WHEN, if all goes well, Apollo 17's lunar module Challenger makes the final approach for a landing on the moon, it will let down toward a dramatic landscape: a wide valley guarded by three massive, well-rounded mountains that tower as high as 7,000 ft. "Once we're there," insists Apollo 17's commander, Gene Cernan, "I'm going to get us down." He will have little margin for error: only a few miles downrange of Challenger's glide path are the towering Taurus Mountains; to the northeast lies the giant crater Littrow. Much as the landing site...
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