Ever since NASA was born over half a century ago, it has rolled out a parade of missions that have reshaped how we see the cosmos. From tiny satellites that captured the baby picture of the universe to daring lunar landings that made history, these are the most important missions that have pushed the limits of technology and curiosity.

Why These Most Important Missions Matter

10 WMAP Satellite

Did you know humanity has a baby picture of the early universe? The first few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang were a hot, opaque mess—photons couldn’t travel far, and we could only glimpse a few light‑years in any direction. About 380,000 years later, the cosmos cooled enough for the first light to break free, bathing the universe in what we now call the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.

Scientists longed for a high‑definition map of those hot and cold spots to test their theories, but the data simply didn’t exist—until NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) lifted off. Launched on June 30, 2001, at 3:46 PM EDT aboard a Delta II‑7425‑10, WMAP delivered the first crisp images of the CMB in April 2002 and released high‑resolution maps in February 2003. The results confirmed that the universe was astonishingly uniform in temperature 14 billion years ago, matching predictions and cementing WMAP’s papers among the most cited in space science history.

9 Viking I And II

Before 1976, the United States had never successfully landed a probe on another planet. Parachutes often failed, and the pricey machines sent to the “Red Planet” tended to smash into the surface at thousands of miles per hour. Yet the Viking twins pulled off the impossible: they were launched within a month of each other on Titan IIIE/Centaur rockets, each consisting of an orbiter‑lander pair.

One half stayed in Mars orbit while the other bravely touched down. Back then, scientists thought Mars was too hostile for life, but the Viking missions proved otherwise by sending back the first clear images and experimental data. Their findings confirmed that there was no evidence of little green men or microbial life—still a cornerstone of planetary science.

8 Friendship 7

By early 1962, the United States had barely 30 minutes of space experience, and the race to the Moon was heating up. The nation had never put a man into orbit—a crucial stepping stone for lunar ambitions. That changed with Friendship 7, the third Mercury mission.

Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn, a seasoned test pilot, rode the new Atlas rocket into orbit on February 20, 1962. He orbited Earth for almost five hours before safely splashing down about 1,300 km (800 mi) south of Bermuda. The mission validated the new rocket, proved that a human could function in space, and set the stage for the Moon‑bound Apollo program.

7 Gemini IV

The Mercury missions taught us the basics of orbit; Gemini added the techniques needed for a lunar venture. A key milestone was the first American spacewalk—an essential rehearsal before stepping onto the Moon’s surface.

Edward H. White II, a USAF test pilot, became the first American to float outside a spacecraft. Launching on June 3, 1965, aboard a Titan II, White spent 36 minutes outside the capsule, while his crewmate James McDivitt kept the ship steady. The four‑day mission also evaluated long‑term spaceflight effects. Though the capsule landed about 80 km (50 mi) off target—thanks to a miscalculation that ignored Earth’s rotation—the EVA was a resounding success.

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After Apollo, NASA set its sights on a reusable spacecraft that could take off like a rocket and land like a glider. The answer: the Space Shuttle. Columbia, the first shuttle, lifted off on April 12, 1981, piloted by John Young and Robert L. Crippen.

The massive rocket reached an orbit of 166 nautical miles, and the two‑day, six‑hour mission put the shuttle’s systems through their paces. Columbia glided down to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base. Back then the shuttle and its external tank were painted white—later the iconic black, white, and orange scheme arrived, with orange coming from the tank’s insulating foam that shaved off roughly 270 kg (600 lb) of weight.

5 The ISS Missions

The International Space Station (ISS) stands as a towering symbol of global cooperation. The Russian modules arrived in the late 1990s, and construction stretched over a decade, with NASA’s shuttles ferrying astronauts and hardware into orbit.

The first crews began arriving in the early 2000s, and NASA contributed crucial research, development, and construction techniques both in space and on Earth. Today the ISS orbits at over 350 km (220 mi) altitude, racing around Earth at more than 8 km s⁻¹ (5 mi s⁻¹). As of this writing, two Americans and one Russian call the station home.

4 Voyager I And II

Launched in late summer 1977 aboard Titan‑Centaur rockets, the twin Voyager probes set out to meet the four giant planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Over a decade they delivered breathtaking images and data from each world.

Now, Voyager I drifts through interstellar space, while Voyager II lingers in the heliosheath, the outer bubble of the solar wind. At over 20 billion km (12 billion mi) from Earth, Voyager I is the most distant human‑made object ever. Both carry a golden phonograph record—a message from Earth to any curious extraterrestrials that might intercept them. Even after four decades, the probes keep sending data back, though the signal will eventually fade as they wander farther from home.

3 Curiosity

Launched on an Atlas V in late 2011, the Curiosity rover carries some of the most sophisticated—and pricey—scientific instruments ever built for a planetary mission.

In August 2012, Curiosity performed a spectacular landing on Mars. After a parachute slowed its descent, the parachute was jettisoned, and rockets fired to cushion the final touchdown—an innovative “sky crane” maneuver. The rover’s mission builds on Viking’s legacy, seeking evidence of ancient microbial life. While definitive proof remains elusive, Curiosity has uncovered tantalizing hints that Mars once harbored conditions suitable for life.

