the Lunar Surface Gravimeter (LSG) is in the background beyond and to the right of the Central Station, with a trash pile to the left

the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) traversing from Station 3 to 4, approaching an isolated boulder

a shot from Station 1 showing Up-Sun glare and LRV tracks

a taped-over shot of the east floor of crater Tsiolkovsky

a panoramic view from Station 4, taken during the second Extravehicular Activity EVA 2 of the Apollo 17 mission. original film magazine was labeled C film type was SO-368 Color Exterior, CEX, Ektachrome MS, color reversal 60mm lens with a sun elevation of 27 degrees

a shot from Station 2 pan showing Harrison Schmitt and the Sculptured Hills

Station 9 partial pan north, showing the LRV

this amazing image shows the Lunar Module Challenger from a distance of 3.1km, all alone in the lunar landscape

















































