Alan Shepard explosion caused the moon landing to be aborted and nearly resulted in the loss of the crew. It became a joke between Shepard and Lovell, who would offer to give Shepard back the mission each time they bumped into each other. The failure of Apollo 13 delayed Apollo 14 until 1971 so that modifications could be made to the spacecraft. The target of the Apollo 14 mission was switched to the Fra Mauro formation, the intended destination of Apollo 13. Shepard made his second space flight as Commander of Apollo 14 from January 31 to February 9, 1971. It was
Apollo 17 19, the crew jettisoned the no-longer-needed SM, leaving only the CM for return to Earth. The Apollo 17 spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere and landed safely in the Pacific Ocean at 2:25 pm, from the recovery ship, . Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt were then retrieved by a recovery helicopter and were safely aboard the recovery ship 52 minutes after landing. The command module "America" is currently on display at Space Center Houston at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The ascent stage of lunar module "Challenger" impacted the Moon December 15, 1972 at 06:50:20.8 UT (1:50 am EST),