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
Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World second. Next comes Viktor Korchnoi, who played in the candidate's final match. Next came four players (Lev Polugaevsky, Geller, Vasily Smyslov, and Taimanov) who earned the right to play in the next Interzonal because of their place in the USSR Championship. The last three places were given to players of special merit - Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, and Keres. The first reserve was Leonid Stein, who placed sixth in the USSR Championship, just behind those going to the Interzonal. The second reserve was David Bronstein, who once played in a world championship match . On paper, the match looked daunting for