By the end of 2022, no human being will have set foot on the Moon for half a century.
On December 15, 1972, the Apollo 17 mission left the lunar ground, after three astronauts had walked on it for the last time.
At that time, the United States and the USSR made the conquest of space a major issue of the Cold War.
If the Soviets had first taken the advantage, the Americans then proved that they were the most powerful, sending six missions and 12 men to the Moon between 1969 and 1972.
But this lunar conquest had no future.
"
It left everyone enormously frustrated
," explains Gilles Davidowicz, vice-president of the Astronomical Society of France.
We brought back samples, did science, much better documented the Moon, but we didn't stay there
”.
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