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We choose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon
in this decade and do the other things,

not because they are easy
but because they are hard.

- Look at that.
- That's beautiful.

It's gotta be one of the most proud moments
of my life, I guarantee you.

For century upon century,

to explore the moon was considered the
dream of the addle-brained or foolhardy.

Only divine beings or supermen
could withstand

the rigors and distance of such a journey.

But then, early in the 20th century,

mortal humans went aloft
on mechanical wings,

defying gravity
and redefining the realm of possibility.

Forever after the moon became a goal
within the grasp of those on Earth.

For if Man could build a machine
to make him fly,

he would eventually build one
to take him to the moon.

When and how and who
was only a matter of time.

From December of 1 968
to December of 1 972

24 representatives of the human race
voyaged to the moon

and half as many walked upon its surface.

In all, nine voyages
across the quarter-million mile distance,

from earthly safety to lunar emptiness,

each one of them dangerous and expensive.

The requirements
to make the voyage a reality

were the qualities
that make humankind unique -

our desire to achieve,
our wherewithal and perseverance,

our willingness to sacrifice time,
energy and even life

in the long labour needed
to solve the problems one by one

over the course of the endeavor.

Most important of all

was humankind's tendency
to imagine things that are not possible.

Imagining that it could be done
was the very first step taken

in the journey from the earth to the moon.

I was very energetic in 1 902.

I was working for the great Georges Méliès,
who I met in the Théâtre Houdin, in Paris.

He was beginning then to work with film

and I was in love with the magic
that came out of his camera

which wasn't all that different
from the ones used now.

Films had been of ordinary things,
like a train coming into a station.

Or a wall being torn down.

He came to me one day and said,

"Jean-Luc, I want to tell an amazing story
with my camera.

"I want to take people on
a most amazing trip. "

I thought he meant
a trip to someplace literal,

to Lyons or Marseilles.

And then he said,
"Let's take a voyage to the moon!"

And I said, "How about Nice? It's closer."

But the moon was in Monsieur Méliès' eyes

and this is what he designed and built
at the Star Film studios in Montreuil.

Monsieur Méliès had constructed the largest
film studio in the world at that time.

Between 1 896 and 1 91 3
he produced over 1 00 films,

each more magical and inventive
than the other.

Actors, visual effects specialists,
carpenters, costumers,

all under the direct supervision
of Monsieur Méliès.

Jean-Luc! Jean-Luc!

Yes! Yes, yes?

Too much powder and he'll burn my set down.

I know. Don't use too much powder!

- Too little and it will not photograph.
- Too little will waste our time!

I will use as much
as Monsieur Méliès demands!

- We should see a test.
- Yes, please.

Could you set it off, please?
One, two, three, set it off?

One, two and three!

- Idiot! That's too much!
- No, it's perfect.

It's perfect, do you hear?
That much, no more, no less.

Monsieur Méliès oversaw
every moment of the making of the film.

He was also the lead actor,
playing Professor Barbenfouillis.

- Is the grinder ready?
- I will find out, sir!

Is the grinder ready? Yes? No?
Please talk to me. Thank you.

We're already fighting the light.

Monsieur Méliès, we are almost ready.

No, I am no longer Georges Méliès,
I am Professor Barbenfouillis.

Bring it up, bring it up!
Higher, higher, higher!

Good, good, very good, very good.

- Is the grinder ready?
- Grinders ready!

Start the grinder!

Everyone is talking,
anticipation in the air.

Come the astronomers!

You are sure of yourselves,

accomplished and full of pride.

Very good. And now the pages enter.

Enter the pages to present their telescopes
to the astronomers.

Admire the telescopes, astronomers.
And exit the pages!

Respectfully. Nice.

And now comes Barbenfouillis.

I bow to you sausages.

And now I take my...

Get ready, and...

Slowly raise your telescopes
above your head.

Hold it there a moment... Stop the grinder!

Get the stools in!

Méliès would have us stop the film

and run in with whatever it was
that was needed to suddenly appear.

We make the exchange, run back off

start the camera and voilà.

A special effect of magic on the screen.

The telescopes
have magically changed into stools!

Sit, gentlemen. And here we are.

We will create a huge cannon

which will fire a hollow projectile
containing myself and yourself.

This is beginning to sound strange,
and you murmur about this,

and I say this projectile
will actually journey

all the way from the Earth to the moon!