2 Apollo 8

President Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the Moon before the decade’s end was ticking down. With just over a year left, NASA surged ahead, and Apollo 8 became the first crewed spacecraft to leave Earth orbit and head for the Moon.

Launched on December 21, 1968, aboard the mighty Saturn V, the crew entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. They hosted a live holiday broadcast, showing Earth rising over the Moon to viewers worldwide. After ten lunar orbits, Apollo 8 set a course home, splashing down in the Pacific on December 27.

1 Apollo 11

Arguably humanity’s greatest technological triumph, Apollo 11’s 1969 Moon landing captured the world’s imagination. Launched on July 16, 1969, the crew—Mike Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong—embarked on a flawless journey witnessed by hundreds of millions on live TV.

The spacecraft split into two parts: Columbia, the command module that stayed in lunar orbit, and Eagle, the lunar module that descended to the surface on July 20. Armstrong’s careful navigation landed Eagle about 6.4 km (4 mi) from the planned site, with just seconds of fuel left. He famously announced, “The Eagle has landed.”

Over the next 20 hours, the astronauts collected rocks, performed experiments, chatted with the President, and planted an American flag. The crew returned safely to Earth, paving the way for five more lunar missions.

Ready for a solar adventure? Here are 10 stellar facts about NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, the bold spacecraft that’s set to literally touch the Sun. From a half‑century of planning to breaking speed records, this mission packs more excitement than a fireworks show on a solar flare.

10. Stellar Facts About NASA’s Sun Mission

10. Goal To ‘Touch The Sun’

The Parker Solar Probe is on a quest no other human‑made object has ever attempted: it will plunge into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, and collect data right where the action is. NASA’s official tagline captures the drama: “This summer, humanity embarks on its first mission to touch the Sun.”

Beyond the headline‑grabbing goal, the probe is designed to unravel the Sun’s secrets and show how solar activity shapes Earth’s magnetic environment—knowledge that’s becoming ever more crucial as our technology gets increasingly vulnerable to solar storms.

This historic plunge will answer long‑standing questions while inevitably sparking fresh mysteries for the next generation of solar scientists.

9. 50-Year Effort

The August 2018 launch capped more than five decades of theory, debate, and engineering. Scientists first sensed the corona’s million‑degree heat in the 1940s and confirmed the existence of the solar wind in the 1960s, yet the mechanisms behind these phenomena remained elusive.

It wasn’t until 1958 that someone proposed actually measuring the corona up close. Over the ensuing years, several spacecraft flirted with the Sun, but none ventured close enough to satisfy Parker’s vision. Budget cuts and shifting priorities shelved many earlier concepts, pushing the ultimate effort back repeatedly.

Now, after half a century of groundwork, the Parker Solar Probe finally brings those early ideas to fruition.

8. First Spacecraft Named After A Living Person

NASA has traditionally christened probes after planets, mythic deities, or even fictional characters, but never after a living individual—until now.

Eugene Parker, born in 1927, is a towering figure in astrophysics, boasting honors such as the National Medal of Science, the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal, and the Kyoto Prize. His pioneering work on solar wind and the coronal heating problem reshaped our understanding of how stars behave.

In a rare move, NASA named the mission after Parker before launch, making the Parker Solar Probe the first spacecraft to bear the name of a living person as it heads beyond Earth’s orbit.

7. Solar Wind

Solar wind is the mission’s beating heart. Originating in the Sun’s corona, this stream of charged particles can zip through space at speeds up to 1.6 million km/h (about 1 million mph).

Because the corona’s extreme heat weakens the Sun’s grip on its own particles, the wind escapes into the solar system, eventually reaching Earth where it can wreak havoc on satellites and power grids.

By sampling the wind right at its source, scientists hope to decode how the corona heats up and why the solar wind accelerates, turning a cosmic mystery into a tangible set of data.

6. The Sun Is Really Hard To Get To

Getting to the Sun is no walk in the park—its energy demands are roughly 55 times greater than a typical Mars transfer. Though the Sun sits 150 million km (93 million mi) away, the true challenge isn’t distance but the need to cancel out Earth’s sideways orbital motion.

Our planet rockets around the Sun at about 108,000 km/h (67,000 mph). A spacecraft launched directly toward the Sun would inherit this sideways velocity and miss the target entirely. The solution? Launch the probe “backward” at a speed that cancels Earth’s forward motion.

Even after solving the navigation puzzle, the probe still has to survive the blistering environment of the outer corona, a feat made possible by its cutting‑edge heat shield.

5. Gravity Assists From Venus

To shed its sideways speed gradually, the Parker Solar Probe takes advantage of Venus’s gravitational pull. Each close flyby of the planet acts like a cosmic brake, pulling the spacecraft into a tighter orbit around the Sun.

Over the mission’s seven‑year span, the probe will perform seven such Venus fly‑bys, each one shaving away enough orbital momentum to let it dive ever closer to the star.

This intricate dance dictates a narrow launch window—a two‑hour daily slot that repeats for about two weeks each summer when Earth and Venus line up just right.

