Information about Landing On The Moon

A moon landing is the arrival of an intact manned or unmanned spacecraft on the surface of a planet's natural satellite. The concept has been a goal of mankind since it was first appreciated that the Moon is Earth's closest large celestial body. One of the clearest early examples of the concept in fiction was Jules Verne's novel From the Earth to the Moon, written in 1865. Since the Soviet Union first succeeded in implementing the concept in 1966, this term referred to eighteen spacecraft landings on the Moon through 1976. Nine of these missions returned to Earth bearing samples of moon rocks.

The first manned moon landing on Earth's Moon was the United States' Apollo 11 mission, commanded by Neil Armstrong accompanied by Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin. Armstrong landed the lunar module Eagle on the surface of the Moon at 4:17:42 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, July 20, 1969. They spent a day on the surface of the Moon and then returned to Earth. A total of six such manned moon landings were carried out between 1969 and 1972. The Soviet Union later achieved sample returns via the unmanned moon landings Luna 16, Luna 20 and Luna 24. Since this was during the time of the Cold War, the contest to be the first on the Moon was one of the most visible facets of the space race.

Progress in space exploration has since broadened the phrase to include other moons in the solar system as well. The Huygens probe of the Cassini mission to Saturn performed a successful unmanned moon landing on Titan in 2005. Similarly, the Soviet probe Phobos 2 came within 120 miles of performing a unmanned moon landing on Mars' moon Phobos in 1989 before radio contact with that lander was suddenly lost. There is widespread interest in performing a future moon landing on Jupiter's moon Europa to drill down and explore the liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface.

Scientific background

The primary concern of any moon landing is the high velocity involved that arise from the effects of gravity. In order to go to any moon, a spacecraft must first leave the gravity well of the Earth. The only practical way of accomplishing this feat is with a rocket. Unlike other airborne vehicles such as balloons or jets, only a rocket can continue to increase its speed at high altitudes in the vacuum outside the Earth's atmosphere.

Once the Earth has been left behind, a moon landing next requires a spacecraft to shed or lose at least an amount of speed equal to the escape velocity of the target moon to overcome its gravitational attraction. For Earth's Moon, this figure is 2.4 kilometers per second or around 5,000 miles per hour. This so-called delta-v is usually provided by a landing rocket, which must be carried into space by the original launch vehicle as part of the overall spacecraft. An exception is a moon landing on Titan such as that carried out by the Huygens probe]. As the only moon with an atmosphere, landings on Titan may be accomplished by using atmospheric entry techniques that are generally lighter in weight than a rocket with equivalent capability.

Whatever method is used to slow a spacecraft as it nears a moon, the key requirement for a moon landing is to be traveling at a survivable speed upon reaching the moon's surface. Otherwise the space mission ends not in a landing but a crash. Such crashes can occur because of malfunctions in a spacecraft, or they can be deliberately arranged for vehicles that do not have an onboard landing rocket. There have been many such moon crashes. For example, during the Apollo program the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V moon rocket as well as the spent ascent stage of the lunar module were deliberately crashed on the moon several times to provide impacts registering as a moonquake on seismometers that had been left on the lunar surface. Such crashes were instrumental in mapping the internal structure of the Moon.

If a return to Earth is desired after a moon landing is accomplished, the escape velocities of the moon and Earth must again be overcome for the spacecraft to come to rest on the surface of the Earth. Rockets must be used to leave the moon and return to space. Upon reaching Earth, atmospheric entry techniques are used to absorb the kinetic energy of a returning spacecraft and reduce its speed to zero for landing. These functions greatly complicate a moon landing mission and lead to many additional operational considerations. Any moon departure rocket must first be carried to the moon's surface by a moon landing rocket, increasing the latter's required size. The moon departure rocket, larger moon landing rocket and any Earth atmosphere entry equipment such as heat shields and parachutes must in turn be lifted by the original launch vehicle, greatly increasing its size by a significant and almost prohibitive degree. This necessitates optimizing the sizing of stages in the launch vehicle as well as consideration of using space rendezvous between multiple spacecraft and reaching intermediate orbits prior to landing; in particular, lunar orbit rendezvous. Thus systems engineering and logistics become major factors in the design of any moon landing mission.

