(H/T – Allahpundit)
Agence France-Presse claims in a story about the Soviet Unio…er, Russia’s plans to have a manned Moon mission by 2025 that “(t)he only moon landing in history is NASA’s Apollo expedition in 1968.”
Really? Let’s review a short history of successful lunar landings (except for the first 2 items, crash-landings are not included), culled from NASA’s Lunar Exploration Timeline and John Walker’s Lunar Landing Sites page:
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 2 – impacted the Moon September 13, 1959 (first object to touch the Moon)
- America’s Ranger 4 – impacted the Moon April 26, 1962 (first American object to touch the moon)
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 – landed on the Moon February 3, 1966 (first object to survive a landing through the use of airbags to absorb the impact of a 30+mph landing)
- America’s Surveyor 1 – landed on the Moon June 2, 1966 (first object to land on the Moon at a safe-for-humans speed; 16.5 ft/sec)
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 13 – landed on the Moon December 24, 1966
- America’s Surveyor 3 – landed on the Moon April 20, 1967
- America’s Surveyor 5 – landed on the Moon September 11, 1967
- America’s Surveyor 6 – landed on the Moon November 10, 1967
- America’s Surveyor 7 – landed on the Moon January 10, 1968 (of note, the only lunar landing in 1968)
- America’s Apollo 11 – landed on the Moon July 20, 1969 (first manned landing and first mission to lift off from the Moon’s surface)
- America’s Apollo 12 – landed on the Moon November 19, 1969
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 16 – landed on the Moon September 20, 1970 (first unmanned mission to lift off from the Moon’s surface)
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 17 – landed on the Moon November 17, 1970 (first rover – unmanned)
- America’s Apollo 14 – landed on the Moon February 5, 1971
- America’s Apollo 15 – landed on the Moon July 30, 1971 (first manned rover)
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 20 – landed on the Moon February 21, 1972 (unmanned)
- America’s Apollo 16 – landed on the Moon April 20, 1972
- America’s Apollo 17 – landed on the Moon December 11, 1972 (last manned mission)
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 21 – landed on the Moon January 15, 1973
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 23 – landed on the Moon November 6, 1974 (note: a drill on the lander was damaged during landing, rendering its primary mission of returning soil to Earth undoable)
- The Soviet Union’s Luna 24 – landed on the Moon August 18, 1976 (last mission that included a planned “survivable” landing)
There have been several missions in the last decade and a half where a spacecraft has been intentionally crashed into the Moon as the last act of the mission. Also, there were far more than 24 Soviet Luna missions; most of the spectacular failures were never acknowledged by the Soviets.