But you say to yourself, "This is madness!"
and you act as if this is madness,

You say, "It is impossible."
And I say, "No, it is not impossible!"

Come, Michel, come to me - say I'm nuts!

- You're nuts! You're crazy!
- How dare you? I throw papers at you!

It is chaos - chaos in
the astronomer's club!

Mayhem breaks out amongst the scientists.

And all this because
I propose a voyage to the moon.

How was it? I think it was a good one, no?

T minus two hours, 25 minutes.

I'm the last man to walk on the moon.

Not that anyone gives a shit.

Should I watch my language on this?

I can make the claim of being
the last person to set foot on the moon.

I got out of the LEM after Gene did
on the first EVAs.

That makes me the 12th and final person
to make footprints up there.

It's not like I get stopped
at restaurants because of it.

I will bet you $50 and a box of doughnuts

no one knows the names of
the last two men on the moon.

And I will tell you why -
because they didn't die up there.

They flew a near-flawless mission,
they did a hell of a job up there,

and they came back in one piece

but if you didn't get a NASA paycheck
you never even knew their names.

Eugene Cernan was a veteran astronaut

who walked in space on Gemini 9 in 1 966.

Exhausted and overheated
in his pressure suit, he lost 1 5lbs.

Gambling that the Apollo programme
would remain funded by Congress,

he held out for command of Apollo 1 7,

rather than take the job of lunar module
pilot on John Young's 1 6 flight.

Harrison Schmitt, or Jack as he is known,

went to the moon with a special relish -

the first and only scientist to go.

He was a geologist by trade
and an astronaut by choice.

He had also been
instrumental in the training

of every man to walk on the moon before
him, and almost didn't get to go himself.

- Congratulations!
- What?

It's on TV, you're going to the moon!

Apollo 1 7, you're on the crew!

But I have not heard a thing.

You will - they're finally
sending one of us.

The first egghead on the moon.
Have a drink for once in your life.

No, I don't celebrate rumours.

Come on!

Harrison Schmitt.

Yes. My sister.

No, I haven't heard anything.
I'll let you know when I do.

- Yeah. Bye.
- What are they waiting for?

NASA stands for
Never Absolutely Sure of Anything.

Harrison Schmitt.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Well, I will do the best
job I possibly can.

Thank you.

Your drink, sir.

Gentlemen.

To the exploration of the moon.

They might have rued the day
that they made the change.

I always had strong ideas
about where to go on the moon,

and forcefully suggested them.

Jack had no problem phoning
the president of the United States

if he had an idea about
what we should be doing with Apollo.

- Like giving us that fourth EVA.
- Where we should land...

But the flight rules
were not going to be rewritten

just for us to make that last trip out.

Chris Kraft stopped me in the hallway

and pretty much told me
exactly how it was going to be.

- Gene...
- Yes, boss?

Want to put the white scarf away?

- Come again?
- Lose the throttle jockey act.

I got all the memos I need on Apollo 1 7.

All these great ideas
from you and your partner.

You want an extra EVA?
You're lucky you even have a mission!

A lot of people think
we should quit while we're ahead.

The system's stretched to the limit -
we're talking about

cutting the number of Band-Aids
in the first-aid kit, six instead of 12.

Enough.

Here's the number one mission rule -
tattoo this to your eyelids.

Don't take any chances,
just come back alive.

All right, nice and easy, with grace.

As he did with his theatrical productions,

Monsieur Méliès designed every aspect
of his film and was quite fanatical.

You must react with spirit and soul!

When things went wrong,
things went wrong.

And he would scream.

- Right!
- Ladies, you were fine.

- You fire them!
- I will. You guys are fired...

When things were not so bad,
he was not so bad.

This is how it is
when you are working with a genius.

But it was not during the filming
that Méliès worked his true magic,

it was later, in the laboratory
and the projection room,

where I saw he was up to
something incredible.

Something that had never been seen before.

A complete, fantastic story
told in one marvelous film.

I don't know, boss. So many cuts,
so much glue, I hope it holds.

If it doesn't work, no soup for you.

Yeah, that's all right. It's lousy soup.

How dare you? Is it ready?

Here goes.

There we are, the intrepid voyagers.

Wave to the assembled.

Climb into a projectile
that is pushed into the cannon

by so many pretty ladies.

Yes, give us the wave.

Dissolves, superimpositions,

double exposures.

M Méliès was a genius.

