Harrison Schmitt Autographed Photos
Because Schmitt was the only geologist in the astronaut corps and, as well, had spent considerable time becoming proficient in the CSM and LM systems, it came as no surprise when, in March 1970, he became the first of the scientist-astronauts to receive a crew assignment. He joined Richard F. Gordon, Jr. (Commander) and Vance Brand (Command Module Pilot) on the backup crew for Apollo 15 and was clearly in line to fly as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 18. After the cancellation of the Apollo 18 moon mission (not to be confused with the Apollo 18 name later assigned to Apollo-Soyuz)[1] in September 1970, many people expected that he would be assigned to fly on Apollo 17, the last lunar mission. That assignment was announced in August 1971. During the Apollo 17 flight, Schmitt probably took a photograph of the Earth called The Blue Marble, one of the most widely distributed photographic images in existence (NASA officially credits the image to the entire Apollo 17 crew, and Schmitt claims that he personally took the image.) As he returned to the Apollo Lunar Module before his crewmate Gene Cernan, Schmitt is the second to the last person to have set foot on the moon's surface.


