August 30, 2010 - NASA Drops the Axe

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The Week in Space

August 30 - September 5, 2010

NASA Drops the Axe In a statement made forty years ago this week, NASA Administrator Thomas Paine announced that, due to increasingly severe budget cuts, two of the remaining eight planned lunar landings would be canceled. One mission, originally designated Apollo 15, was to have been the last “H” series mission (without a lunar rover). The other canceled mission, Apollo 19, would have been the third “J” series mission (with a lunar rover) and would have landed within the crater Copernicus. The remaining missions were renumbered to remain consecutive, and Apollo 17 became the sixth and final lunar landing mission. The image above depicts Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, the last astronaut to walk on the Moon, saluting the flag at the Taurus Littrow landing site in December 1972.

Image credit: NASA