To date, only 12 people have had the privilege of walking on the moon.
For an exclusive club, walking on a planet other than Earth is pretty amazing.
Many people have ventured into space, but only a handful have set foot on what is essentially an alien world, even on a relatively small scale: Earth's only natural satellite is about 230,000 miles (370,000 km) away, a short distance in galactic terms.
Related: NASA's Artemis moon landing and astronaut plans
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy committed America to sending astronauts to the moon. Famous Speeches“We decided to go to the moon and do other things in this decade not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
The backdrop to this breakthrough was the Cold War “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets were the country that put the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Whoever reached the moon first would have huge bragging rights.
Then in 1969, the groundbreaking first moonwalk took place. Neil Armstrong He was the first to leave his mark and utter the words, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin soon followed, and the pair became the first of 12 people to walk on the Moon in what was to become the Apollo program.
In all, 24 people (all American) completed the journey, with the remaining 12 remaining aboard various spacecraft.
of List of astronauts People who walked on the moon during the Apollo era:
- Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11)
- Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11)
- Charles “Pete” Conrad (Apollo 12)
- Alan Bean (Apollo 12)
- Alan Shepard (Apollo 14)
- Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14)
- David Scott (Apollo 15)
- James Irwin (Apollo 15)
- John Young (Apollo 16)
- Charles Duke (Apollo 16)
- Eugene Cernan (Apollo 17)
- Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17)
What would it be like to walk on the moon?
One of the most remarkable things about walking on the moon is the low gravity: the moon's gravity is about one-sixth that of Earth, so you'd weigh 16% of what you would on Earth and be able to jump about six times higher.
On the moon's surface, the atmosphere is so thin that you will feel much lighter and notice vibrant colors. Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon, likened the experience to “walking on a trampoline without the bounciness or instability.”
He described the surface of the moon as “grand desolation,” covered in a dusting of snow and a pitch black sky. The Earth appeared so small that it could be hidden by holding your thumb over it.
“My most vivid memory of the Moon is its beauty — the stark contrast between the light gray of the Moon and the blackness of space. The gray was so light it was almost white. There was a stark gap between the surface and the horizon. The sun was always shining, and no stars or planets were visible,” Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke told Forbes magazine.
While setting foot on the moon's surface would be symbolic, walking would not be very practical given the vast amount of ground to cover and the limited time.
Thus, the invention of the Lunar Rover Vehicle (LRV) was truly revolutionary for manned missions.
First used on Apollo 15 in 1971, the electric car was lightweight and designed to operate in the low-gravity vacuum of the Moon, and could be folded up during flight and unfolded once the crew landed.
The rover could travel at about 10 miles per hour (16 kilometers per hour) and had a range of about 55 miles (89 kilometers).
Future lunar missions
It's been a long time since humans last visited the moon, but NASA's Artemis program aims to change that by returning humans to the lunar surface and landing the first woman and the first person of color on it.
The program will work with private and international partners to build a permanent lunar base that can serve as a launch pad for future Mars exploration missions. NASA originally aimed to return to the Moon by 2024, but that target date has been pushed back to September 2026 for the Artemis 3 mission.
Additional resources
For more information on the moon landing, see Apollo Legacy: A View from the Moon Landings by Roger D. Launius and Earthrise: How Humans Saw Earth for the First Time by Robert Poole.
Literature
- NASA, “Who Walked on the Moon?”, July 2020.
- Sarah Roff, “Apollo 11 Mission Overview,” NASA, January 2022.
- National Air and Space Museum, “Apollo 11”, accessed September 2022.
- European Space Agency, “Moon Exploration – ESA Missions,” accessed September 2022.
- NASA, “Artemis,” accessed September 2022.
- NASA, “Apollo Missions,” accessed September 2022.
