Moon landing the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. After the unsuccessful attempt by the Luna 1 to land on the Moon in 1959, the Soviet Union performed the first hard (unpowered) Moon landing later that same year with the Luna 2 spacecraft, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with Ranger 4. Since then, twelve Soviet and U.S. spacecraft have used braking rockets to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface, between 1966 and 1976. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first
Harry Craft Eventually, Craft progressed to the Triple-A level with the Kansas City Blues of the American Association in 1953–1954. "I was lucky to have Harry as skipper my first two years", Mantle said years later. "He started me out right." Craft would also manage Roger Maris at the Major League level in 1958–1959 with the Kansas City Athletics, just before the young right fielder was traded to the Yankees. Maris credited Craft with helping him with his hitting. Craft went from the minor league Blues to the Major League Athletics in 1955, their first year in Kansas City after transferring from