From the Earth to the Moon (1998): Season 1, Episode 12 - Le voyage dans la lune - full transcript
The last manned Apollo mission to the moon is juxtaposed with Georges Méliès' filming of Le voyage dans la lune (1902).
[John F. Kennedy]
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.
[woman narrating]
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 1968
to December of 1972,
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 labor 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.
[speaking French]
[Despont translator]
I was very energetic in 1902.
I was working for
the great Georges Méliès,
who I had 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 we use right 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 some place 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."
[chuckling]
But the moon
was in Monsieur Méliès's eyes,
and this is what he designed and built
at the Star Films studios in Montreuil.
[chatter]
Monsieur Méliès had constructed
the largest film studio
in the world at that time.
Between 1896 and 1913,
he produced over 100 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, and you'll 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!
[loud bang, groans]
Idiot! That's too much!
- [Méliès] No, it's perfect.
- It's perfect. Do you hear?
That much, no more, no less.
[Despont translator] 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. One moment, sir!
Is the grinder ready? Yes? No?
Please talk to me. Thank you.
Look at this,
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?
- Grinder's ready!
Start the grinder!
[handle squeaks]
[Méliès] Everyone is talking,
anticipation in the air.
Come, the astronomers!
You are sure of yourselves,
accomplished and full of pride.
You greet the assembled and bow.
Very good. And now...
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.
[giggles]
I bow to you, sausages.
- [laughter]
- And now I take my place...
Get ready, and...
Slowly raise your telescopes
above your head.
Hold it there a moment...
Stop the grinder!
- [shouts]
- Get the stools!
[Despont translator]
Méliès would have us stop the film
and run in with whatever it was
that was needed to suddenly appear.
[speaking French]
We make the exchange, run back off,
start the camera and... voilà.
A special effect of magic on the screen.
[projector whirs]
[Méliès] Oh! Your 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!
You say to yourself, "This is madness!"
and you act that this is madness.
You say, "it is impossible,"
and I say, "No, it is not impossible!"
- [clamor]
- 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 astronomers' club!
Mayhem breaks out among the scientists.
And all this
because I propose a voyage to the moon.
[Méliès] Jean-Luc, how was it?
I think it was a good one, no?
[over radio] VTS this is LTC.
LBLH-2 load complete.
Houston, flight VTS,
verify go/no go for flight crew
at T-minus two hours, 25 minutes.
[man 1 ]
I'm the last man to walk on the moon.
Not that anyone gives a shit.
[laughs]
Can I say "shit"
or should I watch my language on this?
[ground crew
radio communications continue]
[man 2] I can make the claim of being
the last person to set foot on the moon.
It's really how you look at it.
I got out of the LEM after Gene did
on the first EVA.
That would make 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
on the moon,
and they came back in one piece,
but if you didn't get a NASA paycheck,
you never even knew their names.
[narrator]
Eugene Cernan was a veteran astronaut
who walked in space on Gemini 9 in 1966.
Exhausted and overheated
in his pressure suit,
he lost 15 pounds in the effort.
Gambling that the Apollo program
would remain funded by Congress,
he held out for command of Apollo 17,
rather than take the job of lunar
module pilot on John Young's 16 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.
Hey! Ta-da!
- Congratulations!
- What?
- It's on TV, you're going to the moon!
- What?
- Apollo 17, you're on the crew!
- Yeah.
But... I have not heard a thing.
You will. They're finally
sending one of us.
You'll be the first egghead on the moon.
Have a drink for once in your life.
No, no, I don't celebrate rumors.
- Oh, come on!
- [phone rings]
Harrison Schmitt.
- Yes. My sister.
- Oh!
No, no, I haven't heard anything.
I'll let you know when I do.
- Yeah. Bye.
- I don't know what they're waiting for.
NASA stands for
Never Absolutely Sure of Anything.
[phone rings]
Harrison Schmitt.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Well, I will do the best job
I possibly can.
Thank you.
[giggling]
- [hangs up]
- Your drink, sir.
[Schmitt laughs]
Gentlemen.
To the exploration of the moon.
- [laughter]
- Yes!
They might have rued the day
that they made the change.
See, I always had some strong ideas
about where we were going on the moon,
and forcefully suggested them.
Jack had no problem picking up the phone
and calling
the president of the United States
if he had an idea about where or what
we should be doing with Apollo.
- Like giving us that fourth EVA.
- Fourth EVA. Where we should land.
But the flight rules
were not going to be rewritten
just for me and Jack
to make that last trip out.
Chris Kraft stopped me in the hallway
one day
and he pretty much told me
exactly how it was going to be.
- Geno...
- Yes, boss?
Want to put the white scarf away?
- Come again?
- Lose the throttle-jockey act, huh?
I got all the memos I need on Apollo 17.
