Apollo 17 the Apollo 17 mission, courtesy of NASA and Captain Eugene Cernan. The song "Tomorrow" by Public Service Broadcasting also includes audio of Commander Eugene A. Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt from the mission. Apollo 17 Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program. Launched at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, with a crew made up of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, it was the last use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose; after Apollo 17, extra Apollo spacecraft were used in
Apollo 17 lunar sample display wish for peace and harmony among the people of the world. He explained that Harrison Schmitt, his fellow astronaut on the Moon with him, had just picked up a "very significant" Moon rock that they hoped would bring this worldwide peace through the distribution of its fragments. This basalt was later identified as lunar basalt 70017, dubbed the "goodwill rock". Once brought back, this Moon rock was broken up into small fragments and distributed in 1973 by President Richard Nixon to all the countries of the world and to the United States with its territories as a goodwill gesture. The