Apollo 17 investigate the possibility of relatively new volcanic activity in the same area. Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt returned to Earth on December 19 after a 12-day mission. Apollo 17 is the most recent manned Moon landing and the most recent time humans travelled beyond low Earth orbit. It was also the first mission to have no one on board who had been a test pilot; X-15 test pilot Joe Engle lost the lunar module pilot assignment to Schmitt, a geologist. The mission broke several records: the longest moon landing, longest total extravehicular activities (moonwalks), largest lunar sample, and longest time in
NASA Astronaut Group 6 1972 but ultimately rejoined the Astronaut Corps for a second nine-year stint in 1979. The requirement for scientists to be trained as jet pilots was eventually lifted with the creation of the Mission Specialist position in the Shuttle Program. The seven members of Group 6 who stayed with the program after Apollo went on to form the core of early Shuttle Mission Specialists, accomplishing a total of 15 flights. NASA Astronaut Group 6 Astronaut Group 6 (the 'XS-11') was a group of eleven astronauts announced by NASA on August 11, 1967, the second group of scientist-astronauts. Although Director of Flight