Apollo 17, the final manned lunar landing mission, launched in 1972, with the crew taking the iconic "blue marble" shot of the whole Earth.
Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan and his crewmates — Harrison Schmitt and Ronald Evans — oohed and ahhed over their home planet, poised in the blackness outside their window, hours after their launch on December 7, 1972. The journey of Apollo 17: The whole disc of the planet was illuminated by the sun, a scene never before recorded on film by astronauts. The trajectory gave Schmitt the greatest view of Antarctica yet, and he marvelled at the superb vista of Africa.
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