The mystery of its location

It’s often repeated how most of the cameras that landed on the moon stayed on the moon. Astronaut Gene Cernan had been telling the story of how he left his camera on the lunar rover for years, recounting the tale in interviews:

"I left my Hasselblad camera there with the lens pointing up at the zenith, the idea being someday someone would come back and find out how much deterioration solar cosmic radiation had on the glass. So, going up the ladder, I never took a photo of my last footstep. How dumb! Wouldn’t it have been better to take the camera with me, get the shot, take the film pack off and then (for weight restrictions) throw the camera away?"

It’s easy to accept Cernan at his word - he’s an American hero who flew to space three times, twice to the moon - so as far as everyone was concerned, including the press, the camera was right where he said he left it. Plus, a quick scan of the Apollo 17 stowage list reveals no mention of a lunar surface camera splashing down with the command module. So why the mystery?

Looking closer, there’s a sprinkling of evidence in photos and transcripts that suggest his camera did in fact return to earth, contradicting both the 1972 NASA inventory and the astronaut. No, don’t cue the dramatic music… there’s no mischief or intentional deception here. I believe Gene Cernan did leave a camera on the lunar rover, just not “his.” Memory can be a fickle thing, even for heroes, and that rings especially true in this case when the story involves not one camera, but three.

A tale of three cameras

When you’re going to the moon, you’re assigned a camera with a 60mm lens that gets strapped to your chest to document samples, experiments, and the lunar terrain. Both astronauts get their own, clearly labeled with a sticker on the side: “CDR” for commander and “LMP” for lunar module pilot, but they weren’t mutually exclusive, often being swapped throughout the mission based on what film they were shooting with. On Apollo 17, Jack Schmitt - LMP and geologist extraordinaire - was set up with the black & white film. When he needed color, he’d grab Cernan’s camera and vice versa.

A third Hasselblad camera was also to be used on the mission; it was a bit of a beast really, boasting a 500mm telephoto lens meant to capture distant lunar features for, you know… science. Of the two astronauts, Cernan got stuck looking down the barrel of the 500mm the most, so it’s entirely possible that this is the camera he remembers leaving on the rover. In fact, the post-flight analysis of the transcript pretty much confirms it. But what happened with the other two?

The stowage list says they stayed

A little background. As each Apollo mission launched, NASA prepared a final stowage list that documented all the equipment aboard, detailing what was to be transferred between each spacecraft before and after landing on the moon. This list was then revised in real time as plans changed due to time or weight restrictions. In the latest revision of the Apollo 17 LM Lunar Launch Stowage List, dated December 12th, 1972, the three cameras that went down in the LM are all marked as “offloaded,” meaning they were left on the surface. The problem is, they launched from the moon on December 13th! So if extra items were brought onboard, it’s not recorded. At least not in what’s available online.