All these great ideas
from you and your partner.
You want an extra EVA on the moon?
You're lucky you even have a mission!
Look, Gene, a lot of people think
we should quit while we're ahead.
The system's stretched to the limit.
Jesus.
We're so tired of weight constraints,
we're talking about cutting the number
of Band-Aids in the first-aid kit,
six Band-aids instead of 12.
That's enough.
Now, here's the number one mission rule.
Tattoo this to your eyelids.
Don't take any chances,
just come back alive.
[Méliès]
All right, nice and easy, with grace.
[Despont translator] 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.
these girls!
- Right! You fire them!
- I will. You guys are fired.
[laughter]
When things were not so bad,
he was not so bad.
This is how it is
when you are working with a genius.
[laughing, chattering]
[speaking French]
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.
[speaking French]
A complete, fantastic story
told in one marvelous film.
I don't know, boss. So many cuts,
so much glue, I hope it holds.
[Méliès]
If it doesn't work, no soup for you.
Yeah, that's all right. It's lousy soup.
Oh! How dare you? Is it ready?
Here goes.
There we are, the intrepid voyagers.
Yes.
Wave to the assembled
and climb into the projectile
that is pushed into the cannon
by so many pretty ladies.
Yes... give us a wave.
[Despont translator]
Dissolves, superimpositions,
double exposures.
Monsieur Méliès was a genius.
Boss? You are a genius.
The cannon, ready to be fired.
And... boom!
[man on PA] Roger, the clock
has started. We have yaw.
Apollo 17 has turned midnight into dawn.
Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans
and Harrison Schmitt
flying through the automated
roll program of the spacecraft
begin America's, and perhaps all of
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 17
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?"
[Cernan on radio] Okay, Houston,
as I step down
to the surface of Taurus-Littrow...
[narrator] No one on Earth
saw Gene Cernan
first set foot on the moon's surface.
Nor Jack Schmitt.
The Apollo 17 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 television 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 1969
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.
Twelve, the color camera went out
so there was no TV.
[laughs] 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.
Fifteen and Sixteen had the rover
and the color camera.
But by this time...
no one was watching.
They'd moved on to other things.
Color television from the moon...
took a few moments of their time.
Nothing more.
♪ Oh, bury me not
♪ On the lone prairie
♪ Where the coyotes howl
♪ And the winds blow free
Okay, let's see. Where am I? Oh!
In a geologist's paradise,
if I ever saw one.
I just snuck a quick peek at the drill
and it does work.
[sucks liquid]
And I just took time out
for a snack and a bit of water.
[feedback whines]
- [radio] What's that?
- Must be Ron.
Houston, you want to tell Evans
he's got his VHF on?
[groans]
- 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 go and deploy
this package here.
I hate to say it,
but 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,
do you remember?
Yeah, that sounds right.
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.
[Cernan] That's the biggest difference
between Jack and me.
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 nighttime
in England and lunchtime 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. [laughs]
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 and...
Well... I was looking at the rocks.
I mean, when you can see
the layers of geologic history...
Well...
That's what I was there for.
[narrator] After extended 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.
[Craft on radio] We'd like to
have you driving in ten minutes.
[Cernan on radio]
Yeah, nag, nag, nag.
By the time
they were back inside Challenger
and repressurized to five PSI,
the two moon walkers had been outside
for seven hours and 12 minutes,
almost three times longer
than all of Neil Armstrong's
and Buzz Aldrin's
exploration of the Sea of Tranquility.
And Apollo 17
had two more moon walks to go.
[Méliès] 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. Come on.
- Out. Faster.
- [Méliès] Over here. Raise your arm.
[Despont] Raise up.
That's when we'll stop the grinder.
- Stop the grinder.
- Can we move this? Come on!
[Despont] One, two, three.
- Quickly, quickly.
- [Méliès] Don't move.
Out comes the projectile.
It'll be faster, boss. Don't worry.
[Méliès] All right, so raise your arm.
Raise your arm. Good.
- Don't move. Keep up your arms.
- And we will start the grinder... now.
Get out of the way.
You want the grinder to see the Earth.
- We're turning again.
- We want the Earth rising,
slowly... and let drop the mountains.
- [Despont] Yes!
- [Méliès] 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!
- [explosion]
- Boom!
[groaning]
The volcano should be a little farther
offstage. Can you get it? All right.
Stop. You're doing a lousy job
and bitching for nothing.
We'll do that. Now get up. Stretch.
[Méliès shouts]
Here they are. No, they will be, boss.
I promise. I guarantee it.
- They will be there.
- Let's lay down
and 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.
[Craft on radio]
Good morning, Challenger.
We have
some special wake-up music for you
from the old folks
of the LMP at Caltech.
[man] ♪ Eight miles high
[Cernan] 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.
