Moon by the Soviet Union's Luna 2, an unmanned spacecraft. The United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned lunar missions to date, beginning with the first manned orbital mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11. These missions returned lunar rocks which have been used to develop a geological understanding of the Moon's origin, internal structure, and the Moon's later history. Since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by unmanned spacecraft. Both the Moon's natural prominence in the earthly sky and
In the Shadow of the Moon (film) featured in "In the Shadow of the Moon" orbited or looped around the Moon without landing (Jim Lovell and Michael Collins). All manned Apollo flights with the exception of Apollo 7, which was an earth-orbit mission, were represented in the film. The film is presented by Ron Howard, but there is no narration in the film. Critics gave the film very positive reviews. Metacritic reported "In the Shadow of the Moon" had an average score of 84 out of 100, based on 34 reviews, classifying the film's reception as "Universal Acclaim." Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 94% rating based