Twelve astronauts have walked on the moon. Of the 17 Apollo missions launched by NASA, six were successful moon landings. On 20 July, 1969, Apollo 11 became the first of the missions to make a successful landing, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to walk on the moon.
More Moon Mission Facts:
- Of the 12 people who have walked on the moon, all were American men.
- Eleven of the 12 people who walked on the moon were born in the 1930s; one was born in the 1920s.
- When Apollo 14 landed on 5 February, 1971, Alan Shepard became famous for hitting golf balls on the moon. This was also the first mission broadcast in color for television.
- Apollo 11 was not only the first mission in which astronauts walked on the moon, but also the first time samples were harvested and analyzed from another planetary body. The samples were dated at 3.7 billion years old.
- The first manned Apollo mission failed before it took off. A fire during the preflight tests killed US astronauts Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee.
- Apollo 17 was the last of the missions to land on the moon and Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were the last humans to walk on the moon. Estimates of the total cost of the Apollo project vary, generally ranging, in 2010 dollars, from about $130 to about $190 billion US Dollars.