Apollo 17: Three Interesting Stories On The Mission
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Launch of Apollo 17, The Last Crewed Moon Landing So Far
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last crewed mission to the moon's surface thus far.
This issue only aims to cover part of the story of the mission as most of its details are widely known.
However, to commemorate this mission, let me tell you three fascinating stories about Apollo 17.
One recommendation: there is a great website where you can follow the Apollo 17 historical moments and audio transmissions “real-time” alongside the mission status; check it out.
But before that, let's briefly summarize the mission profile and some milestones the crew of Apollo 17 set in 1972.
The crew included Commander Gene Cernan, who did his second spaceflight to lunar orbit, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, the Lunar Module Pilot, and Command Module Pilot Ron Evans.
Schmitt was the first (and thus far last) civilian to set foot on the moon as he was a member of NASA's first scientist-astronaut group as a geologist.
Cernan and Schmitt spent more than three days on the lunar surface while Evans stayed in lunar orbit in the Command Module named America.
The crew of Apollo 17 achieved some records, such as:
the longest crewed stay on the lunar surface: 74 hours and 59 minutes
the longest total duration of moonwalks: 22 hours and 4 minutes
the greatest distance from a spacecraft during a spacewalk or moonwalk: 7.6 kilometers or 4.7 miles
the longest time in lunar orbit: 6 days and 4 hours, and
the largest lunar sample return: 115 kg or 254 lb.
The mission was also the longest crewed lunar mission, with 12 days and 14 hours, as the crew returned to Earth on December 19, 1972.
And now, let's see three fascinating stories that happened during humankind's last crewed mission to the moon until now.
The Terrorist Threat of The Apollo 17
A few weeks before the mission, the US intelligence agencies briefed NASA's security personnel that the Black September terrorist group was allegedly targeting the crew of the last moon mission of the Apollo program.
This Palestinian terrorist group was widely known for its horrible actions in the 1970s, including the 1972 Munich massacre, in which they killed 11 Israeli athletes during the Summer Olympics in the German city.
The Ad Astra Magazine reported this untold story in 2001.
According to Charles Buckley, who served as the security chief of the Kennedy Space Center, he received a call from a Pentagon Duty Officer about the terrorist group's threat of going after the lives of the astronauts or their families.
NASA and the security team imposed strict measures to ensure the security of the crew and personnel involved in the mission. As Buckley recalled the story, they put steel door on the astronaut's quarantine and dedicated an armed guard at their doorstep.
The US Air Force's Office of Special Investigations also featured this story with a lovely remembrance from one of the Special Agents that served in the security detail of the astronauts.
Special Agent Bill Arnold recalled when the famous comedian Don Rickles visited the Cernan family at their apartment.
"One day, I was standing on the common porch running the length of the complex when Rickles came up the steps to visit the family. When he saw me and my sidearm, he threw himself up against the wall, spread his arms and legs and yelled so everyone could hear: 'don't shoot, I didn't do it.' I broke out laughing as Rickles went on with this routine for several minutes."
Thankfully, despite the real terrorist threat that NASA, the astronauts, and their families faced, the mission was accomplished without any tragic actions from Black September.
The Astronaut's Allergic Reaction To Moon Dust
While the Apollo 17 astronauts were not the first ones to encounter the inconvenience of lunar dust, Harrison Schmitt certainly had the worst experience with it.
Upon returning to the Lunar Module from their lunar EVA (Extravehicular Activity), Schmitt suddenly showed allergic reactions while the two astronauts brushed themselves off the lunar dust. Schmitt began sneezing while his eyes reddened, his throat itched, and his sinuses clogged.
His struggle is also captured in the air-to-ground voice transcript that NASA published:
Schmitt: (Smells) like gunpowder, just like the boys said.
Cernan: Oh, it does, doesn’t it?
Cernan: Smells like someone’s been firing a carbine in here.
Allen: Sounds like you’ve got hay fever sensors, as far as that dust goes.
Schmitt: It’s come on pretty fast just since I came back. I think as soon as the cabin filters most of this out that is in the air, I’ll be all right. But I didn’t know I had lunar dust hay fever.
Allen: It’s funny they don’t check for that. Maybe that’s the trouble with the cheap noses, Jack.
(Allen refers to Joe Allen, one of the CapComs serving on the mission)
In 2019, during the Starmus space festival, Schmitt recalled this memory:
“First time I smelled the dust, I had an allergic reaction, the inside of my nose became swollen, you could hear it in my voice. But that gradually that went away for me, and by the fourth time I inhaled lunar dust, I didn’t notice that.
He also mentioned the story of how the mission's flight surgeon had similar trouble with the lunar dust on Earth:
“Whereas a flight surgeon taking suits out of the Apollo 17 command module, after we had splashed down, he had such a reaction that he had to stop doing what he was doing.
As a side note, it's worth mentioning that lunar dust is a serious issue that NASA has been working on for the success of long-term crewed moon missions. I will cover this in a future newsletter issue.
The Classified Experiment And Apollo 17's "Reconnaissance" Activities
While researching for this article, I learned that Apollo 17's mission objectives also included one that the U.S. Department of Defense classified. This was the Chapel Bell Experiment.
However, the internet lacks officially confirmed information about this topic, which is quite obvious, given its classified nature.
Although, I could find one unclassified piece of document that referred to Chapel Bell as a monostatic radar facility near Muirkirk, Maryland. This radar detected the second-stage exhaust target of the Saturn IB of the Apollo 2 test mission.
Therefore, I want to avoid going into tabloid speculations, but it's still worth mentioning some thoughts about this.
According to the Apollo Mission Reports published by NASA, Chapel Bell was part of the approved operational tests. This means that these tests were not required to meet the mission's objectives, did not affect the nominal timeline, and added no payload weight.
Some online discussions on various spaceflight-related platforms claim that this experiment was related to studying Soviet radar installations. Therefore, according to these claims, certain Apollo missions did this experiment to support the work of the National Reconnaissance Office.
However, The Space Review published a credible article on how NASA wanted to seek the permission of the U.S. intelligence community to take high-resolution photographs of China and the Soviet Union by the Apollo 17 astronauts.
Since the early ages of American human spaceflight missions, NASA had to coordinate with the intelligence agencies on all astronaut photographs of the Earth from space. This was necessary as such image capture was the jurisdiction of the American intelligence community.
As the Service Module of Apollo 17 also included an Apollo Panoramic Camera, NASA sought permission to use it for taking those images of the mentioned areas.
This would have been part of a contingency plan should Apollo 17 have been unable to reach the Moon and remained in low Earth orbit to utilize the mission's duration to observe and capture Earth's images - including the territories of China and the Soviet Union.
However, according to the article, it is unknown whether NASA received the necessary approvals. But as we all know, this contingency plan was fortunately never triggered, and Apollo 17 made a successful Moon landing and carried out its original mission objectives.
This was the first issue of Orbital Stories. I hope you enjoyed these fascinating stories on the Apollo 17 mission celebrating its 50th anniversary.
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