posted 12-09-2017 06:52 AM               

Space Cover #446: Apollo 17, 45th Anniversary

Apollo 17, the final moon mission ("for the time," as Ron Evans stated on the VIP card above) was the sixth Apollo lunar landing and, while Evans orbited alone in the command module, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt carried out three EVAs totaling 22+ hours while spending three+ days on the lunar surface.

The Apollo 17 launch cover above, with a beautiful cachet designed by Paul Calle symbolically depicting Cernan and Schmitt on the lunar surface, also bears a red official NASA/KSC rubber stamp cachet as an extra. Ron Evans nicely signed and inscribed the Apollo 17 VIP card below.

The top cover is a NASA/KSC Exchange crew patch/mission emblem cacheted cover with a superb inscription added by Schmitt with his autograph, identifying himself as both the 12th moonwalker and the Apollo 17 LMP. The cover below is a USS Ticonderoga Prime Recovery ship cover, with an Apollo 17 Beck US Navy red rubber stamp cachet and autographed by the crew, with each including excellent mission-related inscriptions. For those autograph-inclined, the autographs by Cernan, Schmitt and Evans were all received in 1984 requiring mail-in requests to each astronaut.