Exploration of the Moon robot lunar rover to land on the Moon was the Soviet vessel Lunokhod 1 on November 17, 1970, as part of the Lunokhod programme. To date, the last human to stand on the Moon was Eugene Cernan, who as part of the mission Apollo 17, walked on the Moon in December 1972. "See also:" A full list of lunar Apollo astronauts. Moon rock samples were brought back to Earth by three Luna missions (Luna 16, 20, and 24) and the Apollo missions 11 through 17 (except Apollo 13, which aborted its planned lunar landing). From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s
Apollo 17 community pressured NASA to assign a geologist to an Apollo landing, as opposed to a pilot trained in geology. In light of this pressure, Harrison Schmitt, a professional geologist, was assigned the Lunar Module Pilot position on Apollo 17. Scientist-astronaut Curt Michel believed that it was his own decision to resign, after it became clear that he would not be given a flight assignment, that mobilized this action. Subsequent to the decision to assign Schmitt to Apollo 17, there remained the question of which crew (the full backup crew of Apollo 15, Dick Gordon, Vance Brand, and Schmitt, or the