Page 23 - The Secret Museum

Hours into the return trip, the crew of Apollo 17 took one of the most famous

photographs of all time, a photograph of our planet called ‘The Blue Marble’, of the
whole Earth lit up by the sun. Africa was in daylight, and Antarctica was lit by the
December solstice. Although NASA credits the whole crew with taking the
photograph, as they were all using the camera, passing it between them, it’s
acknowledged now that the iconic image was the work of Schmitt.

Much later, he and Gene Cernan left Ronald Evans behind in the command module
and landed the lunar module in the Taurus-Littrow valley of the moon. It was
December 1972. They stayed on the moon for three days, driving 16 kilometres

across the light side. They saw lunar plains, took measurements of the gravitational
field of the moon, passed steep mountains, drove around small craters and stood
beside enormous boulders and glittering rocks.

Whenever they saw interesting things they jumped out to gather treasures to take
home. They were ecstatic, especially Schmitt. He began singing, ‘I was strolling on
the moon one day,’ skipping, bouncing and humming happily on his way. Gene
Cernan, not a geologist, sung along too.

In total, they brought back 109 kilograms of rock. One of these samples is named
Troctolite 76535. It formed when the moon was only 300 million years old and it has

a faint magnetic field, suggesting that the moon itself may once have had one.
Troctolite rock is found on Earth in several places, including Cornwall, the Isle of
Rum in Scotland and western Australia. Schmitt also collected orange soil, which
suggested the possibility of water, and maybe even life, at some point in the moon’s
history.

In his travels across the moon, a quarter of a million miles from Earth, Schmitt fell
over or made contact with the moon more often than any other Apollo astronaut. His
suit got very dirty as he crawled along collecting rocks, or from when he fell over

and pushed himself upright again. Most of the Apollo spacesuits were dry-cleaned
when they arrived back to Earth, but Schmitt’s never was. NASA wanted to preserve
the final Apollo mission spacesuits just as they were. So dust from the lunar surface
remains embedded in the fibre. I peered at the knees of his spacesuit. They were thick
with grey lunar soil. I really got to look at the moon that day.

Apollo 17 was the flight when the astronauts were on the surface of the moon for
the longest period of time, travelled furthest across it and collected the most lunar
samples. This suit is just as it was when Schmitt, one of the last two men on the

moon, left its surface, splashed back into the Pacific Ocean, took the spacesuit off
and put his Earth clothes back on. It’s too precious to be displayed in the museum.

The people who have seen this spacesuit are the collections staff of the museum,
scientists, researchers and the Apollo astronauts who come to see their suits, often
with their grandchildren (Alan Bean, Apollo 12, is the astronaut who visits his suit
most often), and NASA engineers. NASA’s design team is working on suits for Mars.
The Mars suits will need to last longer and be able to be taken on and off more than