As a member of the 1972 Apollo 17 crew, Schmitt used his personal knowledge of Nordic skiing to glide effortlessly across the dusty lunar surface.

"When you're cross-country skiing, once you get a rhythm going, you propel yourself with a toe push as you slide along the snow," said Dr Schmitt.

"On the Moon, in the main you don't slide, you glide above the surface. But again, you use the same kind of rhythm, with a toe push."

Dr Schmitt had tried to encourage the other two members of the Apollo 17 mission to take up Nordic skiing during training.

"I tried to convince my pilot colleagues to take a few weekends off to learn cross-country skiing because that is the way to move rapidly and easily with little energy expenditure across the surface of the Moon," said Dr Schmitt.

But Eugene Cernan and Ronald Evans refused to take his advice.

"The pilots for some reason got into this bunny hop technique, where they hopped with both feet."

Dr Schmitt said that astronauts would not need skis as the Moon's gravity is one-sixth of Earth's.

"Poles would be nice to have for stability," he said.