Wonder of ScienceJan 12, 2024

Apollo 17 lifts off from the Moon on December 14, 1972, the last time humans visited the lunar surface and traveled beyond Earth's orbit.

Further reading: https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/leaving-moon-watching-home

Leaving the Moon, Watching at Home

After pressing some buttons to start up the ascent engine of their lunar module Challenger, astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the Moon on December 14, 1972. That’s 39 years ago – before many of us were even born. While these men looked out the tiny triangular windows of the lunar module to see the lunar surface getting farther away, viewers around the world watched that same spacecraft leave the Moon, live and in color on their television sets.

Show threadSteve VaughanJan 12, 2024
@wonderofscience I always ask myself - who's filming that?
Show threadLaberpferd

@steve_vaughan @wonderofscience
The path of the flight, aiming to reach earth, was obviously calculated before and not a random liftoff into space.

So anything they needed was to point the camera (of all the equipment they left on the moon) too look along the path they will take later when flying back home.

Jan 12, 2024 at 11:22pmWeb