I'm sure many of you remember that glorious day when man first stepped on the moon. The date was July 16, 1969, the mission: Apollo 11. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins left the Earth that day, and five days later made history by putting the mark of a human being on another astronomical body. This is the day most people think of when someone mentions the moon landing, but we've actually sent man to the moon a total of 7 times. Missions Apollo 11 through Apollo 17 all rocketed towards the moon, and all but Apollo 13 landed successfully on the moon. During each mission astronauts set foot on the moon, and the Apollo 15 mission was the first to drive a vehicle on the moon, called the lunar rover (pictured above). After Apollo 17, manned missions to the moon were canceled due to lack of funding. NASA needed to make some budget cuts, and decided to put money towards Skylab instead. Man has not set foot on the moon since. Many orbiters and robotic landers have studied the moon since then, and the next mission, a set of orbiters called GRAIL, is set to launch from Cape Canaveral on September 8th, 2011.
The movie Apollo 18 comes out this Friday and it looks like it's going to be a great sci-fi thriller! It's based on the idea that NASA actually did send astronauts to the moon again as an Apollo 18 mission, but never told the world because of what they found…. aliens on the moon! Of course these creatures are hostile and live on the dark side of the moon, what sci-fi movie would be complete without killer aliens? I'm surprised it took 40 years to come out with a film like this, and I hope it's a good one!
Image Credit: NASA
