Apollo 17 was commanded by Gene Cernan, veteran of Gemini IX and Apollo 10, the only man besides Jim Lovell and John Young to go twice on a lunar journey. His CMP was Ron Evans and his LMP was Jack Schmitt, a geologist with a Ph.D and the only scientist to be on an Apollo crew. The command module was named America; the lunar module, Challenger. On the early afternoon of December 11, Cernan and Schmitt landed Challenger in the valley of Taurus Littrow. Seventy-five hours later, at 4:54:37 P.M., Houston time, December 14, 1972, they left the lunar surface and rendezvoused with America for an
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