Looking back
Fifty years ago this month, in the first hour of Dec. 7, 1972, our nation launched the last of the manned lunar missions. The night launch was delayed by a hardware malfunction for about three hours, originally scheduled for 9:53 p.m. local time from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The launch was viewed in the vicinity by an estimated 500,000 people. The mission gave us the famous Blue Marble photo above, taken on that date at an approximate distance of 18,000 miles—the inspiration for the this-day-in-history-ish post.
Astronauts Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evens spent some twelve days away from Earth, including three days on the lunar surface for Cernan and Schmitt. They performed several science experiments on the moon and during the voyage: geophysical and biological, among others.
Just before leaving the moon in Man’s last step there, veteran astronaut Gene Cernan said,
America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. "Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17."
The Wiki page—source of the quote—has much more detailed information about the Apollo 17 mission.
I’ve always assumed we stopped our manned lunar program because we had won the Space Race. We quit because the activity just wasn’t as interesting without a menacing foreign rival. Or, at least, the lunar missions and space exploration became less interesting than our earthly domestic political battles.
Was ending the program the right decision?
The US was not the same in 1972 that it was in 1961 when JFK made his "before this decade is out" speech. LBJ's "Great Society" programs soaked up funds and NASA's budget was cut. The Vietnam War, racial unrest, runaway inflation all eroded the national will for something so grand as space exploration. Plus, there was no articulated follow-on goal to getting a man on the moon. The will to support the space program was not there anymore by the time of Apollo 17.
Space is very cool, so, yes, it was worth every cent and continues to be so.