[Schmitt] Not once did Geno
drive with me on the uphill side.
He usually had three wheels
on the surface
and me feeling like
we were gonna tip over any minute.
Good eye.
[narrator] For the second EVA,
Cernan and Schmitt were well rested
and had the time-consuming chores
behind them.
[over radio] And I think
we've got another one coming.
[narrator] With ten stations scheduled,
the pair drove off over five miles
from the safety of Challenger
with the single-minded task of doing
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.
Oh, the F-stop for the 500-millimeter
should be the same as for the 70.
Gene, you might want to take some shots
of those massifs
if they look interesting.
[Cernan] "If they look interesting"?
What kind of thing is that to say?
[Schmitt] Bob, up frame count 36
is the outcrop where the boulders
at the top of the south massif...
Oh! Hey, here's something different.
It's a chunk of yellow-brown rock
that has several spots behind it.
[Schmitt] To find a sample with such a
vivid color on the surface of the moon,
well, that 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?
Oh, that's a reflection.
Oh, that really fooled me.
It's a reflection off the Mylar
on the rover.
I thought I had something there,
but... ah, crazy.
Well, what the heck?
I'll sample it anyway.
So, that's CB-32 Easy.
It's just another small fragment.
"Just another small fragment."
You can bet that gave the guys in the
geology backroom a quick little 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 taillights?
- Hubcaps.
Maybe he left the parking lights on.
Don't do that to us again, Jack.
[Schmitt] Okay, 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.
[Silver] 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.
[Schmitt] 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.
- [Cernan] Do you have TV?
- Yes! Would you get out of the way?
- Move!
Move to the right.
We have TV.
And you might brush the lens for us
before you move out of the way.
[Schmitt] I'm gonna take a quick pan
while I'm waiting for you.
[Cernan] Okay, okay.
Oh, hey.
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! Get a closer look!
- We need to pan. Take a look around.
- Tell him to bring it to the camera.
Make sure the sunlight's
hitting it at the right angle.
[laughing]
- It is. I can see it from here.
- It's orange.
[Cernan]
Wait. Let me pull my visor up.
It's still orange!
[Schmitt] Cernan. I'm gonna have
to dig a trench here, Houston.
Boy, it's almost the same color
as the LMP decal on my camera.
How can there be oxidized soil
on the moon?
It looks just like oxidized desert soil.
That's exactly right.
- Wait...
- You know, that orange,
it runs in a line, Geno.
- Right along the rim crest.
- [Cernan] Circumferential?
Yeah. if there was anything that looked
like a fumarole alteration, this is it.
That's it! That's it!
That's the volcanic event!
[Schmitt narrating]
The bad news is that the orange
was not a fumarole alteration,
nor was it 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.
Well, it had to do with my daughter,
Tracy.
[man]
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.
He said if he couldn't,
he'd bring me a moonbeam.
- A what?
- A moonbeam.
A moonbeam.
[man laughs]
He's either pulling your leg
or you're pulling mine.
That's what he said.
[Tracy]
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.
It's 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.
[female narrator]
The moon is roughly five times
the size of the continent of Africa.
In all, the Apollo missions
spent more than 12 days on its surface
but less than three and a half days
actually exploring its mysteries.
In the 75 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.
[laughs]
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.
It wasn't because I was scared
or anything.
It was just the fact that I was trying
to do something so fantastic,
it made it impossible.
Jack, he slept like a baby
with the sweetest dreams
you could imagine, I suppose.
[narrator]
Mankind's final day on the moon
came with the Earth's face
having waned by 15%.
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.
[man on radio] Battery's complete,
and your cue on the low bit rate.
And you can go to low bit rate again.
It looked good to us, too.
- LMP is 6100 on the OPS.
- Copy that, Jack.
- And about 5850 on CDR.
- Okay, copy that, Geno.
You guys got the word about
which purge valve to use?
- That is affirm.
- PDR's OPS is go.
- LMP is go.
- Okay, copy that.
Bob, how do you read
the biomed on the LMP?
Stand by, Jack.
- Forward hatch is unlocked.
- Okay, copy that.
- We're starting...
- We're starting on the LMP.
Let me double-check that.
The LMP's PLSS is on.
It's locked and dustcover is on.
CDR is reading 91% oxygen.
Okay, copy, 91.
Helmet visor aligned and... locked.
Okay, that's locked.
Okay, diverter valve is vertical.
Comm is that way.
Diverter valve is vertical, okay.
- Don EV gloves.
- I've got one glove on.
Locked. The other glove is locked.
Okay, standing by
for your go for depress.
- You are go for depress.
- Thank you, Robert.
We are go for depress.
- That's affirm.
- Okay, here comes the hatch.
- I can see daylight through it.
- Okay, hatch is full open.
