Ronald Evans (astronaut) Ronald Evans (astronaut) Ronald Ellwin Evans Jr. (November 10, 1933 – April 7, 1990), (Capt, USN), was an American naval officer and aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut, also one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Evans was selected as an astronaut by NASA as part of Astronaut Group 5 in 1966 and made his first and only flight into space as Command Module Pilot aboard Apollo 17 in 1972, the last manned mission to the Moon to date, with Commander Eugene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt. During the flight, he orbited
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