[procflora]

My understanding is that even that small amount is more than the Apollo crews had. It's all a bit of a marketing line anyway. We can see a good portion of the "far side" from Earth due to the Moon's libration.

Still, it's true that parts of the far side are still unseen by human eyes (if you consider pitch black landscape to be "unseen" which I think is fair given the lack of any significant illumination as you point out).

[dotancohen]

I believe that Apollo 17 spent six days in lunar orbit. I'm not sure at what phase they arrived or left, but worst case they saw the far side three days away from full darkness.