I tell you, with a stiff suit,
I'm still at 4.5 PSI.
Okay, but I am out here on the porch.
Okay, I'm going down the ladder.
Godspeed, the crew of Apollo 17.
- You want to head towards the SEP.
- Oh, I see it now.
Head towards the SEP, and then
make your turn to the north.
Matter of fact, turn on these tracks.
Yeah, I'm in good shape, I see it.
Bob, that 45 Yankee sample...
[man] I remember my visit
to Mission Control quite vividly...
for it was the day I saw the impossible.
Oh, I knew the Americans
had walked on the moon.
I had seen the pictures.
But the... 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.
And 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.
[laughs] I wanted to run outside
and wave at the moon
and run back inside,
see if I could see myself.
Turning Point Rock is a split rock.
It has what looks like...
[narrator] Turning Point Rock was
so named because it was the station
farthest away from the Challenger
on the final EVA of Apollo 17.
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.
[Schmitt] I hope they're good.
I don't know if it's mantled,
but it's certainly filleted.
There's a lot of the dark mantle
on some of the shallower...
[Cernan] Turning Point
is where I should have done it.
I thought later on, "Oh, man",
if I'd put my daughter Tracy's initials
up there on one of those boulders,
"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.
[panting]
I don't think... I can get to the top.
I just gotta get to a place
where I can get a pan from.
Okay, I think I'll save some water.
[panting] All right.
Back on intermediate.
[groans]
That cools you off real fast.
Hey, 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-toting Joes.
You can talk all you want
about what it's like to go to the moon,
to live on the moon, work on the moon,
and 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
from corner to corner.
[Schmitt] That was the idea.
[Cernan] But I didn't think
we'd ever quite get to that far corner,
but we are going to make it.
Oh, God!
Son of a gun.
Oh, commander just fell down.
- [Schmitt] You okay?
- Yeah, commander's okay.
When you're tired,
when you're close to being 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.
[Méliès]
Another savage attacks, but... poof!
And they escape the Selenites
and are about to leave
the lunar surface.
Danger. Will they survive?
Yes, of course. They are led
by Professor Barbenfouillis.
[Despont translator]
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.
[Méliès] A Selenite jumps out.
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 on the surface, and
the navy brings them to a safe harbor.
I'm going to take my movie in America,
make a hundred prints of it,
take them to the city of New York,
book a theater
and let words of my film spread
across this huge rich land.
And I will make a fortune out of this.
[Despont translator]
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 theater owner,
took the film into a lab
and made copy after copy
after copy of it.
[speaking French]
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.
- [Cernan] You should have TV.
- [Craft] We're getting TV there, Geno.
- You getting it?
- We've got TV.
Well, let me take a look.
[narrator]
With the final EVA nearly completed,
Gene Cernan drove the rover
a few hundred feet away
from the Challenger
to its final resting place,
a parking spot
where it still sits today.
He would need the clamps
that held together the quick-fix 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 17
stole the luxury
of a last look at his home on the moon.
Then performed one last,
very personal task.
Hey, Bob, 55 Yankee
is an exotic-looking rock
I found about five meters
south of the neutron flux hole.
It's another possibly gray basalt.
There aren't many around here
so I picked this one up.
Okay, let's make sure
that's all stitched up.
With Mission Control reminding him
time was running out,
Jack Schmitt hurried to prepare the last
bags filled with 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, Bob.
What they're saying is
I don't need my hammer anymore.
Tell them to move it along.
What we want you to do
is dust and get in.
We got one-four minutes.
- [Schmitt] Uh, let me throw the hammer.
- Okay.
Let me throw the hammer, please.
[Cernan] It's all yours. You deserve it.
You're a geologist.
You ought to be able
to be the hammer thrower.
- [Schmitt] 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 17.
- Descent engine override. Logic in.
- [Cernan] Okay.
Rate scale: 25 degrees per second.
- Twenty-five.
- Attitude translation: four jets.
- Four jets on.
- Balance couple on.
- On.
- Dead band, minimum.
- Dead band in min.
- Abort, abort stage, reset.
Abort, abort stage are reset.
Okay, I've got 400 plus 1 in
and my watch is reset.
Okay.
Take your final look
at the valley at Taurus-Littrow.
[narrator] 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 15
wouldn't tilt up to follow the ascent...
and its commands for keeping Apollo 16
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.
Ninety-nine. Proceed.
Three, two, one.
- [explosion]
- Ignition.
[applause]
[no audible dialogue]
[narrator] With a precision emblematic
of its near-flawless mission,
Apollo 17 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.
[Schmitt] When we were back
inside the command module,
President Nixon sent up 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.
[sighs] 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 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.
[Cernan] 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, you see,
is not as important as our going there.
