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
Fly Me to the Moon a “slow and solemn version” in 2012 at the national memorial service for Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong. Fly Me to the Moon Fly Me to the Moon, originally titled In Other Words, is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. Kaye Ballard made the first recording of the song the year it was written. Since then, it has become a frequently recorded jazz standard, often featured in popular culture. Frank Sinatra's 1964 version was closely associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon. In 1999, the US-based Songwriters Hall of Fame honored "Fly Me to the Moon"