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Blue Dot: Apollo 17 @ 50 Part 1

Night Launch of Apollo 17, December 7, 1972
NASA
Night Launch of Apollo 17, December 7, 1972

Blue Dot's Apollo@50 series nears its conclusion with Part One, our look back at the final lunar mission, Apollo 17.

The final of three spectacular scientific explorations of the Apollo Program began with Apollo 15. Apollo 17 featured the only scientist to fly up to that point for NASA, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt. Commanded by veteran astronaut and the "last man on the Moon," Eugene Cernan, the mission also featured Command Module Pilot Ron Evans, the only Viet Nam combat veteran to fly to the Moon.

Interviews include historian Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on The Moon, Lead Flight Director Gerry Griffin, and the wife of the late astronaut Ron Evans, Jan Evans.

We also visited with two scientists, Jim Head and Gerry Schaber, who worked closely on the Apollo geology team and were close at the time with Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, the only geologist ever to set foot on another world. It's all part one of Apollo@50's grand finale!

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.
Matt Fidler is a producer and sound designer with over 15 years’ experience producing nationally distributed public radio programs. He has worked for shows such as Freakonomics Radio, Selected Shorts, Studio 360, The New Yorker Radio Hour and The Takeaway. In 2017, Matt launched the language podcast Very Bad Words, hitting the #28 spot in the iTunes podcast charts.