Apollo 8...
witnesses to the first earthrise
in the consciousness of man.
Apollo 17, 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... 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.
[applause]
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.
[applause]
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.
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.
[woman narrating]
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 1968
to December of 1972,
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 labor 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.
[speaking French]
[Despont translator]
I was very energetic in 1902.
I was working for
the great Georges Méliès,
who I had 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 we use right 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 some place 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."
[chuckling]
But the moon
was in Monsieur Méliès's eyes,
and this is what he designed and built
at the Star Films studios in Montreuil.
[chatter]
Monsieur Méliès had constructed
the largest film studio
in the world at that time.
Between 1896 and 1913,
he produced over 100 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, and you'll 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!
[loud bang, groans]
Idiot! That's too much!
- [Méliès] No, it's perfect.
- It's perfect. Do you hear?
That much, no more, no less.
[Despont translator] 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. One moment, sir!
Is the grinder ready? Yes? No?
Please talk to me. Thank you.
Look at this,
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?
- Grinder's ready!
Start the grinder!
[handle squeaks]
[Méliès] Everyone is talking,
anticipation in the air.
Come, the astronomers!
You are sure of yourselves,
accomplished and full of pride.
You greet the assembled and bow.
Very good. And now...
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.
[giggles]
I bow to you, sausages.
- [laughter]
- And now I take my place...
Get ready, and...
Slowly raise your telescopes
above your head.
Hold it there a moment...
Stop the grinder!
- [shouts]
- Get the stools!
[Despont translator]
Méliès would have us stop the film
and run in with whatever it was
that was needed to suddenly appear.
[speaking French]
We make the exchange, run back off,
start the camera and... voilà.
A special effect of magic on the screen.
[projector whirs]
[Méliès] Oh! Your 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!
You say to yourself, "This is madness!"
and you act that this is madness.
You say, "it is impossible,"
and I say, "No, it is not impossible!"
- [clamor]
- 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 astronomers' club!
Mayhem breaks out among the scientists.
And all this
because I propose a voyage to the moon.
[Méliès] Jean-Luc, how was it?
I think it was a good one, no?
[over radio] VTS this is LTC.
LBLH-2 load complete.
Houston, flight VTS,
verify go/no go for flight crew
at T-minus two hours, 25 minutes.
[man 1 ]
I'm the last man to walk on the moon.
Not that anyone gives a shit.
[laughs]
Can I say "shit"
or should I watch my language on this?
[ground crew
radio communications continue]
[man 2] I can make the claim of being
the last person to set foot on the moon.
It's really how you look at it.
I got out of the LEM after Gene did
on the first EVA.
That would make 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
on the moon,
and they came back in one piece,
but if you didn't get a NASA paycheck,
you never even knew their names.
[narrator]
Eugene Cernan was a veteran astronaut
who walked in space on Gemini 9 in 1966.
Exhausted and overheated
in his pressure suit,
he lost 15 pounds in the effort.
Gambling that the Apollo program
would remain funded by Congress,
he held out for command of Apollo 17,
rather than take the job of lunar
module pilot on John Young's 16 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.
Hey! Ta-da!
- Congratulations!
- What?
- It's on TV, you're going to the moon!
- What?
- Apollo 17, you're on the crew!
- Yeah.
But... I have not heard a thing.
You will. They're finally
sending one of us.
You'll be the first egghead on the moon.
Have a drink for once in your life.
No, no, I don't celebrate rumors.
- Oh, come on!
- [phone rings]
Harrison Schmitt.
- Yes. My sister.
- Oh!
No, no, I haven't heard anything.
I'll let you know when I do.
- Yeah. Bye.
- I don't know what they're waiting for.
NASA stands for
Never Absolutely Sure of Anything.
[phone rings]
Harrison Schmitt.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Well, I will do the best job
I possibly can.
Thank you.
[giggling]
- [hangs up]
- Your drink, sir.
[Schmitt laughs]
Gentlemen.
To the exploration of the moon.
- [laughter]
- Yes!
They might have rued the day
that they made the change.
See, I always had some strong ideas
about where we were going on the moon,
and forcefully suggested them.
Jack had no problem picking up the phone
and calling
the president of the United States
if he had an idea about where or what
we should be doing with Apollo.
- Like giving us that fourth EVA.
- Fourth EVA. Where we should land.
But the flight rules
were not going to be rewritten
just for me and Jack
to make that last trip out.
Chris Kraft stopped me in the hallway
one day
and he pretty much told me
exactly how it was going to be.
- Geno...
- Yes, boss?
Want to put the white scarf away?
- Come again?
- Lose the throttle-jockey act, huh?
I got all the memos I need on Apollo 17.
All these great ideas
from you and your partner.
You want an extra EVA on the moon?
You're lucky you even have a mission!