Boss? You are a genius.

The cannon, ready to be fired. And boom!

Roger, the clock has started.
We have your launch.

Apollo 1 7 has turned midnight into dawn.

Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans
and Harrison Schmitt

flying through the automated roll programme
on the spacecraft

to begin America's, and perhaps all
mankind's, final voyage to the moon.

The three men inside
the command module America,

with the lunar module Challenger in tow,
journey now to the moon.

Most of the world and much of America
views Apollo 1 7

as an undertaking
either commonplace or wasteful.

Regardless, to be here once again
in the presence of such glorious force

aimed at such a heavenly target as the moon

one can only marvel and ask,
"How have we done this?

"How have we sent mankind to the moon?"

OK, Houston, as I step down
to the surface of Taurus-Littrow...

No one on the planet Earth

saw Gene Cernan
first set foot on the moon's surface.

Nor Jack Schmitt.

The Apollo 1 7 TV camera
would not be operative

until the lunar rover was deployed
and powered up.

When it was, crystal-clear video pictures
from the surface of the moon

were transmitted to the world
by way of a television camera

controlled from a console
in Mission Control by Ed Fendell.

With a lag of six seconds, the time it took
for his commands to reach the moon,

and the picture to travel back to Earth,

he was the director of arguably
the most unique TV show of all time.

The ratings were nonexistent.

The networks didn't even want to cover
the missions except on the morning shows

and an occasional update.

In July of 1 969...

the entire world stopped...

to watch Buzz and Neil
and the one giant leap.

The picture was so bad, a lot of people
couldn't even make it out.

1 2, the colour camera went out
so there was no TV.

No matter what they tried.

Apollo 13...

was a news story
unlike any other in history.

But it takes nearly another year

for Al Shepard to practice his golf swing.

1 5 and 1 6 had the rover
and the colour camera.

But by this time...

no one was watching.

They'd moved on to other things.

Colour television from the moon...

took a few moments of their time.

Nothing more.

OK, let's see. Where am I?

In a geologist's paradise,
if I ever saw one.

I just snuck a quick peek at the drill
and it does work.

And I just took time out
for a bit of water.

- What's that?
- Must be Ron.

Houston, tell Evans he's got his VHF on.

Oh, no, you won't believe it.

I did it again? Hit the wrong button
on the gravimeter?

No, there goes the fender.

I caught it with my hammer. Oh, shoot.

Oh, golly. Oh, boy.

I couldn't stop myself
before the damage was done.

Oh, boy. I'm gonna deploy
this package here.

We're gonna have to stop here.
Let me try to get that fender back on.

Otherwise the dust will cover everything.

- Jack, Is the tape under my seat?
- Yeah.

Oh, man. Hey, Jack.

Just stop. You owe yourself 30 seconds

to take a look up over the south massif
and look at the Earth.

You seen one Earth,
you've seen them all.

That's the difference between us.
Every spare second that I had

I was trying to take in
everything that I was doing,

everything that I was seeing.

I'm trying to grab
another look up at the Earth...

focusing on this great adventure

that I was living in time,
in space, in reality.

I mean, there it was up
there surrounded by...

by nothingness.

The darkest black imaginable.

I could see that it was night-time
in England and lunch time in Texas

with just a casual glance,

as though I were a passenger
on a time machine

with a big picture window in it,

just looking out.

I just couldn't get enough of it.

I was looking at the rocks.
Our time was so limited

and the best instrument in the world
for scientific observation

is a pair of trained eyes and an
educated brain to process information.

There we were. This fantastic field site.

I was looking at the rocks.

I mean, when you can see
the layers of geologic history...

that's what I was there for.

After problems with the gravimeter

and the Lunar Surface Experiment Package

and a time-consuming fix
to the broken fender of the rover,

Cernan and Schmitt
were allowed to travel only half as far

as their first EVA had
originally called for.

By the time they were back inside
Challenger and repressurized to five psi,

the two moonwalkers had been outside
for seven hours and 1 2 minutes,

almost three times longer

than all of Armstrong and Aldrin's
exploration of the Sea of Tranquillity.

And Apollo 1 7
had two more moonwalks to go.

Rehearsing.

Here we are.
We've touched down on the moon.

Out, everyone! Out quickly!

You're excited, can't
believe where you are!

It's amazing. Look at this amazing scene.

- The mountains.
- Out they come. Out.

Now, over here. Raise your arm.

