NOTE: The listed coordinates are NOT the location of this cache.
Apollo 17 Bonus
This is the 6th of 6 US Spaceflight Apollo Bonus caches. There will be one published on the 51st anniversary for each Project Apollo moon landing. To be certain of deriving the coordinates for this one, you must first find and collect codes from a minimum of 12 of the 27 traditional caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
Click here to see all 27 traditional 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 |
Travel (that’s why it’s a D4.0):
Prerequisite:
To find this cache, you must have collected and recorded the numbers associated with the coordinate code letters of at least 12 of the 27 traditional caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Click here to see all 27 traditional US Spaceflight caches.
Once you have all the codes, you will find the cache at N AB CD.EFG W HJK LP.QRS. To derive the final coordinates for your search, do the following math (the small letters correspond to the value you recorded when you found the caches):
- A = a - 1
- B = g + 5
- C = e - 3
- D = k + 1
- E = p - 4
- F = m + 2
- G = h + 1
- H = a - 3
- J = b - 1
- K = a - 3
- L = d - 4
- P = f + 5
- Q = c + 3
- R = p - 1
- S = k + 4
The US Spaceflight traditional caches are located in the following counties:
- 19 in Contra Costa
- 2 in Alameda
- 1 in Marin
- 1 in Sacramento
- 3 in Solano
- 1 in Sonoma
Code Frequency:
- a: 4 caches with this code
- b: 2 caches with this code
- c: 2 cache with this code
- d: 2 cache with this code
- e: 2 caches with this code
- f: 2 caches with this code
- g: 3 caches with this code
- h: 2 caches with this code
- j: 2 cache with this code
- k: 2 cache with this code
- m: 2 caches with this code
- p: 2 caches with this code
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You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
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If you can't get the coordinates to come out right, recheck your work and try again. If you are still having problems, send me a message with the coordinates you derived and the data values you used for the coordinate code letters.
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.