A remotely controlled camera captured Apollo 17 leaving the moon, not some doomed astronaut

Are we meant to believe that some lonely soul was committed enough to NASA’s Apollo program to stay behind on the moon just so the space agency could have footage of a lunar takeoff? 

A recent Instagram post suggests as much. 

"NASA moon landing WHO filmed this," reads text above a video clip of Apollo 17 leaving the moon.

"If you believe NASA really went to the moon, then who stayed behind and filmed them leaving?" a man says in the video. "Who filmed this? It must’ve been someone pretty dedicated because they’re still on the moon." 

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stated on March 30, 2024 in a Facebook post

NASA is “shooting three rockets at three moons” on the day of the solar eclipse.

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The footage is authentic, but no one stayed behind to film it. It shows the last time humans were on the moon, Dec. 14, 1972. On that date, the lunar module Challenger was filmed using a small, portable television camera attached to a pan-and-tilt unit that could be controlled from Earth via a high-gain antenna on the lunar rover, the National AIr and Space Museum explains on its website.

Claims that this video is evidence that the moon landing was fake are False.