Look, Gene, a lot of people think
we should quit while we're ahead.
The system's stretched to the limit.
Jesus.
We're so tired of weight constraints,
we're talking about cutting the number
of Band-Aids in the first-aid kit,
six Band-aids instead of 12.
That's enough.
Now, here's the number one mission rule.
Tattoo this to your eyelids.
Don't take any chances,
just come back alive.
[Méliès]
All right, nice and easy, with grace.
[Despont translator] 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.
these girls!
- Right! You fire them!
- I will. You guys are fired.
[laughter]
When things were not so bad,
he was not so bad.
This is how it is
when you are working with a genius.
[laughing, chattering]
[speaking French]
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.
[speaking French]
A complete, fantastic story
told in one marvelous film.
I don't know, boss. So many cuts,
so much glue, I hope it holds.
[Méliès]
If it doesn't work, no soup for you.
Yeah, that's all right. It's lousy soup.
Oh! How dare you? Is it ready?
Here goes.
There we are, the intrepid voyagers.
Yes.
Wave to the assembled
and climb into the projectile
that is pushed into the cannon
by so many pretty ladies.
Yes... give us a wave.
[Despont translator]
Dissolves, superimpositions,
double exposures.
Monsieur Méliès was a genius.
Boss? You are a genius.
The cannon, ready to be fired.
And... boom!
[man on PA] Roger, the clock
has started. We have yaw.
Apollo 17 has turned midnight into dawn.
Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans
and Harrison Schmitt
flying through the automated
roll program of the spacecraft
begin America's, and perhaps all of
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 17
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?"
[Cernan on radio] Okay, Houston,
as I step down
to the surface of Taurus-Littrow...
[narrator] No one on Earth
saw Gene Cernan
first set foot on the moon's surface.
Nor Jack Schmitt.
The Apollo 17 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 television 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 1969
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.
Twelve, the color camera went out
so there was no TV.
[laughs] 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.
Fifteen and Sixteen had the rover
and the color camera.
But by this time...
no one was watching.
They'd moved on to other things.
Color television from the moon...
took a few moments of their time.
Nothing more.
♪ Oh, bury me not
♪ On the lone prairie
♪ Where the coyotes howl
♪ And the winds blow free
Okay, let's see. Where am I? Oh!
In a geologist's paradise,
if I ever saw one.
I just snuck a quick peek at the drill
and it does work.
[sucks liquid]
And I just took time out
for a snack and a bit of water.
[feedback whines]
- [radio] What's that?
- Must be Ron.
Houston, you want to tell Evans
he's got his VHF on?
[groans]
- 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 go and deploy
this package here.
I hate to say it,
but 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,
do you remember?
Yeah, that sounds right.
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.
[Cernan] That's the biggest difference
between Jack and me.
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 nighttime
in England and lunchtime 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. [laughs]
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 and...
Well... I was looking at the rocks.
I mean, when you can see
the layers of geologic history...
Well...
That's what I was there for.
[narrator] After extended 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.
[Craft on radio] We'd like to
have you driving in ten minutes.
[Cernan on radio]
Yeah, nag, nag, nag.
By the time
they were back inside Challenger
and repressurized to five PSI,
the two moon walkers had been outside
for seven hours and 12 minutes,
almost three times longer
than all of Neil Armstrong's
and Buzz Aldrin's
exploration of the Sea of Tranquility.
And Apollo 17
had two more moon walks to go.
[Méliès] 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. Come on.
- Out. Faster.
- [Méliès] Over here. Raise your arm.
[Despont] Raise up.
That's when we'll stop the grinder.
- Stop the grinder.
- Can we move this? Come on!
[Despont] One, two, three.
- Quickly, quickly.
- [Méliès] Don't move.
Out comes the projectile.
It'll be faster, boss. Don't worry.
[Méliès] All right, so raise your arm.
Raise your arm. Good.
- Don't move. Keep up your arms.
- And we will start the grinder... now.
Get out of the way.
You want the grinder to see the Earth.
- We're turning again.
- We want the Earth rising,
slowly... and let drop the mountains.
- [Despont] Yes!
- [Méliès] 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!
- [explosion]
- Boom!
[groaning]
The volcano should be a little farther
offstage. Can you get it? All right.
Stop. You're doing a lousy job
and bitching for nothing.
We'll do that. Now get up. Stretch.
[Méliès shouts]
Here they are. No, they will be, boss.
I promise. I guarantee it.
- They will be there.
- Let's lay down
and 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.
[Craft on radio]
Good morning, Challenger.
We have
some special wake-up music for you
from the old folks
of the LMP at Caltech.
[man] ♪ Eight miles high
[Cernan] 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.
[Schmitt] Not once did Geno
drive with me on the uphill side.
