My memories of Apollo 17

Apollo 17, the last mission of the Apollo program, was really memorable for me because I came back to the Univ. of Tokyo the day after the Apollo 17's liftoff from the Moon, after two years stay for researches at Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), Houston, USA. Because we had many unsolved subjects by the Apollo program, I felt that Japanese lunar exploration should be undertaken. After 38 years trials, KAGUYA (SELENE) is finally orbiting the Moon.

Before the mission of Dr. Schmitt to the Moon, we had a chance to request him much about the lunar samples at the Geochemistry branch meeting. Since we found a rusty rock in the Apollo 16 samples (including a hydrated iron oxide mineral, Akaganeite, first found at Akagane-mine in the northeastern region of Japan), it was expected that the dark mantle material on the mare plane was ejected from one of the young fumaroles at the Apollo 17 site. Apollo 17 crews found orange-colored layers at the Shorty Crater, but the orange soils they collected were turned out to be volcanic orange glasses which formed by quenching lava fountains 3.5 billion years ago. It was 2005, when I met Dr. Schmitt again by his visit to Japan just before Aichi-Expo.