448. [Apollo 17] THE LAST SPACECRAFT TO RETURN FROM ANOTHER WORLD: CSM America parachutes into the Pacific, triumphantly concluding Apollo (NASA's own copy, used and annotated, for the preparation of its final Apollo science report) Harrison Schmitt, 7-19 December 1972 Printed 1972. Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image S-72-55834]. Original editorial labels in the white margins on the recto for publication in NASA's Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report (NASA SP-330), with "A Kodak Paper" watermark and traces of previous mounting on the reverse, numbered "NASA S-72-55834" in red in te top margin (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas), together with an original NASA sheet indicating directives and notes (figure 4-61) for publication in the report. 25.4 x 20.3 cm. (10 x 8 in.) Historical context Following splashdown, the last men on the Moon, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, along with the last deep-space spacewalker, Ron Evans, were picked up by helicopter and flown to the deck of the recovery ship USS Ticonderoga, triumphantly concluding humanity's final voyage to the Moon and back—an odyssey initiated by President Kennedy a little more than a decade earlier. As National Geographic aptly described it, it had been "mankind's greatest adventure." [Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report caption] FIGURE 4-61. — The Apollo 17 CM nears splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean within approximately 1 km of the target point. Splashdown occurred at 07:24:59 GMT, December 19, 1972, 304 hr 32 min after lift-off from the NASA John F. Kennedy Space Centre, Florida (S-72-55834). Literature Apollo 17 Preliminary Science Report (NASA SP-330), p. 4-61