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
We choose to go to the Moon urgency and destiny, and emphasized the freedom enjoyed by Americans to choose their destiny rather than have it chosen for them. Although he called for competition with the Soviet Union, he also proposed making the Moon landing a joint project. The speech resonated widely and is still remembered, although at the time there was disquiet about the cost and value of the Moon-landing effort. Kennedy's goal was posthumously realized in July 1969, with the successful Apollo 11 mission. When John F. Kennedy became President of the United States in January 1961, many Americans perceived that the United States was losing