In less than seven months, Apollo 17 wrapped up NASA’s moon
program. And then it was all history. The hardware and manpower
for at least two more trips was paid for and in place, but
Congress cut off funding and shut the program down. In the end,
there were nine missions that carried three astronauts each to
the moon. Six of these included landings. The story of Apollo 16
is among the lesser known, but we’re talking about the moon
here, and this mission deserves its due. The moon missions were
ahead of their time – this underscored by the fact that humans
have not left low Earth orbit in the 40 years since. The
International Space Station is in low Earth orbit, ranging from
205 to 255 miles up. That’s a mere 30 or 40 times the typical
cruising altitude of a commercial airliner. We’ve been doing
little more than skirting the outer reaches of our thin
atmosphere for the past four decades. The moon is the distance
equivalent of 30 Earths lined up end-to-end – a thousand times
farther than typical low Earth orbit