Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 17’s launch to the moon. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports, it was the last lunar mission and carried an astronaut with close ties to Flagstaff.
Harrison “Jack” Schmitt was working in the astrogeology program at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff when he volunteered for the astronaut corp.
Schmitt recalls moonwalking at the landing site, Taurus Littrow. "The valley we were in, the valley of Taurus Littrow, actually is deeper than the Grand Canyon…. So it’s really a spectacular place, because those mountains—the way the valley’s orientated—were illuminated by a sun that’s brighter than any Arizona or directional sun that you could imagine, but it’s all set against this blacker than black sky. It’s unbelievable," he says.
Schmitt collected orange glass beads from the surface that provided evidence for the moon’s volcanic history. He is still the only geologist and one of just 12 people who has ever walked the moon.