Raise up. Then stop the grinder.

- Stop the grinder.
- Can we move this?

One, two, three.

- Quickly, quickly.
- Don't move.

It'll be faster, boss. Don't worry.

All right, so raise your arm.
Raise your arm. Good.

- Don't move. Keep up your arms.
- And then start the grinder.

Out of the way.
We want to see the Earth.

- We're turning again.
- We want the Earth rising,

slowly... and let drop the mountains.

Lower the first range.

No, first the Earth begins to rise.

- First the Earth rises!
- Then let drop the mountains.

Then the mountains lower.
Earth rise, mountains lower.

It'll be perfect tomorrow, boss.
I guarantee.

And ready, volcano?

Volcano!

Boom!

The volcano should be a little
farther offstage. Can you get it?

You're doing a lousy job
and bitching for nothing.

We'll do that. Now get up. Stretch.

Here they are. No, they will be, boss.

I promise. I guarantee it.

- They will be there.
- We cover ourselves with the blankets.

Special blankets from the moon.

Lay on the moon
and dream of the star maidens.

Out come the star maidens.

When the sun... is over the roof,
we'll shoot the scene.

If we have the sun, boss.

Please, Lord, give us the sun.

Good morning, Challenger.
We have some music for you

from the old folks of the LMP at Cal Tech.

Being the commander had some
advantages. One is driving the rover.

Every time I'd go down a hill,
I'd put Jack on the downslope side.

Not once did Gene-o drive with me
on the uphill side.

He usually only had
three wheels on the surface

and me feeling like
we were gonna tip over any minute.

Good eye.

For the second EVA

Cernan and Schmitt were well rested

and had the time-consuming
chores behind them.

I think we've got another one.

With ten stations scheduled,

the pair drove over five miles
from the safety of Challenger

determined to do as much work
in the allotted time

as was humanly possible.

While the astronauts
were in transit on the moon

there was no television signal.

In Houston, Flight Director Gerry Griffin

managed the activities through
the voice contact of CAPCOM Bob Parker,

who tried to keep the astronauts
on schedule.

Roll and pitch should be fairly flat.

The F-stop for the 500-millimetre
should be the same as for the 70.

Gene, take some shots of those massifs...
if they look interesting.

"If they look interesting"?
What kind of thing is that to say?

Bob, up frame count 36
is the outcrop where the boulders

at the top of the south massif...

Here's something different.

It's a chunk of yellow-brown rock
that has several spots behind it.

To find a sample
with such a vivid colour on the moon

would be evidence of volcanic activity,

the one-time presence of water or oxygen.

It was exactly the kind of find

you'd want to make
on a place like the moon.

Of course, it turned out
it was too good to be true.

Oh, no. What is that? That's a reflection.

That really fooled me.

It's a reflection off
the Mylar on the rover.

I thought I had something there. Crazy.

Well, what the heck? I'll sample it anyway.

So 32 Easy is just another small fragment.

"Just another small fragment."

Well, you can bet that gave the guys
in the Geology Backroom a jolt.

Seeing as how Jack was one of us,
we never thought he would lie to us.

The hallmark of any geologist
is impeccable integrity.

But that little episode...

that had us going for a bit.

So what other things can reflect
off the rover up there?

Does it have tail-lights?

- Hubcaps.
- Maybe he left the parking lights on.

Don't do that to us again, Jack.

OK, Shorty is clearly a
darker-rimmed crater.

The inner wall is quite blocky
except for the western portion of it.

The floor is hummocky,

as we thought it was
in the Apollo 15 photographs.

If it had been a perfect world
for us geologists,

Jack would've had his own TV camera.

Just for the ground science team.

Come on, Gene. Turn on the TV.

The central peak, if you will,
or the central mound

is very blocky, very jagged.

And the impression I have
of the other mounds in the bottom

is that they look like slump masses
that may have...

- There it is.
- We got it!

Thanks, Gene. Now get out of the way.

- Come on, Cernan. Move!
- Crater rim, Jack,

grab us a sample of that sucker.

A very large boulder
of very intensely fractured rock

right on the rim.

Where on the rim? We can't...

It looks like a finely vesicular version
of our clinopyroxene gabbro.

It's obviously crystalline. Do you have TV?

- Yes!
- Get out of the way!

We have TV. And you might
brush the lens for us

before you move out of the way.

