The next generation of astronauts to go to the Moon should be trained in cross-country skiing as the technique is perfect for getting about in low gravity, the most recent man to walk on the lunar surface said yesterday.

An experience of skiing on a student visit to Norway allowed Harrison “Jack” Schmitt to claim the title of the Moon’s fastest man during the final Apollo mission of December 1972. His top speed was about 7.5 miles (12km) per hour.

After experimenting with several other approaches, he found the “toe-push” technique used by cross-country skiers to be by far the most efficient way of gliding across the lunar surface. It meant he could easily outpace Gene Cernan, the Apollo 17 commander, who used a crude “bunny-hop” instead.

“I could move much faster than he could,” Dr Schmitt said. Asked whether he was the fastest of the 12 men to have walked on the Moon, he said: “I hadn’t thought of that, but probably.” During the third Moon walk of the Apollo 17 mission, Dr Schmitt could be heard practising his technique near the Van Serg crater.

When Cernan asked him a moment later whether he had taken a panoramic photograph, he replied: “I forgot. I got interested in skiing.”

When the first manned mission to the Moon since Apollo 17 blasts off, Nasa should ensure its astronauts are able cross-country skiers, Dr Schmitt told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. A well-trained Nordic skier could keep up almost ten miles per hour over more than six miles.

He said: “I tried to convince my pilot colleagues to take a few weekends off and learn cross-country skiing, because that is the way to move rapidly and with little energy expenditure across the Moon.

“If you’ve ever done cross-country skiing, Nordic skiing, you know that at least on a level surface once you get a rhythm going you propel yourself with a toe-push, and if you want to go faster you use your poles, as you slide along a reasonably good surface of snow.

“On the Moon, of course, you don’t slide, you glide above the surface, but again you just use the same kind of rhythm, with a toe-push, and there’s nothing to restrict how far you eventually go or how fast you go, other than your own strength. It’s like going across a giant trampoline. It really is liberating.”

Astronauts would not need skis but they should carry poles for balance and acceleration, Dr Schmitt said.

Once the permanently manned Moon base planned by Nasa for 2024 is up and running, however, astronauts will get the opportunity to enjoy some out-of-this-world slopes.

Dr Schmitt said: “There is vertical relief of 2,100 metres (7,000ft) at Taurus-Littrow.”

Nasa plans to send a manned mission to the Moon by 2020, with crews of four making week-long runs before a full-time human presence is established by 2024. Astronauts would spend six-month tours at the lunar base, running a laboratory to test technology for a manned expedition to Mars.

Dr Schmitt said that such a base could also prove attractive to commercial mineral prospectors, particularly as the satellite is a good source of helium3, an isotope with potential use in nuclear fusion power. The most likely location for the base is the lunar south pole. The polar regions receive more sunlight than equatorial zones; a base would at first have to rely on solar power.

Giant leaps

— Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, July 20, 1969

— Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, November 19-20, 1969

— Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell, February 5-6, 1971

— David Scott and James Irwin, July 31-August 2, 1971

— John Young and Charles Duke, April 21-23, 1972

— Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, December 11-14, 1972

Source: Nasa

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