The splashdown and recovery of the Apollo 17 crew marked the end of the Apollo flight program. The mission plan was for the spacecraft to land in the Moon's Taurus-Littrow region near the rim of the Serenitatis Basin, which seemed to have all the elements geologists would want to explore in this final mission. Cinder cones and steep-walled valleys with large boulders at their base presented the possibility of sampling both young volcanic rock from depth and older mountainous wall material at the same location. Thus, the setting for the Apollo 17 landing was a unique place in which to carry out many investigations and to return lunar materials that could aid in answering many fundamental questions. In every aspect, Apollo 17 was indeed a fitting capstone to the Apollo missions. Its awesome and magnificent midnight launch, its flawless operation, its 72-hour lunar staytime, its deployment of scientific instrumentation, its return of the richest collection of lunar materials from any lunar site, its orbital science coverage, and its glorious splashdown in the Pacific Ocean surely marked Apollo 17, according to previous mission evaluations, as the mission most impressively exemplifying the Apollo program.
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