Political background

The intense and expensive effort devoted in the 1960s to achieving first an unmanned and then ultimately a manned moon landing can only be understood in the political context of its historical era. World War II with its 60 million dead, half Soviet, was fresh in the memory of all adults. In the 1940s, the war had introduced many new and deadly innovations including blitzkrieg-style surprise attacks used in the invasion of Poland and in the attack on Pearl Harbor; the V-2 rocket, a ballistic missile which killed thousands in attacks on London; and the atom bomb, which killed tens of thousands in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s, tensions mounted between the two ideologically opposed superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union that had emerged as victors in the conflict, particularly after the development by both countries of the hydrogen bomb.



On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 as the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth and so initiated the Space Age. This unexpected event was a source of pride to the Soviets and shock to the Americans. This dramatic and successful demonstration of the new R-7 Semyorka rocket on only its third test flight meant that the Soviets could use ballistic missiles carrying hydrogen bombs in a surprise attack against any target on Earth, a frightening new capability the Americans did not have. Further, the steady beeping of the radio beacon aboard Sputnik 1 as it passed overhead every 96 minutes was widely viewed on both sides as effective propaganda to Third World countries demonstrating the technological superiority of the Soviet political system compared to the American one. This perception was reinforced by a string of subsequent rapid-fire Soviet space achievements. In 1959, the R-7 rocket was used to launch the first escape from Earth's gravity into a solar orbit, the first crash impact onto the surface of the Moon and the first photography of the never-before-seen far side of the Moon. These were the Luna 1, Luna 2 and Luna 3 spacecraft, respectively.

The American response to these Soviet achievements was to greatly accelerate previously languishing space and missile projects. Military efforts were initiated to develop and produce mass quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would bridge the so-called missile gap and enable a policy of deterrence to nuclear war with the Soviets known as Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD. These newly-developed missiles were made available to civilians of the newly formed NASA space agency for various projects which would demonstrate the payload, guidance accuracy and reliabilities of American ICBMs to the Soviets. While NASA stressed peaceful and scientific uses for these rockets, their use in various lunar exploration efforts also had secondary goal of realistic, goal-oriented testing of the missiles themselves and development of associated infrastructure just as the Soviets were doing with their R-7. The tight schedules and lofty goals selected by NASA for lunar exploration also had an undeniable element of generating counter-propaganda to show to other countries that American technological prowess was the equal and even superior to that of the Soviets.

Soviet unmanned hard landings (1958-1966)

In contrast to Soviet lunar exploration triumphs in 1959, success eluded initial American efforts to reach the Moon with the Pioneer and Ranger programs. Fifteen consecutive U.S. unmanned lunar missions over a six year period from 1958 to 1964 all failed their primary photographic missions; however Rangers 4 and 6 successfully repeated the Soviet lunar impacts as part of their secondary missions. Failures included three American attempts in 1962 to hard land small seismometer packages released by the main Ranger spacecraft. These surface packages were to use retrorockets to survive landing, unlike the parent vehicle, which was designed to deliberately crash onto the surface. The final three Ranger probes performed successful high altitude lunar reconnaissance photography missions during intentional crash impacts at around 6,000 miles per hour as planned. However, by 1966 the Soviet Union succeeded in performing the first unmanned Moon landing and returning photographs of the Moon from the lunar surface.

