1972-12-07 USA Apollo 17

Apollo 17 crew-signed launch cover featuring the mission insignia cachet, postmarked KSC on December 7, 1972. Signed by Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ron Evans. This cover was acquired from the Evans family several years ago and may have been signed before the mission. - Heritage Auctions

Photo: Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt, Ron Evans, and Gene Cernan pose in front of their Apollo spacecraft that will transport them to the Moon.

Apollo 17 crew-signed launch cover featuring the mission insignia cachet, postmarked KSC on December 7, 1972. Signed by Ron Evans, Harrison Schmitt, and Gene Cernan. - Heritage Auctions

Photo: Apollo 17 astronauts during a training session on December 1, 1972.

Photo: Eugene Cernan converses with a boy in the crowd who witnessed the rollout of the Apollo 17 rocket to the launch pad.

Apollo 17 official NASA cachet on a cover with a Kennedy Space Center machine cancellation. The cover is signed by Harrison Schmitt, Gene Cernan, and Ron Evans.

Photo: Apollo 17 crew having breakfast at suppertime in preparation for the night launch.

Apollo 17 "Heritage Crafts" cachet launch cover featuring a Kennedy Space Center machine cancellation dated December 7, 1972, signed by Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Harrison Schmitt.

Photo: Alan Shepard and Harrison Schmitt in the suiting-up room. The sign above Harrison Schmitt states that Apollo 17, the final mission of the Apollo space series, is "Only a beginning" for space exploration.

Apollo 17 launched on December 7, 1972.

Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, located near Canberra, Australia, was a NASA Earth station that played a crucial role in supporting Project Apollo. It operated from 1967 until its closure in 1981. The station, which housed a 26-meter dish now decommissioned, is best known for receiving and transmitting to the world the iconic first TV images of astronaut Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon on July 21, 1969. In addition to broadcasting these historic images, Honeysuckle Creek, along with the Tidbinbilla station, maintained voice and telemetry contact with the lunar and command modules.

1972 Apollo 17 moon landing cover featuring a Houston postmark dated December 11, 1972, signed by Ron Evans, Gene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. This multicolor cover was created from a lunar chart and includes the Apollo 17 Mission logo on the left. - RegencyStamps

Apollo 17 lifted-off from the Moon on December 14, 1972. The covers above are postmarked in Houston.

Apollo 17 lifted-off from the Moon. The cover above is postmarked at Cape Canaveral on December 14, 1972, and signed by Gene Cernan.

On December 17, 1972, during the journey back to Earth, Evans conducted a 65-minute spacewalk to retrieve film cassettes from the service module's SIM bay, while Schmitt assisted him from the command module's hatch.

On December 18, 1972, the Apollo 17 crew held a televised press conference at the end of their day. Reporters submitted questions, which capcom Fullerton relayed to the crew for their responses. By the time Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt went to sleep for their final night in space, they had reduced their distance to Earth to 84,000 miles.

Photo: The Apollo 17 command module splashed down in the South Pacific on December 19, 1972. A recovery helicopter hovers above the command module while the USS Ticonderoga stands by.

Beck printed cachet cover B884 with a hand cancellation from the USS Ticonderoga, signed by Gene Cernan.

Apollo 17 USS Ticonderoga recovery ship cover featuring a Beck rubber-stamped cachet, signed by Ron Evans, Gene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. The hand cancellation from the USS Ticonderoga, dated December 19, 1972, was postmarked onshore.

Apollo 17 Captain’s cover from the USS Ticonderoga, hand-canceled December 19, 1972, with a magenta rubber-stamped “Morris Beck” cachet on the reverse and an accompanying insert card. The cover is signed by Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Harrison Schmitt. - Heritage Auctions

Apollo 17 recovery cover from USS Ticonderoga, featuring a “Morris Beck” rubber-stamped cachet in magenta and a hand-cancel with the month "DEC" missing.

Two Apollo 17 Captain's Covers from USS Ticonderoga, featuring a machine cancel dated December 20, 1972, the day after the recovery. The onboard Post Office was closed on December 19, making the 20th the first available postmark date. The cover at the bottom is signed by Donald Stullken, the NASA Recovery Team Leader.

Apollo 17 recovery cover from the USS Ticonderoga, featuring a machine cancel dated December 20, 1972, signed by the recovery crew members: Steve O'Brien, Jerry Turley, Don Thompson, "Boh" Bohannon, Wayne Lazarn, Tim Keeney, Terry May, and Jon Smart.

Apollo 17 recovery cover with helicopter flight details, featuring a machine cancellation upon returning to port on December 22, 1972.

Apollo 17 recovery team signed cover, featuring a machine cancellation upon returning to port on December 22, 1972.

Photo: Apollo 17 crew members Ron Evans, Gene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt during their final press conference on January 5, 1972.

1972-04-16 USA Apollo 16

Apollo 16 insurance cover featuring a cachet of the Apollo 16 mission insignia and two sets of astronaut wings, with an April 16, 1972, postmark from Kennedy Space Center. It is signed in blue felt tip by John Young, Charlie Duke, and Ken Mattingly. The cover was formerly part of John Young’s personal collection. - RRAuction

Photo: John Young, the commander of the Apollo 16 mission.