I'm gonna take a quick pan
while I'm waiting for you.

OK, OK.

There is orange soil.

There is orange soil here.

I knew by the tone of Jack's voice

that this orange soil was the real thing.

We just wanted to see it on the TV.

It's all over. It's orange.

- He said it's all over the place.
- Zoom in on it!

- Take a good look around.
- Bring it to the camera.

Get the sunlight at the right angle.

- It is. I can see it from here.
- It's orange.

Let me pull my visor up.

It's still orange!

Cernan. I'm gonna have
to dig a trench here, Houston.

Boy, it's almost the same colour
as the LMP decal on my camera.

How can there be oxidized soil here?

It looks just like oxidized desert soil.
That's exactly right.

You know, that orange,
it runs in a line, Gene-o.

- Right along the rim crest.
- Circumferential?

If there was anything that looked like
a fumarole alteration this is it.

That's it! That's it!
That's the volcanic event!

The bad news is that the orange

was not a fumarole
alteration, nor oxidized.

These were perfectly normal
preliminary assumptions to make

about an unexamined sample

but it turned out
that it was orange volcanic glass

from a fire fountain
that happened 3.5 billion years ago.

But that did not diminish
anyone's excitement about that find,

or, frankly, its importance.

I think Jack and I did as solid an EVA
as anyone could have

on that second time out.

Some of the best work ever done
in all of Apollo.

There was one thing
I really wanted to do out there, though.

It had to do with my daughter, Tracy.

Did he promise to bring you anything?

Well, I asked him to bring
a rock back from the moon.

He said if he could,
he would bring me one back.

And if he couldn't,
he'd bring me a moonbeam.

- A what?
- A moonbeam.

A moonbeam.

He's either pullin' your leg
or you're pullin' mine.

That's what he said.

Before my father walked on the moon,

he told me he was gonna do
something very special up there.

He said he was going to carve
my initials in the lunar dust,

making me the only little girl
with her name on the moon.

And that it would last for thousands
and thousands of years.

Just like his footprints is what he'd say.

Of course, I was nine years old at the time

and I had very little concept
of what he was talking about.

The moon is five times
the size of the continent of Africa.

In all, the Apollo missions
spent more than 1 2 days on its surface

but less than three and a half days
actually exploring its mysteries.

In the 7 5 hours Challenger sat
in the Taurus-Littrow Valley

the crew spent 24 hours of them
in scheduled rest periods.

I didn't do much sleeping on the moon.
No. No more than catnaps, really.

I was waking up every few hours.

I just couldn't do it.

Not that I sat up writing
poetry or anything

but the knowledge of being where I was
kept me up and looking around.

Not because I was scared or anything,

it was just that I was actually
trying to do something so fantastic

it made it impossible.

Jack, he slept like a baby

with the sweetest dreams
you can imagine, I suppose.

Mankind's final day on the moon

came with the Earth's face
having waned by 1 5 per cent.

The day would bring
the last seven hours of human footfall

on the face of another world.

The longer you stay on the moon,
minute by minute,

the better the chances are
for something to go wrong.

Now I will tell you, without hesitation,

even with there being nothing wrong at all,

that last EVA was as anxious a time
as I ever spent in NASA.

- That's affirmed.
- OK, here comes the hatch.

- I can see daylight.
- OK, the hatch is open.

I tell you, with a stiff suit -
I'm still at 4.5 psi.

OK, but I am out here on the porch.

OK, I'm going down the ladder.

Godspeed, the crew of Apollo 1 7.

I remember my visit
to Mission Control quite vividly

for it was the day I saw the impossible.

I knew the Americans
had walked on the moon.

I had seen the pictures.
But the immediacy

of actually being there
in Houston at the same time

did something to my consciousness
that had not yet happened.

It came at a moment
when the man operating the camera

turned it toward the Earth,
and he zoomed in very slowly.

The picture was... It was so good.

I could actually make out the oceans
and the continents and the clouds.

It suddenly hit me...

that we were looking at ourselves.

It was as if our own eyes
were on the moon

and somehow we could turn them around

and look back down
and see everything we have,

everything we know,
everything we are, all at the same time.

I wanted to run outside
and wave at the moon

and run back inside, see
if I could see myself.

Turning Point Rock was so named

because it was the station
farthest away from the Challenger

on the final EVA of Apollo 1 7.

What looked like in orbit
to be one huge boulder

that had skidded to a stop in the valley

was, in fact, five different boulders,
each the size of a house.

