On December 7, 1972, the sixth and final crewed lunar mission was launched into space. The Apollo 17 astronauts, including Gene Cernan, Harrison Hagan Schmitt, and Ron Evans, were the last men that ever set foot on the Moon 50 years ago.
Now, in celebration of its 50th anniversary Cheshire-based bestselling author Andy Saunders remastered some of the photos from the Apollo 17 Moon landing mission. The celebration coincides with the new era in space exploration that has seen the Artemis I successfully orbiting the Moon and is now on its way back to Earth.
NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan, Commander of the Apollo 17 lunar mission, is welcomed back to Earth by a US Navy Pararescueman, after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, 19th December 1972.
Apollo Remastered
Cernan and Schmitt set the record for the longest distance traversed by a rover on the far side of the Moon and spent three days on the lunar surface, according to Ars Technica. But the mission was most famous as the last time humans landed on the Moon and beyond the Earth's orbit.
When Cernan died five years ago, at age 82, he was the last person to walk on the lunar surface. Earlier this year, the British photographer Saunders published his book, "Apollo Remastered," which showcases 400 remastered photos from Apollo missions to the Moon.
Astronauts used Hasselblad cameras during the Apollo program and took 20,000 images. Saunders employed various photo editing techniques to remaster the photos, including stacking images from 16 mm video film to create clearer images from the Apollo missions and the results were beautiful.
For the project, MailOnline reported that Saunders gave up his day job to go through the thousands of photos, and took him 10,000 hours to complete his book. During the process, he found that the Moon is not entirely green, rather it ranges from greeny-blues to a tan color.
But the Apollo 17 mission also photographed something unexpected. He said that they photographed orange soil, which was later on discovered to be tiny spheres of volcanic glass from when they erupted from the Moon's interior about 3.64 billion years ago. He noted that seeing humankind's greatest endeavor in a whole light after 50 years look like it only happened yesterday and bring history to life.
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Apollo Vs. Artemis
As NASA celebrates the 50th anniversary of Apollo 17 and the successful Artemisi I mission, many could not help but compare the two programs. The Apollo missions were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, while the Artemis missions will be held in the 21st century as humans attempt to go back to the lunar surface.
Teasel Muir-Harmony, the Project Apollo curator at the National Air and Space Museum, told Astronomy that Project apollo was proposed by US President Kennedy as a political response to the threat of Soviet influence on the world order. He saw spaceflight as an essential soft power in the US' claim for geopolitical alignment and international influence.
It was not intended for international audiences and global influences. But today, spaceflight is for creating stronger bonds between nations, advancing science, and preventing military conflict.
Meanwhile, Professor Emeritus John M. Logsdon from George Washington University also told Astronomy that the only similarity between the two programs is the destination: the Moon. Whereas Apollo was a unilateral effort driven by Cold War politics, the Artemis program is intended to be the first step in an innovative and sustainable program for space exploration.
Competition to other countries is only secondary for the Artemis program, which is the opposite of the Apollo mission in which science and exploration were decidedly secondary objectives. Watch the video below as Saunders explain the process of remastering the iconic photos from the Apollo mission:
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Check out more news and information on Moon Mission in Science Times.
