Talk:Apollo 17

Sample amount from the moon

According to German Wikipedia and http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17ov.html , 110 Kilogram - not pounds - were brought back from the moon. The article seems to mention the right numbers, but the wrong units. Has anybody got better/more reliable sources? - Alex Contributions/62.224.192.75 (talk) 12:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Was this the military mission to the moon?

I heard that the last mission to the moon was a military operation... so is this one it?

-G None of the missions to the moon were military. The only experiments on board were scientific packages. In fact, the last mission was the only one with a scientist-astronaut. You may be confusing them with some of the space shuttle missions, which carried classified Department of Defense payloads (usually spy satellites, according to reports) and had little news about them released to the public, except for launch and landing times and crew members' names. (A good book that looks at such missions is "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane, who flew on two classified missions.)DrBear 04:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Older comments

EVA 4 should not be listed under Moon Walks. It definitely was not a moon walk. Although I can't find any information on what it actually was.

It was probably EVA in Lunar orbit to retrieve camers from the outside of orbiter. I remember this was done during at least one Apollo mission. JamesHoadley 19:44, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The SIM was an external experiment/camera bay that was first introduced in Apollo 15, and was on 16 and 17. The EVA was to take out the film. Check the Apollo 15 article for more explanation and a picture. --Jkonrath 17:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the "Okay, Jack. Let's get this mother outta here" claim: those words don't appear on the liftoff video. Were they said off-mike, or edited out of the video, or is the claim apocryphyal? Wdfarmer 19:54, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Probably the latter. NASA's lunar surface journal (http://www.history.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.launch.html) had this to say about it: [According to Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham in his book "The All-American Boys" Gene's last words on the Moon were "Let's get this mother out of here." During the mission review in Santa Fe, Gene was surprised not to hear those words but what seems likely is that what he was remembering was his "Now, let's get off." at 188:01:25 and that, in later tellings, the wording changed to the more colorful version Cunningham quotes. I have discussed this matter with Andrew Chaikin, who is another aficionado of the audio tapes, and we agree on the interpretation given here. My thanks to William Bianco for reminding me about this issue.]

--Jkonrath 22:37, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone close to me spoke to Mr. Cernan at a conference a number of years ago, and states that at this conference, the astronaut attested to the colorful version of this quote. So according to the man himself, that was what he said. Ledelste 06:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

EVA 4 was in cislunar space during transearth coast. The purpose was to retrieve the film canisters from the scientific instrument section of the service module. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.231.35.34 (talk) 00:23, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Plaque

"depiction of the plaque left on the moon by Apollo 17" This should either say

"The plaque left on the moon by Apollo 17."

or

"A copy of the plaque left on the moon by Apollo 17."

Which is it? Rich Farmbrough 21:52 3 March 2006 (UTC).

Good point.. reading the caption the NASA gives they say it is the plaque to be left on the moon; but they also say the date the image was taken was December 14, 1972.. which is when they left the surface of the moon.. perhaps the date is wrong? 131.111.8.98 17:36, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Last one off the moon?

So who was the last one off the moon? (the last one to touch it?) Armstrong was the first, so who was the last (to date)? → JARED ^(t)  23:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

The last person to walk on the moon was Apollo 17's commander, Gene Cernan. Andy120290 23:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Mission Highlights section too short

Maybe it is just me, but it seems the section saying what they actually did at the moon is too short. This was the most ambitious manned Moon mission. There is very little about what they did during a three day stay on the Lunar surface. It needs to be expanded. Andy120290 01:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I second this. I just read an article on some of the emergency repairs the crew had to make to the rover, they go unmentioned in the entire article. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/21apr_ducttape.htm 24.16.250.243 (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Filming of the return launching

When the Apollo 17 Lander left the moon surface it was the last craft to do so, the departure is tracked for some time by some type of camera on the moon surface. I would be very interested to know how this footage was achieved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dibblerman (talk • contribs) 09:58, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The lunar liftoff was filmed (video) by the camera on the Lunar Rover, which was operated remotely from Mission Control in Houston. The interesting fact here is that the camera operator had to estimate the time delay for control and radio signals to and from the moon and begin tilting and zooming the camera a few seconds before Challenger's ascent stage actually lifted off from the Moon. I don't know who was at the controls, but as you can see if you watch the video the guy really nailed it spot on. Ehbowen (talk) 10:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

In the TV series From the Earth to the Moon there is a dramatization of the camera operator's difficult job. They tried to do the same thing on the previous 2 missions, but it didn't work as well.142.68.223.14 (talk) 03:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible appearance in The Red Dove

Rather annoyed the following was removed, but I'll repost it here for discussion.

The character Robert Massey in the novel The Red Dove by Derek Lambert was Command Module Pilot of an Apollo mission to the "...fringe of the Sea of Serenity", presumably Apollo 17.

Reason I added it is as follows, firstly the mission in the book is described as taking place in 1972, secondly, it's clearly a J-Class mission, thirdly, Taurus-Littrow is on the "fringe of the Sea of Serenity". Finally the other two crew, while not being named are described as "..the commander and a geologist" which nicely fits Cernan & Schmidt.

