Last men on the moon

In July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin achieved US President John F. Kennedy’s goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. The Apollo programme had succeeded, and the US won the space race against the USSR.

Originally there were plans to fly further missions to the moon, up to Apollo 20, but there were problems along the way. There was a fire during a rehearsal of Apollo 1 and three astronauts died on the launchpad.

Apollo 13 had an explosion on the way to the moon and, even though all three astronauts survived, it was close to disaster. NASA was concerned about the risk of losing an astronaut in space and the national budget had begun to dry up, not least because of expenditure on the Vietnam war. The public was also beginning to lose interest in moon landings which were not very different from each other.

Astronaut Harrison Schmitt exploring a rock with the lunar rover in the foreground.

Around the time of the first landing, NASA decided to use a Saturn V rocket to launch a space station which would be called Skylab. This meant that Apollo 20 was cancelled. By 1971, the decision was made to cancel Apollos 18 and 19. President...