'Oh, you won’t believe it...Oh shoot' - The last man on the Moon's panic revealed

Fifty years after Neil Armstrong spoke mankind's first ever words on the Moon's surface, lunar landings still have the power to fascinate.

But while the first man on the Moon's historic line about a step and a leap is still remembered by most today, some of the last words spoken on there may be a lot remarkable.

"Oh, you won’t believe it. It did it again. There goes the fender… Oh shoot!"

Those words of apparent panic were spoken by the last man on the surface of the Moon, Commander Gene Cernan.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings, his companion, Harrison Schmitt, explained to ITV News exactly what went on.

Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt spoke to ITV News to mark to Moon landing's 50th anniversary. Credit: ITV News

The pair were just about to embark on a drive around the Moon's surface when Cernan knocked into the buggy's mudguard - what he called the fender - and put the team out of action.

Without this essential tire cover protecting the team’s visibility from Moon dust, seeing anything was almost mission impossible.

Apollo 17 was all about driving on the Moon and Commander Cernan was a worried man.

"He didn't get much sleep that night I kept trying to convince him that mission control people would get together and they'll figure out how to fix it," said Schmitt.

He added: "We did get a lot of dust on our suits, on the solar panels, on the heat rejection radiators and the like, so it was a major problem."

Apollo 17 was all about driving on the Moon, so the astronauts wanted to solve their problem.

The pair eventually fixed the problem by using a laminated map and duct tape to replace the mudguard.

When asked if Cernan offered him an apology, Schmitt responded: "Commanders don’t apologise for anything."

Fender incidents have made appearances in previous missions – with both Apollo 15 and 16 coming across similar problems.

However, unlike Commander Cernan, Schmitt and team, they found no fix.