Launch of Apollo 17

Date: December 7, 1972 • Location: Rome, Italy

Apollo 17, the last Apollo Moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.

Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program, the sixth and most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans orbited above. Schmitt was the only professional geologist to land on the Moon; he was selected in place of Joe Engle, as NASA had been under pressure to send a scientist to the Moon. The mission's heavy emphasis on science meant the inclusion of a number of new experiments, including a biological experiment containing five mice that stayed in orbit with Evans.