He usually had three wheels
on the surface
and me feeling like
we were gonna tip over any minute.
Good eye.
[narrator] For the second EVA,
Cernan and Schmitt were well rested
and had the time-consuming chores
behind them.
[over radio] And I think
we've got another one coming.
[narrator] With ten stations scheduled,
the pair drove off over five miles
from the safety of Challenger
with the single-minded task of doing
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.
Oh, the F-stop for the 500-millimeter
should be the same as for the 70.
Gene, you might want to take some shots
of those massifs
if they look interesting.
[Cernan] "If they look interesting"?
What kind of thing is that to say?
[Schmitt] Bob, up frame count 36
is the outcrop where the boulders
at the top of the south massif...
Oh! Hey, here's something different.
It's a chunk of yellow-brown rock
that has several spots behind it.
[Schmitt] To find a sample with such a
vivid color on the surface of the moon,
well, that 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?
Oh, that's a reflection.
Oh, that really fooled me.
It's a reflection off the Mylar
on the rover.
I thought I had something there,
but... ah, crazy.
Well, what the heck?
I'll sample it anyway.
So, that's CB-32 Easy.
It's just another small fragment.
"Just another small fragment."
You can bet that gave the guys in the
geology backroom a quick little 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 taillights?
- Hubcaps.
Maybe he left the parking lights on.
Don't do that to us again, Jack.
[Schmitt] Okay, 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.
[Silver] 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.
[Schmitt] 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.
- [Cernan] Do you have TV?
- Yes! Would you get out of the way?
- Move!
Move to the right.
We have TV.
And you might brush the lens for us
before you move out of the way.
[Schmitt] I'm gonna take a quick pan
while I'm waiting for you.
[Cernan] Okay, okay.
Oh, hey.
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! Get a closer look!
- We need to pan. Take a look around.
- Tell him to bring it to the camera.
Make sure the sunlight's
hitting it at the right angle.
[laughing]
- It is. I can see it from here.
- It's orange.
[Cernan]
Wait. Let me pull my visor up.
It's still orange!
[Schmitt] Cernan. I'm gonna have
to dig a trench here, Houston.
Boy, it's almost the same color
as the LMP decal on my camera.
How can there be oxidized soil
on the moon?
It looks just like oxidized desert soil.
That's exactly right.
- Wait...
- You know, that orange,
it runs in a line, Geno.
- Right along the rim crest.
- [Cernan] Circumferential?
Yeah. if there was anything that looked
like a fumarole alteration, this is it.
That's it! That's it!
That's the volcanic event!
[Schmitt narrating]
The bad news is that the orange
was not a fumarole alteration,
nor was it 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.
Well, it had to do with my daughter,
Tracy.
[man]
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.
He said if he couldn't,
he'd bring me a moonbeam.
- A what?
- A moonbeam.
A moonbeam.
[man laughs]
He's either pulling your leg
or you're pulling mine.
That's what he said.
[Tracy]
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.
It's 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.
[female narrator]
The moon is roughly five times
the size of the continent of Africa.
In all, the Apollo missions
spent more than 12 days on its surface
but less than three and a half days
actually exploring its mysteries.
In the 75 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.
[laughs]
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.
It wasn't because I was scared
or anything.
It was just the fact that I was trying
to do something so fantastic,
it made it impossible.
Jack, he slept like a baby
with the sweetest dreams
you could imagine, I suppose.
[narrator]
Mankind's final day on the moon
came with the Earth's face
having waned by 15%.
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.
[man on radio] Battery's complete,
and your cue on the low bit rate.
And you can go to low bit rate again.
It looked good to us, too.
- LMP is 6100 on the OPS.
- Copy that, Jack.
- And about 5850 on CDR.
- Okay, copy that, Geno.
You guys got the word about
which purge valve to use?
- That is affirm.
- PDR's OPS is go.
- LMP is go.
- Okay, copy that.
Bob, how do you read
the biomed on the LMP?
Stand by, Jack.
- Forward hatch is unlocked.
- Okay, copy that.
- We're starting...
- We're starting on the LMP.
Let me double-check that.
The LMP's PLSS is on.
It's locked and dustcover is on.
CDR is reading 91% oxygen.
Okay, copy, 91.
Helmet visor aligned and... locked.
Okay, that's locked.
Okay, diverter valve is vertical.
Comm is that way.
Diverter valve is vertical, okay.
- Don EV gloves.
- I've got one glove on.
Locked. The other glove is locked.
Okay, standing by
for your go for depress.
- You are go for depress.
- Thank you, Robert.
We are go for depress.
- That's affirm.
- Okay, here comes the hatch.
- I can see daylight through it.
- Okay, hatch is full open.
I tell you, with a stiff suit,
I'm still at 4.5 PSI.
Okay, but I am out here on the porch.