U.S. Mission	Mass (kg)	Launch Vehicle	Launched	Mission Goal	Mission Result
Pioneer 0	38	Thor-Able	17 Aug 1958	Lunar orbit	Failure - first stage explosion; destroyed
Pioneer 1	34	Thor-Able	11 Oct 1958	Lunar orbit	Failure - software error; reentry
Pioneer 2	39	Thor-Able	08 Nov 1958	Lunar orbit	Failure - third stage misfire; reentry
Pioneer 3	6	Juno	06 Dec 1958	Lunar flyby	Failure - first stage misfire, reentry
Pioneer 4	6	Juno	03 Mar 1959	Lunar flyby	Failure - targeting error; solar orbit
Pioneer P-1	168	Atlas-Able	24 Sep 1959	Lunar orbit	Failure - pad explosion; destroyed
Pioneer P-3	168	Atlas-Able	29 Nov 1959	Lunar orbit	Failure - payload shroud; destroyed
Pioneer P-30	175	Atlas-Able	25 Sep 1960	Lunar orbit	Failure - second stage anomaly; reentry
Pioneer P-31	175	Atlas-Able	15 Dec 1960	Lunar orbit	Failure - first stage explosion; destroyed
Ranger 1	0	Atlas - Agena	23 Aug 1961	Prototype test	Failure - upper stage anomaly; reentry
Ranger 2	0	Atlas - Agena	18 Nov 1961	Prototype test	Failure - upper stage anomaly; reentry
Ranger 3	0	Atlas - Agena	26 Jan 1962	Moon landing	Failure - booster guidance; solar orbit
Ranger 4	0	Atlas - Agena	23 Apr 1962	Moon landing	Failure - spacecraft computer; crash impact
Ranger 5	0	Atlas - Agena	18 Oct 1962	Moon landing	Failure - spacecraft power; solar orbit
Ranger 6	0	Atlas - Agena	30 Jan 1964	Lunar impact	Failure - spacecraft camera; crash impact
Ranger 7	0	Atlas - Agena	28 Jul 1964	Lunar impact	Success - returned 4308 photos, crash impact
Ranger 8	0	Atlas - Agena	17 Feb 1965	Lunar impact	Success - returned 7137 photos, crash impact
Ranger 9	0	Atlas - Agena	21 Mar 1965	Lunar impact	Success - returned 5814 photos, crash impact

Three different designs of Pioneer lunar probes were flown on three different modified ICBMs. Those flown on the Thor booster modified with an Able upper stage carried an infrared image scanning television system with a resolution of 1 milliradian to study the Moon's surface, an ionization chamber to measure radiation in space, a diaphragm/microphone assembly to detect micrometeorites, a magnetometer, and temperature-variable resistors to monitor spacecraft internal thermal conditions. The first, a mission managed by the United States Air Force, exploded during launch; all subsequent Pioneer lunar flights had NASA as the lead management organization. The next two returned to Earth and burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere after achieved maximum altitudes of around 70,000 and 900 miles, far short of the roughly 250,000 miles required to reach the vicinity of the Moon.

NASA then collaborated with the United States Army's Ballistic Missile Agency to fly two extremely small cone-shaped probes on the Juno ICBM, carrying only photocells which would be triggered by the light of the Moon and a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger-Müller tube detector. The first of these reached an altitude of only around 64,000 miles, serendipitously gathering data that established the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts before reentering Earth's atmosphere. The second passed by the moon at a distance of over 37,000 miles, twice as far away as planned and too far away to trigger either of the onboard scientific instruments, yet still becoming the first American spacecraft to reach a solar orbit.



The final Pioneer lunar probe design consisted of four "paddlewheel" solar panels extending from a one-meter diameter spherical spin-stabilized spacecraft body that was equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, study radiation, measure magnetic fields, detect low frequency electromagnetic waves in space and use a sophisticated integrated propulsion system for maneuvering and orbit insertion as well. None of the four spacecraft built in this series of probes survived launch on its Atlas ICBM outfitted with an Able upper stage.