Photo: Apollo 16 astronauts John W. Young, Thomas K. Mattingly, and Charles M. Duke at a press conference on March 17, 1972.

Apollo 16 official NASA cachet on a cover with a hand cancellation from Kennedy Space Center dated April 16, 1972.

Photo: Apollo 16 lunar module pilot Charles M. Duke Jr. shows his family the Apollo spacecraft that will take him, astronaut John W. Young, and Thomas K. Mattingly II to the Moon on April 16. The Dukes visited the spacecraft's white room at Complex 39. Kneeling beside Duke are his sons Thomas, 4, and Charles, 6, along with Dorothy and Guenter Wendt, North American Aviation pad leader.

Photo: The Apollo 16 astronauts during their final test before the scheduled liftoff to the Moon.

Apollo 16 KSC mailer's postmark permit canceled on launch day, April 16, 1972.

Photo: The Apollo 16 rocket lifted off from the launch pad at Cape Kennedy on April 16, 1972.

Photo: Stars near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, photographed by John Young.

Photo: Charlie Duke on the moon.

Apollo 16 cover from Manned Spaceflight Covers, canceled in Houston on the day of the moon landing, April 20, 1972. Signed by Charlie Duke.

Photo: Charlie Duke captured this image on the Moon, from the spot where he left a shrink-wrapped photo of his family.

At the beginning of the first EVA, John Young and Charlie Duke deployed both the lunar rover and a series of experiments, including passive and active seismometers, a heat flow experiment, a cosmic ray detector, and a solar wind composition experiment. They also set up the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph near the LM, a small telescope used to observe selected astronomical targets. The crew then drove the rover west of the landing site, collecting samples from the Cayley Formation at Flag Crater and Spook Crater while taking measurements with a portable magnetometer to assess variations in the Moon’s magnetic field around the landing area. By the end of EVA 1, the crew’s descriptions of the collected samples indicated that there was little to no volcanic material at the Apollo 16 landing site.

Video: Charlie Duke took his family to the Moon.

During the second EVA, Young and Duke drove south of the landing site, making several stops along the lower slope of Stone Mountain and reaching a maximum elevation of 160 meters above the mountain's base. On their return to the LM, they made several additional stops in an ejecta ray from South Ray Crater, a 2-million-year-old, 680-meter diameter crater located approximately 4 km away. These stops were strategically planned to ensure that material from South Ray Crater was included in their sample collection.

Due to the delayed landing, the third EVA was reduced to 5 hours and 40 minutes. Young and Duke drove north of the landing site to the southeastern rim of North Ray Crater. Many of the pre-planned sampling stops were omitted, allowing the crew to spend two hours working on the rim of North Ray Crater. This crater, which is 1 km wide and 230 meters deep, serves as a natural drill hole, ejecting material from deep beneath the lunar surface in the form of boulders located along and outside the crater rim for the astronauts to sample. The largest boulder, nicknamed House Rock, measures 20 meters long and 12 meters high, likely consisting of material ejected from 200 meters below the surface.

Photo: John Young examining a large boulder during the third EVA on April 23, 1972.

Charlie Duke and John Young lifted off from the Moon on April 23, 1972.

The Apollo 16 capsule splashed down on April 27, 1972.

An April 8, 1972, cover featuring a magenta rubber-stamped “Morris Beck” cachet and a USS Ticonderoga hand cancel, marking the ship's departure for the Apollo 16 recovery mission.

Postcard from the USS Ticonderoga CSV-14 recovery ship featuring a Beck rubber-stamped cachet, hand canceled on April 27, 1972.

Apollo 16 Captain's Cover featuring a hand cancel from the USS Ticonderoga, dated April 27, 1972. Signed by John Young, Thomas Mattingly, and Charles Duke. The cover was formerly part of Walter Cunningham’s personal collection. - Heritage Auctions

Photo: The Apollo 16 crew being greeted by Captain Edward Boyd on the USS Ticonderoga aircraft carrier, April 27, 1972.

Apollo 16 primary recovery ship cover featuring a rare USS Ticonderoga machine cancel, postmarked on board the ship on April 27, 1972.

Apollo 16 recovery cover flown by helicopter featuring the rare USS Ticonderoga machine cancel, dated April 27, 1972.

Apollo 16 cover from the USS Ticonderoga recovery ship featuring a Beck rubber-stamped cachet. The top cover is signed by Captain Edward Ayes Boyd, while the bottom cover is signed by the recovery crew. The USS Ticonderoga hand cancellation, dated April 27, 1972, was postmarked onshore.

Apollo 16 cover from the USS Ticonderoga recovery ship featuring a painted cachet by Robert McCall on the back.

The Apollo 16 crew enjoying a good laugh at a post-flight press conference on May 3, 1972, as they look at the oranges that the newsmen placed on the table.

Photo: Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke shows a photograph of himself on the Moon alongside a scale model of Apollo 16. Duke is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his moonwalk.