The Big Picture: Preparing for the Moon

During the Apollo program, NASA sent many of its astronauts to Hawaii's Big Island for field training in the run up to missions. The surface of the Moon isn't an environment that's easy to replicate, and the volcanic island chain's barren, rocky terrain is as close as it gets on earth. The picture above shows astronauts from Apollo 17 -- the last manned mission to the lunar surface -- test driving the Moon buggy in 1971. It's one of a series of recently rediscovered images documenting these training exercises, which can be viewed in its entirety here.