On that basis it's more likely than not that Massey is the fictitious substitute for Evans. Comments? Graham1973 (talk) 17:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

First, I'm sorry you were annoyed. That wasn't my intent, and I deliberately overrode the default UNDO message to indicate that I understood your edit to be a good-faith revision.

Unless the book refers to the mission as Apollo 17, I think it's a mistake to include it in this article. Massey clearly could have called the mission Apollo 17 had he wished, and apparently did not do so. It could have just as easily been a fictional mission, just as, for example, the novel Space had a fictional Apollo 18 mission.

You make some interesting points in concluding that it must be Apollo 17, but ultimately that's WP:OR and not a basis for inclusion here. TJRC (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment accepted. I've had a bad experience earlier with someone reversing information I'd obtained from watching a film where the information available online contradicted the actual plot-line of the movie and so I'm a bit sensitive to this sort of thing. It probably would have been better if I had posted it for discussion first.

Thank you for taking time to explain in more detail why you reversed it. I am going to add that I am reasonably sure that the authors intent was at the very least to imply the mission was Apollo 17 (I've left a note to that effect in the List of fictional astronauts). Given that the Massey character spaces out while the Commander & Geologist are on the lunar surface and then has a breakdown while preparing for the post mission press conference I can understand the author not saying outright what mission it was (The real astronauts might have sued, even in the 1980s when this was written).

Graham1973 (talk) 02:17, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Apollo 17 Featured Picture facing delisting

This image isn't used in any article and will have to be delisted as an FP unless it can be usefully placed on an article. I don't know what article might be appropriate, so help is needed here. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 20:23, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It is almost identical to File:Apollo 17 The Last Moon Shot.jpg - same size, too. This one is a little darker. But I don't think this one is needed. Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 23:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I uploaded a copy of File:Apollo 17 The Last Moon Shot.jpg direct from the NASA website to be sure to have the best copy. Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 23:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

This is interesting.... both images are from the very same source negative and in that sense I think the two files ought to be merged together. The one difference between the featured image and the one that is currently being used is that the featured image has been manually retouched/edited to remove some artifacting and some other minor problems. In this case, I don't know which would be considered the "better" image. It is a fair assessment. --Robert Horning (talk) 19:59, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Formatting of plaque quote

I noticed recently an anonymous contributor changed the quotation from the plaque to all capitals, and this was changed back to lowercase shortly thereafter, with the reasoning "DONT SHOUT". I should point out that the plaque is in fact written in all capitals. My understanding (see for example the essay Wikipedia:Quotations) is that for quotations we should be using the same formatting which was originally used. And originally, it was written in upper case. I understand that on the internet (and only in the last 10-15 years), writing in All caps is often interpreted as shouting.. but is this justification to change the formatting of the quotation? The answer is not obvious to me. Mlm42 (talk) 17:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I still think all caps look like shouting when copied on the Wikipedia page. I realize the plaques were printed in all caps (it is pictured lower on the page), but I don't think Wikipedia:Quotations strictly applies in this case. The word quotation is somewhat ambiguous, and I think the essay was written with quote in the sense of a person's comments, either spoken aloud or in print (newspaper, book, magazine, etc.), in mind. I don't think we have a hard guideline for quoting words printed on plaques.

Note the same issue exists in Apollo 11; there the plaque quote is also set in italics (as it originally was before the all-caps conversion.) Note also, that there the plaque picture (taken in flight on the Moon by Armstrong) is located near the quote in the text.

The Apollo 17 article also suffers from a bigger formatting problem, in that it's crowded with pictures on both sides, forcing the text into a narrow central gutter. JustinTime55 (talk) 17:56, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Alright, fair enough. Yes, too many images and not enough text is often the problem caused by NASA providing some many great images for free! Possible solutions include removing some pictures, or adding more text.. either one seems fine. Mlm42 (talk) 19:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Was Nixon a witness to the liftoff?

Was U.S. President Richard Nixon a witness to the liftoff (most likely from the V.A.B. or Mission Control)?

72.82.160.208 (talk) 08:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

No. The only launch he witnessed in person was Apollo 12. DrBear (talk) 22:42, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

Toolbox
dashboard disambig links external links See WP:DEADREF for dead URLs

This review is transcluded from Talk:Apollo 17/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research: [[File:|16px|alt=|link=]]

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales: }

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

• One dab link: "electromagnetic"
• Looks good. For a FAC article, there are a number of paragraphs that are too short and snappy, and some that could be expanded. No problem for GA though.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:36, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your review. The link in question has been dabbed. Regards, Tyrol5 [Talk] 16:18, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

New moon landing pics

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/lro-briefing-20110906.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.122.49.112 (talk) 18:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Image has been added by User:RadioFan. Thanks, Tyrol5 [Talk] 21:24, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Last Moon landing

Isn't it true that, while astronauts were somehow able to travel 240,000 miles to the moon in 1969 and 1972, in the past forty years since then, they have never traveled beyond about 250 miles away from Earth? I'm not sure where it belongs, but that seems like quite a notable piece of information. 72.224.189.211 (talk) 10:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Per the second sentence of the article, "Launched at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972 ... Apollo 17 remains the most recent manned Moon landing and the most recent manned flight beyond low Earth orbit". I'm not sure we need to state explicitly that it was forty years ago, given the date is quoted. Shimgray | talk | 21:35, 20 December 2011 (UTC)