By 1967 it was clear that the United States had moved ahead in the space race with its Apollo program of manned lunar missions. Apollo used information gathered from the earlier Mercury and Gemini missions to fly successfully to the Moon.
Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing, was launched July 16, 1969 on the Saturn V rocket and astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon. Although Armstrong spoke of advances for humanity "That's one small step for [a] man ... one giant leap for mankind."the planting of the American flag seemed to speak otherwise. It declared the Americans winners. (Few people remember that on the same day Apollo 11 landed, a Russian probe called Luna 15 was also surveying the Moon for a landing site. Luna 15 touched down and returned to Earth with samples of the Moons soil. The mission was an ambitious and desperate effort to salvage some glory for the Soviet Union in the waning hours of the Moon race.)
Armstrong and crew spent two hours and thirteen minutes on the Moon's surface setting up a seismometer and using aluminum foil to trap solar wind particles. Detailed scientific explorations, however, would begin with the next lunar mission, Apollo 12.
The final Apollo lunar mission was Apollo 17, which lasted from December 7 to December 19, 1972. (Apollo 18 flew a nonlunar mission to link up with the Soviet ship Soyuz 19 in 1975). Apollo 17 marked the longest extravehicular activity on the Moon, the longest distance traveled in a lunar rover, and the greatest number of lunar samples collected and returned to Earth. Apollo 17 also marked the end of an era.
