Later in , Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to make contact with the moon's surface when it crashed in the Mare Imbrium basin near the Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus craters. That same year, a third Luna mission captured the first, blurry images of the far side of the moon—where the rugged highland terrain is markedly different from the smoother basins on the side closest to Earth.
Then, the U. The Ranger missions were daring one-offs, with spacecraft engineered to streak toward the moon and capture as many images as possible before crashing onto its surface. In , the Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first vehicle to land safely on the lunar surface. Stocked with scientific and communications equipment, the small spacecraft photographed a ground-level lunar panorama.
Later that year, Luna 10 launched, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully orbit the moon. Over the two years that followed, NASA launched five Lunar Orbiter missions that were designed to circle the moon and chart its surface in preparation for the ultimate goal: landing astronauts on the surface. These orbiters photographed about 99 percent of the moon's surface, revealing potential landing sites and paving the way for a giant leap forward in space exploration.
See a map of all lunar landings. Kennedy committed the United States to landing a person on the moon before the decade was complete. The Apollo program , by far the most expensive spaceflight endeavor in history , kicked off that year, and by the time it ended in , nine missions and 24 astronauts had orbited or landed on the moon.
Perhaps the most famous of those, Apollo 11 , marked the first time humans had stepped on another world. Exploring the legacy of Apollo 11 at the dawn of a new era of space travel. Each mission after Apollo 11 set new milestones in space travel and lunar exploration. Four months after the first humans reached the moon, Apollo 12 touched down, achieving a much more precise landing on the moon. Apollo 13 narrowly avoided a near-disaster when on-board oxygen tanks exploded in April , forcing the crew to abort a planned moon landing.
All three survived. During the third lunar landing, in January , Apollo 14 , commander Alan Shepard set a new record for the farthest distance traveled on the moon: 9, feet. He even lobbed a few golf balls into a nearby crater with a makeshift 6-iron.
Apollo 15 , launched in July , was the first of three missions capable of a longer stay on the moon. In the course of three days spent on the lunar surface, achievements included collecting hundreds of pounds of lunar samples and traveling more than 17 miles in the first piloted moon buggy.
The Soviet Union had sent a remotely controlled rover to the moon , Lunokhod 1, in See a timeline of the space race and its modern-day version in private spaceflight.
After the dramatic accomplishments of the s and s, the major space agencies turned their attention elsewhere for several decades. So far, only 12 humans—all Americans and all men—have set foot on the moon. The Clementine spacecraft mapped the moon's surface in wavelengths other than visible light, from ultraviolet to infrared.
Hiding in the more than 1. These six crewed lunar landings occurred between July and December The following astronauts have been to the Moon in order of setting foot on the lunar surface :. This number of men who have been on the Moon was almost As part of the Apollo 13 mission, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise were scheduled to walk on the Moon, but the lunar landing had to be aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later. The Apollo 13 mission did set a record as the farthest humans have ever travelled from Earth.
Haise was meant to again walk on the Moon as part of the Apollo 19 mission. However, the programme was cancelled due to budgetary cuts and the US focus on renovating the Skylab space station.
Michael Cernan and Harrison Schmitt before the Apollo 17 mission to the moon. A range of factors determine how long it takes to reach the Moon, such as the type of rocket, the distance between the Earth and Moon, and the flight path the spacecraft takes.
As the Moon's journey around the Earth is elliptical, the distance changes within its 27 days orbit. At its closest approach, the Moon reaches , miles and at its furthest, it is , miles away from the Earth. Find out more about how far away the Moon is.
Crewed missions tend to take longer than passenger-free spacecraft due to the additional size and weight needed to support human life. Whether the object orbits or lands on the Moon will also determine the speed. Launched on 2 January , the Soviet Union probe Luna 1 travelled to within almost miles of the Moon's surface in 34 hours. The mission's original objective was to land on the Moon, but the probe went too fast and ended up in orbit around the Moon, where it remains today.
The Apollo 11 mission in , crewed by three astronauts took four days, six hours and 45 minutes. Apollo 10 holds the record for the highest velocity reached by a crewed spacecraft at 24, miles per hour. This passed the Moon in 8 hours and 35 minutes on its way to Pluto.
However, the spacecraft didn't even slow down or approach lunar orbit. They landed in the Taurus-Littrow valley on 11 December and departed on 14 December. Mir was a Russian space station that was in operation from until , and was the first continuously inhabited research station in orbit.
Many experiments were carried out on the space station, and its success would become the blueprint for the current International Space Station. The last manned mission to the Moon was Apollo 17, taking place between 7 and 19 December It was a day mission and broke many records, the longest space walk, the longest lunar landing and the largest lunar samples brought back to Earth.
Harrison H. Schmitt was the lunar module pilot, as well as being a geologist. He was joined by Ronald E. Evans as command module pilot and Eugene Cernan as Mission Commander. The Space Race timeline. Apollo 17 was the only Apollo mission to not carry any astronauts who had previously been test pilots.
After the cancellation of Apollo 18, the Apollo mission Schmitt had originally intended to go on, the scientific community lobbied that he be put onto Apollo Cernan was the last to leave the lunar surface, and therefore is the most recent person to stand on the Moon.
As he ascended to the lunar module he said:. I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come - but we believe not too long into the future - I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record.
That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo Whilst manned missions to the moon have stopped, research into the moon and journeys to space still take place.
There are also future plans for journeys to the Moon. Find out more about the future of space travel. The race to land humans on the Moon was kickstarted by President John F. In the speech, Kennedy committed to getting a human to walk on the Moon by the end of the decade:. However, with the goal achieved NASA faced large funding cuts, making the future of the Apollo missions untenable.
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