1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA’s Apollo program and remains the most recent time humans have travelled beyond low Earth orbit. Its crew consisted of Commander Eugene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and the spacecraft carried a biological experiment containing five pocket mice with radiation monitors implanted under their scalps. The lunar module touched down on the moon’s surface on Dec. 11, 1972. Shortly thereafter, Cernan and Schmitt began re-configuring the module for their stay on the surface and began preparations for the first moonwalk of the mission, or EVA-1. Cernan, Evans, Schmitt, and the mice returned to Earth on Dec. 19, although one of the animals died of reasons undetermined. The mission broke several crewed spaceflight records including the longest Moon landing, longest total extravehicular activities, the largest lunar sample, the longest time in lunar orbit, and, at 75, the most lunar orbits.
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