"In this follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Chesapeake Requiem, Earl Swift rediscovers the final three Apollo Moon landings, arguing that these overlooked missions--distinguished by the use of the revolutionary Lunar Roving Vehicle--were the pinnacle of human exploration"-- December 12, 1972. Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt had flown nearly a quarter-million miles to the man in the moon's left eye, landed, and then driven five miles in to a desolate, boulder-strewn landscape. As they gathered samples, they strode at the outermost edge of mankind's travels. A few feet away sat the machine that made the achievement possible: an electric go-cart that folded like a business letter, weighed less than eighty pounds in the moon's reduced gravity, and muscled its way up mountains, around craters, and over undulating plains on America's last three ventures to the lunar surface. Swift puts reader s alongside the men who dreamed of driving on the moon and designed and built the vehicle, troubleshot its flaws, and drove it on the moon's surface. -- adapted from jacket Provided by publisher.

The difference it made -- Nation of immigrants -- Principal considerations -- "We must do this!" -- A painfully trying task -- Across the airless wilds -- Tire tracks.