Nansen-Apollo (crater) Nansen-Apollo (crater) Nansen-Apollo is a feature on Earth's Moon, a crater in Taurus-Littrow valley, at the base of the South Massif. Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt visited it in 1972, on the Apollo 17 mission. The astronauts referred to it simply as Nansen during the mission. Geology Station 2 of the mission was located at Nansen. Nansen is located in the 'light mantle' which is almost certainly an avalanche deposit from the South Massif. To the north of Nansen is Lara crater and Geology Station 3. To the northeast is Shorty and Geology Station 4. About 5 km to
Tsiolkovskiy (crater) in Mendeleev crater far to the northeast are called Catena Mendeleev, and the row points directly at Tsiolkovsky. For this reason the craters are believed to be secondaries from the Tsiolkovsky impact. This feature was discovered on photographs sent back by the Russian spacecraft Luna 3, and was subsequently imaged by several of the American Lunar Orbiters and then by Apollo astronauts. Apollo 17 Astronaut Harrison "Jack" Schmitt and other scientists (Schmitt was the only trained scientist, a geologist, to walk on the moon) strongly advocated Tsiolkovskiy as the landing site of Apollo 17, using small communications satellites deployed from