Ronald Evans (astronaut) 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. He served as a member of the astronaut support crews for the Apollo 7 and Apollo 11 flights, and as backup Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14. Evans' only space flight was as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 17, the last scheduled U.S. manned mission to the Moon. He was accompanied by Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. While Cernan and Schmitt landed and worked on the Moon in the Taurus–Littrow valley, Evans remained in lunar orbit on board the Command Module "America", completing assigned work tasks which required visual geological observations, hand-held
Apollo 17 which the series was based, Austin remembers watching the Earth "fall away during Apollo XVII." In the 1998 film "Deep Impact" fictional astronaut Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner, portrayed by Robert Duvall, was described at a Presidential press conference as the "last man to walk on the Moon" by the President of the United States, portrayed by Morgan Freeman. In the Anime "Aldnoah.Zero", the Apollo 17 mission locates an ancient transporter gate leading to Mars left by an unknown, extinct alien race. This discovery is the divergence point for the story's alternative history. The song "Contact" from Daft Punk includes audio from