Apollo 17
One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 11th of 11 Apollo flights and the 27th of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.
The Apollo 17 spaceflight was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program; it remains the most recent time humans have travelled beyond low Earth orbit. Its crew consisted of Commander Eugene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans.
Cernan and Schmitt landed in the Taurus–Littrow valley and completed three moonwalks, taking lunar samples and deploying scientific instruments. The landing site had been chosen to further the mission's main goals: to sample lunar highland material older than Mare Imbrium, and to investigate the possibility of relatively recent volcanic activity. Evans remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), taking scientific measurements and photographs. Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt returned to Earth on December 19.
Apollo 17 was the first mission to have no one on board who had been a test pilot; X-15 test pilot Joe Engle lost the lunar module pilot assignment to Schmitt, a geologist. The mission included the first night launch of a U.S. human spaceflight and the final crewed launch of a Saturn V rocket. It was also the final use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose (extra Apollo spacecraft were later used in the Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs).
The mission broke several crewed spaceflight records: the longest Moon landing, longest total extravehicular activities (moonwalks), largest lunar sample, longest time in lunar orbit, and, at 75, most lunar orbits.
Apollo 17 Patch and Schmitt, Cernan, & Evans
WHY HERE?
The center point of all the US Spaceflight caches is located in the middle of the intersection where John Glenn Drive changes into Galaxy Way in Concord, CA.
Or as we geocachers would specify it: N 37° 58.700 W 122° 03.259
The distance ranges from this point to the various caches representing the spaceflights are:
- about ¼ mile - Mercury sub-orbital missions
- about 2 miles - Mercury orbital missions
- about 5 miles - Gemini missions
- about 5 miles - Apollo Earth orbital missions
- about 25 miles - Apollo moon missions
FLIGHT SUMMARY:
| Commander:_ |
_Eugene A. Cernan |
| Command Module Pilot:_ |
_Ronald E. Evans |
| Lunar Module Pilot:_ |
_Harrison H. Schmitt |
| Launch Vehicle:_ |
_Saturn V |
| Height:_ |
_363.0 feet |
| Stages:_ |
_3 |
| Stage 1 Diameter:_ |
_33.0 feet |
| Stage 1 Thrust:_ |
_7,891,000 lbf |
| Stage 2 Diameter:_ |
_33.0 feet |
| Stage 2 Thrust:_ |
_1,155,800 lbf |
| Stage 3 Diameter:_ |
_21.7 feet |
| Stage 3 Thrust:_ |
_232,250 lbf |
| Launch Date & Time:_ |
_December 7, 1972, 05:33:00 UTC |
| Landing Date & Time:_ |
_December 19, 1972, 19:24:59 UTC |
| Duration:_ |
_12 days, 13 hours, 51 minutes, 59 seconds |
FTF Prize:
This is 1 of 27 caches in KCSearcher's US Spaceflight series that were given away as FTF prizes at his “Man on the Moon, July 20, 1969 - 50 years later” event. For those attendees that received this as a prize, they had an 88 hour head start on those that didn’t attend the event. The prize winners were instructed to sign the log in the “Pre-Publication FTFer(s)” space.
However, for the FTF Hounds that were not able to attend, they too had the opportunity to be FTF on this cache after publication that was targeted for 7/24/2019 @ or around 9:50 AM Pacific Time (splashdown of Apollo 11 + 50 years). All they had to do is find the cache and be first to sign in the “Post-Publication FTFer(s)” space on the log.
BONUS:
Don’t forget to record and save the Code Letter and its associated Number that is on the log sheet and inside the container lid. It will be needed to find a bonus cache on the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing, July 20, 2020.
Please DO NOT post or include an image of the Code Letter and Number in any of your online logs for this cache
TO LEARN MORE:
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Apollo 17.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Apollo.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.