the voyage beyond apollo

To coincide with the Apollo 17 mission and last time that human would set foot on the lunar surface, Caribbean cruise line Holland America offered a special voyage on its flag ship that cruised past Cape Kennedy to afford paying patrons and a gaggle of celebrity shipmates the chance to observe the rocket launch.
For nearly as long as the final and longest mission of the programme, holiday-makers could mingle with science fiction and fantasy luminaries like Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, Robert Heinlein, and Ben Bova as well as astrophysicist and science-communicator Carl Sagan (previously). Organised under the auspices of space propulsion visionary Dr Robert Duncan-Enzmann—who also incidentally tried to push the bounds of prehistory back eons by deciphering cave inscriptions and may have gone a bit mad in the effort, there was a series of on-board lectures and seminars to discuss the future of space exploration. The next port-of-call was Arecibo, Puerto Rico (see also) to visit the radio telescope.