In the five decades since the end of the Apollo program, much has changed in astronautics. The differences between the Apollo capsules and Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft are significant, and that means that the astronauts will travel with more comfort, more amenities, and a lot more safety.

Apollo 17 was the sixth and latest misison to land people on the moon, as well as the final mission of the Apollo program.

In an X post, the space agency shared images captured by the 1972 Apollo 17 crew and the 2026 Artemis II astronauts.

The Artemis II launched from Florida, sending a crew of four astronauts on a mission around the moon, but before this could happen the Apollo 17 crew landed on the moon 50 years ago.

The late Gene Cernan became the 11th person to walk on the moon in 1972 and was the last human to leave a footprint on its surface. In an unreleased clip from a 2013 documentary, Cernan left a message for future crews who planned to head out on a lunar mission.

A Titusville resident shares vivid memories of witnessing the historic Apollo 11 and Apollo 17 launches from Florida.

NASA has released a slew of photos captured by the Artemis II crew as they hurtle through space toward the moon — including an updated version of the iconic “Blue Marble” shot snapped by the Apollo 17 crew more than 50 years ago.

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have detected trivalent titanium in a 3.8-billion-year-old lunar rock collected during the Apollo 17 mission, offering direct chemical evidence that the Moon’s interior was far more oxygen-poor and hotter than many models assumed.