Apollo 17

Imagine being one of the very last people to ever walk on the Moon! That's what Apollo 17 was all about. It was the eleventh and final mission in NASA's amazing Apollo program.

Three brave astronauts, Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evans, went on this super important journey. They landed in a place called Taurus-Littrow, which looked like it might have had volcanoes long ago. This mission was packed with science, making it extra special!

Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt got to walk on the Moon's surface. Harrison Schmitt was super cool because he was the only scientist, a geologist, to ever land on the Moon! He knew all about rocks.

Meanwhile, Ronald Evans stayed up in a spaceship orbiting the Moon, taking pictures and doing science from above. They all knew how the spaceship worked really well, so they had more time to learn about the Moon!

Guess what they found? Bright orange soil! It was like finding a hidden treasure.

Scientists think this orange stuff came from ancient volcanoes on the Moon. They also got to drive a special car called the Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV. It was like a super cool dune buggy for the Moon!

They drove it around to collect rocks and set up science experiments. This mission brought back the most Moon rocks ever collected!

Apollo 17 broke a bunch of space records! It was the longest time astronauts spent on the Moon's surface, which was almost three whole days. They also traveled the farthest away from their spaceship while doing a spacewalk. They spent over 75 hours in orbit around the Moon, going around it 75 times! All these amazing achievements helped us learn so much more about our amazing Moon.