Following the unsuccessful Atlas-Able Pioneer probes, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory embarked upon an unmanned spacecraft development program whose modular design could be used to support both lunar and interplanetary exploration missions. The interplanetary versions were known as Mariners; lunar versions were Rangers. JPL envisioned three versions of the Ranger lunar probes: Block I prototypes, which would carry various radiation detectors in test flights to a very high Earth orbit that came nowhere near the Moon; Block II, which would try to accomplish the first Moon landing by hard landing a seismometer package; and Block III, which would crash onto the lunar surface without any braking rockets while taking very high resolution wide-area photographs of the Moon during their descent.

The Ranger 1 and 2 Block I missions were virtually identical. Spacecraft experiments included a Lyman-alpha telescope, a rubidium-vapor magnetometer, electrostatic analyzers, medium-energy-range particle detectors, two triple coincidence telescopes, a cosmic-ray integrating ionization chamber, cosmic dust detectors, and scintillation counters. The goal was to place these Block I spacecraft in a very high Earth orbit with an apogee of 670,000 miles. From that vantage point, scientists could make direct measurements of the magnetosphere over a period of many months while engineers perfected new methods to routinely track and communicate with spacecraft over such large distances. Such practice was deemed vital to be assured of capturing high-bandwidth television transmissions from the Moon during a one-shot fifteen minute time window in subsequent Block II and Block III lunar descents. Both Block I missions suffered failures of the new Agena upper stage and never left low earth parking orbit after launch; both burned up upon reentry after only a few days.



The first attempts to perform a Moon landing took place in 1962 during the Rangers 3, 4 and 5 missions flown by the United States. All three Block II missions carried a 94 pound, two-foot diameter landing sphere (made of balsa wood) designed to withstand a 150 mile per hour impact. This lander (code-named Tonto) was designed to provide impact cushioning using an exterior blanket of crushable balsa wood and an interior filled with incompressible liquid freon. A 56 pound, one-foot diameter metal payload sphere floated and was free to rotate in a liquid freon reservoir contained in the landing sphere. This payload sphere contained six silver-cadmium batteries to power a fifty milliwatt radio transmitter, a temperature sensitive voltage controlled oscillator to measure lunar surface temperatures, and a seismometer that was designed with sensitivity high enough to detect the impact of a five pound meteorite on the opposite side of the Moon. Weight was distributed in the payload sphere so it would rotate in its liquid blanket to place the seismometer into an upright and operational position no matter what the final resting orientation of the external landing sphere. Ater landing plugs were to be opened allowing the freon to evaporate and the payload sphere to settle into upright contact with the landing sphere. Four pounds of water were also included to provide thermal control for the lander, absorbing heat and boiling off as low-pressure steam during the hot lunar daytime and retaining sufficient heat to allow the lander electronics to avoid freezing temperatures during the cold lunar nighttime. The batteries and water supply were sized to allow up to three months of operation for the payload sphere. Various mission constraints limited the landing site to Oceanus Procellarum on the lunar equator, which the lander ideally would reach 66 hours after launch.

No cameras were carried by the Ranger landers, and no pictures were to be captured from the lunar surface during the mission. Instead, the ten-foot-high, 730 pound Ranger Block II mother ship carried a 200 scan line television camera which was to capture images from 2,400 miles down to 37 miles during the free-fall descent to the lunar surface. The 13 pound camera was designed to transmit a picture every 10 seconds. Other instruments gathering data before the mother ship crashed onto the Moon at 6,500 miles per hour were a gamma ray spectrometer to measure overall lunar chemical composition and a radar altimeter. At eight seconds before impact and 13 miles above the lunar surface, the radar altimeter was to give a signal ejecting the landing capsule and its 236 pound solid-fueled braking rocket overboard from the Block II mother ship. The braking rocket was to slow the landing sphere to a dead stop at 1,100 feet above the surface and separate, allowing the landing sphere to free fall once more and hit the surface at a survivable speed of 100 miles per hour.