That's where I should have done it.

I thought later on, "If I had just
put Tracy's initials on a boulder

"that would have been
an incredible picture."

You know? "TDC" in the lunar dust
up there for the rest of time

but hell, I was so tired and so busy
the opportunity got away from me.

I don't think... I can get to the top.

I just gotta get to a place
where I can get a pan from.

OK, I think I'll save some water.

All right.

Back on intermediate.

That cools you off real fast.

There's Challenger.

Holy smoley!

The lunar module was three miles away
and that was our home.

We were up on the side
of the north massif working.

Just two lunchbox-totin' Joes.

You can talk all you want
about going to the moon,

living and working on the moon.

I can tell you, I already did that.

I had a house up there. I had a job.

I lived up there for three days.

You know, Jack,
when we finish with station eight

we will have covered this whole valley.

That was the idea.

But I didn't think we'd ever really get to
that far corner, but we are going to make it.

Son of a gun, the commander just fell down.

- You OK?
- Yeah, Commander's OK.

When you're tired, and almost finished,

and you think everything is going perfectly
and you got it made,

that's when something terrible can happen.

That's when disaster can strike.

Another savage attacks but - poof!

And they escape the Selenites

and are about to leave the lunar surface.

Danger.

Will they survive? Yes!
They are led by Professor Barbenfouillis.

Monsieur Méliès was on
the precipice of celebrity and greatness

as well as getting very, very rich.

Poof! A savage of the
other world disappears.

Poof again. Poof! And again.

As was his due,
he had created Le Voyage Dans La Lune.

But then, it all came crashing down.

But they're on their way home
and splash in the ocean.

It goes deep, deep, deep, deep,
and they come up.

Yes, they come up to the surface

and the navy brings them to safe harbour.

I'm going to take my movie in America,

make a hundred prints of it,
take them to New York

book a theatre
and let words of my films spread

across this huge, rich land.

I will make a fortune out of this.

Poor Monsieur Méliès.

He did not know
that Le Voyage Dans La Lune

was already playing in America.

And he was not ever going
to see a penny from it.

Agents of the American genius and thief
Monsieur Thomas Edison

had seen the film in London.

They bribed the theatre owner,

took the film into a lab

and made copy after copy after copy of it.

The film was a sensation in America.

A fortune was made off its exhibition.

None of it - not a penny -

going into the pockets
of Monsieur Georges Méliès.

Within a few years... he was broke.

- You should have TV.
- We're gettin' TV.

- You getting it?
- We've got TV.

Well, let me take a look.

With the final EVA nearly completed,

Gene Cernan drove the rover
a few hundred feet away

to its final resting place,

a parking spot where it still sits today.

He would need the clamps
holding together the fender

for inside the LEM during ascent.

A good fender, he took back as a souvenir.

Pressed for time, and with
a long walk back to the landing site,

the commander of Apollo 1 7
stole the luxury

of a last look at his home on the moon...

then performed one last,
very personal task.

With Mission Control reminding him
time was running out,

Jack Schmitt hurried to prepare
the last bags of priceless lunar samples

for the long transport to Earth.

With the clock ticking and his life support
diminishing with every breath

the only scientist to ever walk on the moon
came to a melancholy realization -

his time there was over.

We need you in the LEM
in one-five minutes, 15 minutes

- because of oxygen restraints.
- I copy that.

I don't need my hammer any more.

Tell them to move it along.

What we want you to do is dust and get in.

We got one-four minutes.

- Let me throw the hammer.
- OK.

Let me throw the hammer, please.

It's all yours.
You deserve it. You're a geologist.

You oughta be able to
be the hammer thrower.

- You ready?
- Go ahead. Don't hit the LEM.

Bob, this is Gene,
and I'm alone on the surface.

That's why I'm the last man
to walk on the moon.

Jack was already inside Challenger
so it was just me out there.

That last footprint on
the moon, check it out.

It just happens to be my boot size.

And as I take man's last step
from the surface

back home, for now,

but we believe not too
long into the future.

I'd just like to say
what I believe history will record.

That America's challenge of today

has forged man's destiny of tomorrow.

And as we leave the moon
at Taurus-Littrow

we leave as we came,

and, God willing, as we shall return...

with peace and hope for all mankind.

Godspeed, the crew of Apollo 1 7.