Okay, I'm going down the ladder.
Godspeed, the crew of Apollo 17.
- You want to head towards the SEP.
- Oh, I see it now.
Head towards the SEP, and then
make your turn to the north.
Matter of fact, turn on these tracks.
Yeah, I'm in good shape, I see it.
Bob, that 45 Yankee sample...
[man] I remember my visit
to Mission Control quite vividly...
for it was the day I saw the impossible.
Oh, I knew the Americans
had walked on the moon.
I had seen the pictures.
But the... 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.
And 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.
[laughs] I wanted to run outside
and wave at the moon
and run back inside,
see if I could see myself.
Turning Point Rock is a split rock.
It has what looks like...
[narrator] Turning Point Rock was
so named because it was the station
farthest away from the Challenger
on the final EVA of Apollo 17.
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.
[Schmitt] I hope they're good.
I don't know if it's mantled,
but it's certainly filleted.
There's a lot of the dark mantle
on some of the shallower...
[Cernan] Turning Point
is where I should have done it.
I thought later on, "Oh, man",
if I'd put my daughter Tracy's initials
up there on one of those boulders,
"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.
[panting]
I don't think... I can get to the top.
I just gotta get to a place
where I can get a pan from.
Okay, I think I'll save some water.
[panting] All right.
Back on intermediate.
[groans]
That cools you off real fast.
Hey, 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-toting Joes.
You can talk all you want
about what it's like to go to the moon,
to live on the moon, work on the moon,
and 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
from corner to corner.
[Schmitt] That was the idea.
[Cernan] But I didn't think
we'd ever quite get to that far corner,
but we are going to make it.
Oh, God!
Son of a gun.
Oh, commander just fell down.
- [Schmitt] You okay?
- Yeah, commander's okay.
When you're tired,
when you're close to being 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.
[Méliès]
Another savage attacks, but... poof!
And they escape the Selenites
and are about to leave
the lunar surface.
Danger. Will they survive?
Yes, of course. They are led
by Professor Barbenfouillis.
[Despont translator]
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.
[Méliès] A Selenite jumps out.
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 on the surface, and
the navy brings them to a safe harbor.
I'm going to take my movie in America,
make a hundred prints of it,
take them to the city of New York,
book a theater
and let words of my film spread
across this huge rich land.
And I will make a fortune out of this.
[Despont translator]
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 theater owner,
took the film into a lab
and made copy after copy
after copy of it.
[speaking French]
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.
- [Cernan] You should have TV.
- [Craft] We're getting TV there, Geno.
- You getting it?
- We've got TV.
Well, let me take a look.
[narrator]
With the final EVA nearly completed,
Gene Cernan drove the rover
a few hundred feet away
from the Challenger
to its final resting place,
a parking spot
where it still sits today.
He would need the clamps
that held together the quick-fix 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 17
stole the luxury
of a last look at his home on the moon.
Then performed one last,
very personal task.
Hey, Bob, 55 Yankee
is an exotic-looking rock
I found about five meters
south of the neutron flux hole.
It's another possibly gray basalt.
There aren't many around here
so I picked this one up.
Okay, let's make sure
that's all stitched up.
With Mission Control reminding him
time was running out,
Jack Schmitt hurried to prepare the last
bags filled with 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, Bob.
What they're saying is
I don't need my hammer anymore.
Tell them to move it along.
What we want you to do
is dust and get in.
We got one-four minutes.
- [Schmitt] Uh, let me throw the hammer.
- Okay.
Let me throw the hammer, please.
[Cernan] It's all yours. You deserve it.
You're a geologist.
You ought to be able
to be the hammer thrower.
- [Schmitt] 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 17.
- Descent engine override. Logic in.
- [Cernan] Okay.
Rate scale: 25 degrees per second.
- Twenty-five.
- Attitude translation: four jets.
- Four jets on.
- Balance couple on.
- On.
- Dead band, minimum.
- Dead band in min.
- Abort, abort stage, reset.
Abort, abort stage are reset.
Okay, I've got 400 plus 1 in
and my watch is reset.
Okay.
Take your final look
at the valley at Taurus-Littrow.
[narrator] 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 15
wouldn't tilt up to follow the ascent...
and its commands for keeping Apollo 16
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.
Ninety-nine. Proceed.
Three, two, one.
- [explosion]
- Ignition.
[applause]
[no audible dialogue]
[narrator] With a precision emblematic
of its near-flawless mission,
Apollo 17 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.
[Schmitt] When we were back
inside the command module,
President Nixon sent up 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.
[sighs] 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 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.
[Cernan] 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, you see,
is not as important as our going there.
Apollo 8...
witnesses to the first earthrise
in the consciousness of man.
Apollo 17, 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... 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.
[applause]
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.
[applause]
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.