Harrison Schmitt cancelled in September 1970, the community of lunar geologists supporting Apollo felt so strongly about the need to land a professional geologist on the Moon, that they pressured NASA to reassign Schmitt to a remaining flight. As a result, Schmitt was assigned in August 1971 to fly on the last mission, Apollo 17, replacing Joe Engle as Lunar Module Pilot. Schmitt landed on the Moon with commander Gene Cernan in December 1972. Schmitt claims to have taken the photograph of the Earth known as "The Blue Marble", possibly one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence. NASA officially
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