- Descent engine override. Logic in.
- OK.

Rate scale - 25 degrees per second.

- 25.
- Attitude translation: four jets.

- Four jets on.
- Balance couple on.

Take your final look
at the valley at Taurus-Littrow.

The TV camera on the rover

was broadcasting live pictures
of Challenger's liftoff from the moon

making Ed Fendell
the most nervous man in all of NASA.

The camera on Apollo 1 5
wouldn't tilt up to follow the ascent

and its commands for keeping Apollo 1 6
were too slow.

Now with one last chance
to televise the complete event,

the pressure was on
to pan and zoom the camera

several seconds before liftoff.

Otherwise the world would never see

a perfect TV picture
of Apollo leaving the moon.

- Engine arm is ascent.
- Engine arm is ascent.

- I'm going to hit the PRO.
- Roger.

99.

Proceed.

Three, two, one.

Ignition.

With a precision emblematic
of its near flawless mission,

Apollo 1 7 embarked from the moon
for the sixth and final time

in the history of mankind.

The exploration of another world
was successfully and safely completed

thanks to the efforts and attention
of those on Earth

who could only look on
as vicarious participants

as the fantastic voyages
came to a bittersweet end.

When we were back
in the command module,

President Nixon sent a message

congratulating us on the last exploration
of the moon in this century.

Boy, that made me mad
because we were just getting good at it.

The hardware had been proven,
was getting even better

and yet we have not been back
to the moon since 1972.

We should've continued right along.

The only reason we stopped
going to the moon was politics.

Sending men to the moon is dangerous.

It's also expensive. It's hard to do.

But we did it at the cost
of more than just money.

If you have the time, I can list the names

of a couple of hundred thousand people

who gave of themselves to make it happen,

along with the names of dozens of people
who gave their lives.

Understand that the moon is
what the Earth once was

before the ancient craters
were erased by the wind and the rain

and the geologic forces.

As such, the moon is a time machine
that can take us back

and tell us what our home was once like -
what it was made out of

and how it came to be that
we're all living here.

I wish I had been living up there
on the moon these past 25 years

wandering around
with my hammer and a sack

and a Thermos or two of coffee.

I'm very glad to have been alive
when we went to the moon.

I am of the generation that witnessed it,

that actually saw it live on television.

And what we saw on television

from the forbidding
and desolate surface of the moon

was our own world,

both beautiful and troubled.

Standing on the moon,
looking up at the Earth,

you see that the promise
and potential of our world

is as obvious as it is magnificent.

And for the people who live
on that green and blue ball,

there is no difficulty
they cannot overcome,

no solution they cannot grasp,

no distance that they cannot travel.

Me standing in the valley
of Taurus-Littrow is proof of that.

What we learned about the moon

is not nearly as important
as our going there.

Apollo 8...

witnesses to the first earthrise
in the consciousness of Man.

Apollo 1 7, Gene Cernan
takes that remarkable photo

of Jack Schmitt standing on the moon

with the Earth over his shoulder.

See, that's why we went to the moon -
to take those pictures.

We didn't go there to
conquer it or claim it

or simply beat the Russians to it.

Sure, we wanted to find out
what the moon was made of,

to satisfy questions of science

that have plagued us since the dawn of Man.

But more than anything else
we went to the moon

to see if we could make the journey

because if we can do that -

if we can voyage from
the Earth to the moon -

then there's hope for all of us,

because we can do anything.

William Bradford speaking in 1630

of the founding of the Plymouth Bay colony

said that all great and honorable actions

are accompanied with great difficulty.

And both must be enterprised and overcome
with admirable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress
teaches us anything

it is that Man,
in his quest for knowledge and progress

is determined and cannot be deterred.

The exploration of space will go ahead
whether we join in it or not.

We need to be a part of it.
We need to lead it.

For the eyes of the world
now look into space,

to the moon and to the planets beyond.

Our leadership in science and industry
our hopes for peace and security,

our obligations to ourselves
as well as others,

all require us to make this effort
to solve these mysteries.

To solve them for the good of all men.

There is no strife, no prejudice,

no national conflict in outer space as yet.

Its hazards are hostile to us all.

Its conquest deserves
the best of all mankind.

We choose to go to the moon.
We choose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon
in this decade and do the other things,

not because they are easy
but because they are hard.

Because that challenge is one
that we're willing to accept

one we are unwilling to postpone

and one we intend to win.