The Family that Went to the Moon
Well, the family photo, anyway.
On April 23, 1972, Apollo 16 astronauts Charlie Duke and John Young embarked on the third and final EVA of the mission,exploring the Descartes Highlands via Lunar Roving Vehicle. During the EVA, before setting up a Solar Wind Collector, Duke placed a small family photo he had brought along onto the lunar surface and snapped a few photos of it with his Hasselblad film camera. This is one of the photos.
The portrait shows Charlie, his wife Dorothy, and their two sons Charles and Thomas. It looks like they are sitting on a bench in the summertime.
The family photo, gingerly wrapped in clear plastic and slightly crumpled from being stashed in the pocket of a space suit, was left on the Moon. It presumably still sits there today, use inches away from Charlie’s boot print — which, presumably, is also there. At the time of this writing it’s been exactly 40 years to the day that this photo was taken.