On Ranger 3, failure of the Atlas guidance system and a software error aboard the Agena upper stage combined to put the spacecraft on a course that would miss the Moon. Attempts to salvage lunar photography during a flyby of the Moon were thwarted by in-flight failure of the onboard flight computer. This was probably because of prior heat sterilization of the spacecraft by keeping it above the boiling point of water for 24 hours on the ground, to protect the Moon from being contaminated by Earth organisms. Heat sterilization was also blamed for subsequent in-flight failures of the spacecraft computer on Ranger 4 and the power subsystem on Ranger 5. Only Ranger 4 reached the Moon in an uncontrolled crash impact on the far side of the Moon.



Heat sterilization was discontinued for the final four Block III Ranger probes. These replaced the Block II landing capsule and its retrorocket with a heavier, more capable television system to support landing site selection for upcoming Apollo manned moon landing missions. Six cameras weighing a total of 350 pounds were designed to take thousands of high-altitude photographs in the final twenty minute period before crashing on the lunar surface. Camera resolution was 1,132 scan lines, far higher than the 525 lines found in a typical American 1964 home television. The final pictures taken were expected to have a resolution of around two feet. While Ranger 6 suffered a failure of this camera system and returned no photographs despite an otherwise successful flight, the subsequent Ranger 7 mission to Mare Cognitum was a complete success. Breaking the six year string of failure in American attempts to photograph the moon at close range, the Ranger 7 mission was viewed as a national turning point and instrumental in allowing the key 1965 NASA budget appropriation to pass through the United States Congress intact without a reduction in funds for the Apollo manned moon landing program. Subsequent successes with Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 further buoyed American hopes.

Luna 9, launched by the Soviet Union on February 3 1966, performed the first successful Moon landing using the "hard landing" technique. Airbags protected its 200 pound ejectable capsule which survived an impact speed of over 30 miles per hour—the speed of many automobile accidents causing fatalities on Earth. Luna 13 duplicated this feat with a similar moon landing on December 24, 1966. Both returned panoramic photographs that were the first views from the lunar surface.

American unmanned soft landings (1966-1968)

The American robotic Surveyor program was part of an effort to locate a safe site on the Moon for a human landing and test under actual lunar conditions the radar and landing systems required to make a true controlled touchdown. Five of Surveyor's seven missions made successful unmanned moon landings:

• Surveyor 1—June 2, 1966 at Oceanus Procellarum
• Surveyor 3—April 20, 1967 at Oceanus Procellarum
• Surveyor 5—September 11, 1967 at Mare Tranquillitatis
• Surveyor 6—November 10 1967 at Sinus Medii
• Surveyor 7—January 10, 1968 at Tycho crater

Precursor lunar orbit missions (1966-1969)

Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon on April 3 1966.



Apollo 8 carried out the first manned orbit of the Moon on December 24 1968, certifying the Saturn V booster for manned use. Apollo 10 then performed a full dress rehearsal of a manned moon landing in May 1969. This mission stopped short at ten miles altitude above the lunar surface, performing necessary low-altitude mapping of trajectory-altering mascons using a factory prototype lunar module that was too overweight to allow a successful landing. With the failure of the unmanned Soviet sample return moon landing attempt Luna 15 in July 1969, the stage was set for Apollo 11.

American manned Moon landings (1969-1972)

American strategy

The U.S. Moon exploration program originated during the Eisenhower administration. In a series of mid-1950s articles in Collier's magazine, Wernher von Braun had popularized the idea of a manned expedition to the Moon to establish a lunar base. A manned Moon landing posed several daunting technical challenges to the U.S. and USSR. Besides guidance and weight management, atmospheric re-entry without ablative overheating was a major hurdle. After the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, von Braun promoted a plan for the United States Army to establish a military lunar outpost by 1965.

