Apollo legacy

This year is the 30th anniversary of the final Apollo moon landing.

The last man to walk on the moon, astronaut Eugene Cernan, is in London at the moment.

Breakfast caught up with him at the Science Museum, where his Spacecraft Apollo 10 is on display.

Eugene Cernan was commander of the final moonshot, Apollo 17, some thirty years ago.

"Once you've walked on the moon, you can't un-walk it," he told Breakfast's reporter Sue Nelson.

"But we need to go up there with a purpose."

Cernan hopes to re-ignite the interest of teenagers and children in space exploration, to regain some of the passion of the late sixties.

He is convinced that one day there will be a manned mission to Mars - but not all scientists agree.

Paul Murdin, from the Cambridge Insitute of Astronomy, believes that robots equipped with Artificial Intelligence will be in the forefront of exploration.

To see their debate in full, click on the watch/listen icon on the top right-hand side of this story

 Science Museum Apollo 10 web site

 Science Museum web site

 NASA homepage

 Apollo 17 : end of an era

NASA's account of the Apollo 17 misson

Eugene Cernan made his third space flight as spacecraft commander of Apollo 17-- the last scheduled manned mission to the moon for the United States. on December 6, 1972.

With him on the voyage of the command module "America" and the lunar module "Challenger" were Ronald Evans (command module pilot) and Harrison H. (Jack) Schmitt (lunar module pilot).

In manoeuvring "Challenger" to a landing at Taurus-Littrow, located on the southeast edge of Mare Serenitatis, Cernan and Schmitt activated a base of operations from which they completed three highly successful excursions to the nearby craters and the Taurus mountains, making the Moon their home for over three days.

This last mission to the moon established several new records for manned space flight that include: longest manned lunar landing flight (301 hours 51 minutes); longest lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours 6 minutes); largest lunar sample return (an estimated 115 kg (249 lbs.); and longest time in lunar orbit (147 hours 48 minutes).

Apollo 17 ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean approximately 0.4 miles from the target point and 4.3 miles form the prime recovery ship USS Ticonderoga.