Apollo program a total of over 20 hours EVA. Apollo 17 was the last of the Apollo program, landing in the Taurus–Littrow region in December 1972. Eugene Cernan commanded Ronald E. Evans and NASA's first scientist-astronaut, geologist Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt. Schmitt was originally scheduled for Apollo 18, but the lunar geological community lobbied for his inclusion on the final lunar landing. Cernan and Schmitt stayed on the surface for just over three days and spent just over 23 hours of total EVA. Source: "Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference" (Orloff 2004) The Apollo program returned over of lunar rocks and
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