After the early Soviet successes, especially Yuri Gagarin's flight, U.S. President John F. Kennedy looked for an American project that would capture the public imagination. He asked Vice President Lyndon Johnson to make recommendations on a scientific endeavor that would prove U.S. world leadership. The proposals included non-space options such as massive irrigation projects to benefit the Third World. The Soviets, at the time, had more powerful rockets than the United States, which gave them an advantage in some kinds of space missions. Advances in U.S. nuclear weapons technology had led to smaller, lighter warheads, and consequently, rockets with smaller payload capacities. By comparison, Soviet nuclear weapons were much heavier, and the powerful R-7 rocket was developed to carry them. More modest potential missions such as flying around the Moon without landing or establishing a space lab in orbit (both were proposed by Kennedy to von Braun) were determined to offer too much advantage to the Soviets, since the U.S. would have to develop a heavy rocket to match the Soviets. A Moon landing, however, would capture world imagination while functioning as propaganda.

Mindful that the Apollo Program would economically benefit most of the key states in the next election—particularly his home state of Texas because NASA's base was in Houston—Johnson championed the Apollo program. This superficially indicated action to alleviate the fictional "missile gap" between the U.S. and USSR, a campaign promise of Kennedy's in the 1960 election. The Apollo project allowed continued development of dual-use technology. Johnson also advised that for anything less than a lunar landing the USSR had a good chance of beating the U.S. For these reasons, Kennedy seized on Apollo as the ideal focus for American efforts in space. He ensured continuing funding, shielding space spending from the 1963 tax cut and diverting money from other NASA projects. This dismayed NASA's leader, James E. Webb, who urged support for other scientific work.

In conversation with Webb, Kennedy said:

Everything we do ought to really be tied in to getting on to the moon ahead of the Russians [...] otherwise we shouldn't be spending that kind of money, because I'm not interested in space [...] The only justification for [the cost] is because we hope to beat [the USSR] to demonstrate that instead of being behind by a couple of years, by God, we passed them.

Whatever he said in private, Kennedy needed a different message to gain public support to uphold what he was saying and his views. Later in 1963, Kennedy asked Vice President Johnson to investigate the possible technological and scientific benefits of a Moon mission. Johnson concluded that the benefits were limited, but, with the help of scientists at NASA, he put together a powerful case, citing possible medical breakthroughs and interesting pictures of Earth from space. For the program to succeed, its proponents would have to defeat criticism from politicians on the left, who wanted more money spent on social programs, and on those on the right, who favored a more military project. By emphasizing the scientific payoff and playing on fears of Soviet space dominance, Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58% of Americans favored Apollo, up from 33% two years earlier. After Johnson became President in 1963, his continuing defense of the program allowed it to succeed in 1969, as Kennedy had originally hoped.

Soviet strategy

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev did not relish "defeat" by any other power, but equally did not relish funding such an expensive project. In October 1963 he said that the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon", while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year would the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed.

At the same time, Kennedy had suggested various joint programs, including a possible Moon landing by Soviet and American astronauts and the development of better weather-monitoring satellites. Khrushchev, sensing an attempt by Kennedy to steal Russian space technology, rejected the idea: if the USSR went to the Moon, it would go alone. Korolyov, the RSA's chief designer, had started promoting his Soyuz craft and the N-1 launcher rocket that would have the capability of carrying out a manned Moon landing. Khrushchev directed Korolyov's design bureau to arrange further space firsts by modifying the existing Vostok technology, while a second team started building a completely new launcher and craft, the Proton booster and the Zond, for a manned cislunar flight in 1966. In 1964 the new Soviet leadership gave Korolyov the backing for a Moon landing effort and brought all manned projects under his direction. With Korolyov's death and the failure of the first Soyuz flight in 1967, the co-ordination of the Soviet moon landing program quickly unravelled. The Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for the mission that would have placed Aleksei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a manned landing suffered first delay and then cancellation.

Apollo 11 Mission

While unmanned Soviet probes did reach the moon before any U.S. craft, American Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the lunar surface, after landing on July 20 1969. Commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong received backup from command module pilot Michael Collins and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin in an event watched by over 500 million people around the world. Social commentators widely recognize the lunar landing as one of the defining moments of human history, and Armstrong's words on his first stepping onto the Moon's surface became similarly memorable. Despite Armstrong meaning:

But radio difficulties failed to transmit the "a", and his words as heard on Earth were:

[1].

