27 Mind-Boggling Photos From The Project Apollo Archive

Somewhere on the moon, you'll find a tiny plaque. It reads, "Here man completed his first explorations of the moon, December 1972 A.D. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind." The plaque was left at the end of the Apollo missions back in 1972. On the very last mission, Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, and Harrison H. "Jack" Schmitt set up an automated research station. Cernan and Schmitt became the last two astronauts to ever land on the moon.

To celebrate the 43rd anniversary of Apollo 17, we rounded up 27 mind-boggling photos from the Apollo missions, in chronological order, curated from Kipp Teague's Project Apollo Archive. Most of the pics were taken with Hasselblad cameras mounted on astronauts' chests. They show what it was really like to go to the moon and back — and they remind us just how far we've come.