While many people believe that the mission was specifically planned so that a civilian, Armstrong, would be the first to set foot on the Moon, this is not true. One of the original flight plans had the lunar module pilot (Buzz Aldrin) coming out first.

The astronauts set up an American flag,^[1] and Buzz Aldrin was photographed saluting it. They also unveiled an inscribed plaque and left it affixed to the lunar lander which remained on the Moon. The sentiment expressed set forth America's attitude about the landing and subsequent landings. Signed by Richard Nixon, President of the United States, the plaque reads: "Here men from the planet earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind" (the plaque is also signed by Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin).

List of manned Apollo Moon landings

Further information: List of Apollo astronauts

• Apollo 11 - July 16, 1969. First manned landing on the Moon, July 20.
• Apollo 12 - November 14, 1969. First precise manned landing on the Moon, within walking distance of Surveyor 3.
• Apollo 14 - January 31, 1971. Commanded by Alan Shepard, the only one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts to walk (and golf) on the Moon.
• Apollo 15 - July 26, 1971. First mission with the Lunar Rover vehicle.
• Apollo 16 - April 16, 1972. First landing in the lunar highlands.
• Apollo 17 - December 7, 1972. Final Apollo lunar mission, first night launch, only mission with a professional geologist.

In total twenty-four American astronauts have traveled to the Moon, with twelve walking on its surface and three making the trip twice. Apollo 8, Apollo 10 and Apollo 13 were lunar-orbit-only missions with no moon landings. Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 never left Earth orbit. Apart from the inherent dangers of manned moon expeditions as seen with Apollo 13, one reason for their cessation according to astronaut Alan Bean is the cost it imposes in government subsidies."[2]

Other aspects of the Apollo Moon landings

Unlike other international rivalries, the Space Race has remained unaffected in a direct way regarding the desire for territorial expansion. After the successful landings on the Moon, the U.S. explicitly disclaimed the right to ownership of any part of the Moon.

President Richard Nixon had speechwriter William Safire prepare a condolence speech for delivery in the event that Armstrong and Aldrin became marooned on the Moon's surface and could not be rescued.[3]

In the 1940s writer Arthur C Clarke forecast that man would reach the Moon by 2000, an idea experts dismissed as rubbish.

On August 16, 2006, the Associated Press reported that NASA is currently missing the original Slow-scan television tapes (which were made before the scan conversion for conventional TV) of the Apollo 11 Moon walk. Some news outlets have mistakenly reported that the SSTV tapes were found in Western Australia, but those tapes were only recordings of data from the Apollo 11 Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package.[4]

Soviet unmanned soft landings (1970-1976)

• Luna 16 - September 20, 1970 at Mare Fecunditatis, Latitude 0.68 S, Longitude 56.30 E - Lunar sample return to Earth.
• Luna 17 - November 17, 1970 at Mare Imbrium, Latitude 38.28 N, Longitude 325.00 E - Carried Lunokhod 1 lunar rover vehicle.
• Luna 20 - February 21, 1972 at Mare Fecunditatis, Latitude 3.57 N, Longitude 56.50 E - Lunar sample return to Earth.
• Luna 21 - January 15, 1973 at LeMonnier Crater, latitude 25.85 N, longitude 30.45 E - Carried Lunokhod 2 lunar rover vehicle.
• Luna 24 - August 18, 1976 at Mare Crisium, Latitude 12.25 N, Longitude 62.20 E - Lunar sample return to Earth, final Moon landing.

Future plans

The current U.S. Vision for Space Exploration calls for a human landing on the Moon no later than 2019.

Russia plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanent manned base there in 2027-2032.[5]

Other nations, including China, have expressed interest in pursuing human landings on the Moon, but none have currently announced formal plans.

The Google Lunar X Prize competition offers a $20 million award for the first privately-funded team to land a robotic probe on the Moon. Like the Ansari X Prize before it, the competition aims to advance the state of the art in private space exploration.

Moon landing hoax accusations

Main article: Apollo Moon Landing hoax accusations

Many conspiracy theorists insist that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax. These accusations flourish in part because predictions by enthusiasts that Moon landings would become commonplace have not yet come to pass. Some claims can be empirically discredited by three retroreflector arrays left on the Moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15. Today, anyone on Earth with an appropriate laser and telescope system may bounce laser beams off of these devices, verifying deployment of the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment at historically documented Apollo moon landing sites.

In addition, close scrutiny of film footage of the EVA's shows clearly something that could not be replicated in an Earth sound-stage. Lunar dust kicked up by the astronauts and the Lunar Rovers shoots up quite high because of the low gravity, but settles just as rapidly as there is no air resistance. Watching this film footage, and comparing it to footage from the Tom Hanks miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon—which does show dust clouds resulting from the actors' spacesuits kicking up dust—shows this difference clearly.

See also

• Apollo program missing tapes
• Space Race
• Project Apollo
• Ranger program
• Surveyor program
• Luna programme
• Lunokhod program
• Soviet Moonshot
• What Happened on the Moon
• Apollo missions tracked by independent parties
• Independent evidence for Apollo Moon landings
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon
• List of Apollo astronauts
• Moon Trip Accidents

Notes

External links

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• Impact of Sputnik I
• Reconsidering Sputnik
• Juno II: Space Probes
• Pioneer III and IV Space Probes
• The Moon Probe Pioneer IV
• Luna 9 Soft Landing on the Moon: Soviet Press Communiques
• Luna 9: Highlights of the Press Conference at the Moscow House of Scientists
• Analysis of Luna 9 Photography
• Luna 13 Is On The Moon
• Zond 3: Major Victory For Soviet Science
• Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger
• Destination Moon: A History of the Lunar Orbiter Program
• Surveyor Program Results: Final Report
• This New Ocean : A History of Project Mercury
• On The Shoulders Of Titans : A History of Project Gemini
• Apollo Program Summary Report
• Apollo 1 Fire - Report of the Apollo 204 Review Board
• Apollo 7 Press Kit
• Apollo 7 Mission Report
• Apollo 8 Press Kit
• Apollo 8 Mission Report
• Apollo 9 Press Kit
• Apollo 9 Mission Report
• Apollo 10 Press Kit
• Apollo 10 Mission Report
• Apollo 11 Press Kit - Part 1
• Apollo 11 Press Kit - Part 2
• Apollo 11 Mission Report
• Apollo 12 Press Kit
• Apollo 12 Mission Report
• Apollo 13 Press Kit
• Apollo 13 Mission Report
• Apollo 14 Press Kit
• Apollo 14 Mission Report
• Apollo 15 Press Kit
• Apollo 15 Mission Report
• Apollo 16 Press Kit
• Apollo 16 Mission Report
• Apollo 17 Press Kit
• Apollo 17 Mission Report
• Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
• Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of Apollo Lunar Exploration Missions
• Apollo By The Numbers : A Statistical Reference
• Apollo Expeditions to the Moon
• Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft
• Stages to Saturn : A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles
• Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations
• "Before This Decade is Out...."
• Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis
• Various pdf scans of NASA manned launch press kits
• Various pdf scans of historical Apollo spaceflight mission documents
• Various pdf scans of historical unmanned spacecraft mission documents
• NASA transcript of the first words on the Moon.
• John F. Kennedy Speech, May 25, 1961 - John F. Kennedy Establishing the goal of sending a man to the moon. U.S. Capitol. Washington, DC.
• The Claypole Mission - A humorous short story revolving around the first manned moon landing.
• Moon Trip Accidents