4. Fastest Man‑Made Object In History

Thanks to the Venus assists, the Parker Solar Probe will eventually blaze through space at a jaw‑dropping 692,000 km/h (430,000 mph)—the fastest speed ever achieved by a human‑made object.

For perspective, NASA’s Juno spacecraft tops out at 266,000 km/h (165,000 mph), while Voyager 1 cruises at about 61,000 km/h (38,000 mph). Parker’s velocity is more than twice Juno’s and eleven times Voyager 1’s.

On Earth, that means the probe could zip from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in just one second.

3. Heat Shield

The probe’s heat shield is a marvel of engineering. Measuring 2.4 m (8 ft) across, it sits at the front of the spacecraft, deflecting the Sun’s ferocious heat away from delicate instruments.

It consists of a 11.4 cm‑thick (4.5 in) block of carbon foam sandwiched between carbon‑carbon composite panels, together weighing just 73 kg (160 lb). While the corona’s temperature reaches 1.1–1.7 million °C (2–3 million °F), the shield’s design lets the probe survive by exploiting the sparse distribution of plasma particles.

Lead engineer Betsy Congdon likens it to briefly touching a blazing oven: “Those are very hot, but we’re not touching a lot of them.” The shield enables the probe to survive the Sun’s outer layers without melting.

2. Most Autonomous Spacecraft Ever

Because the Sun‑Earth communication lag is about eight minutes, the probe must act on its own in mere seconds when conditions change. Highly automated software lets it make rapid, real‑time adjustments without waiting for ground control.

The onboard computer is pre‑loaded with every plausible scenario scientists could imagine, allowing the heat shield to rotate, the spacecraft’s orientation to shift, and other critical maneuvers to happen autonomously.

Project scientist Nicola Fox of Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory calls the Parker Solar Probe “the most autonomous spacecraft that has ever flown.”

1. Unique Cargo

While the probe can’t carry heavy payloads, it does transport a very human cargo: the names of more than 1.1 million people who signed up for a virtual seat aboard the mission.

In March 2018, NASA invited the public to submit their names for a memory card on the spacecraft. Iconic actor William Shatner, famed for his role as Captain Kirk, helped promote the campaign, leading to a flood of submissions.“It’s fitting that as the mission undertakes one of the most extreme journeys of exploration ever tackled by a human‑made object, the spacecraft will also carry along the names of so many people who are cheering it on its way,” said project scientist Nicola Fox.

Kurt Manwaring is a syndicated freelance writer at fromthedesk.org.

Since 1958, NASA has operated as one of the world’s leading space agencies. For over 60 years, it’s made incredible achievements in space exploration and innovation in the quest to understand the cosmos.

On July 29, 1958, NASA opened its doors under the Eisenhower administration. The agency was a direct response to aggressive progress made by the Soviet Union in the late ’50s. The USSR launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. With Sputnik’s launch, the Soviet Union was the only country to have an operational satellite in space. This achievement was lauded in the USSR, but leaders in the US felt blindsided by this Soviet-led advancement, giving rise to national security concerns.

In the years following NASA’s founding, the space agency made incredible advancements in science and technology thanks to its efforts to explore the universe. The agency would experience its most formative years during the ’60s during the presidencies of JFK, LBJ, and Nixon. Long after these influential leaders’ time in office, the agency has continued making incredible discoveries and advancements in space exploration.

10. Explorer 1 Satellite

Kicking off NASA’s impressive track record of reaching the stars is the Explorer 1 satellite. When the agency formed in 1958, there was a need for speed to showcase America’s potential in space, hoping to give the Soviets a run for their money. At a moment where the USSR had successfully shown their early dominance in space, Eisenhower wanted to send a powerful message that America wouldn’t sit back and allow their rival superpower the opportunity to be the gatekeepers to space. 

The Explorer 1 predates NASA’s very existence and acted as the means to kick of the US Space Age and make their mark on the global Space Race. Thankfully, the mission was a success, launching on January 31, 1958.

Explorer 1 wasn’t just designed to show the Soviets that America could also launch satellites; it had a scientific purpose to it, and that was to orbit the Earth while studying cosmic rays. Explorer 1 orbited the Earth 12 and a half times a day, and its efforts helped provide a new key understanding of Earth’s atmosphere. This monumental achievement launched the agency and made a pathway for a series of Explorer satellites to be launched throughout 1958. While the federal government was more concerned with showing the Soviet Union its might, scientists knew this would change their understanding of the universe with every satellite, mission, telescope, and more launched into space; they simply weren’t aware how much they’d achieve in the coming decade.

9. Skylab

The early ’70s saw NASA riding the high of its achievements of the late ’60s. The agency was making progress on countless fronts and showing the world just how seriously the US commitment to space exploration and understanding should be taken. Regardless of NASA’s achievements, the Soviets weren’t letting up and were still making tremendous efforts to one-up their rival superpower in a race to dominate space. However, space overall was with filled with unknowns. With burning questions still left unanswered, and multiplying by the day, the Soviet Union launched Salyut 1 on April 19, 1971 becoming the first space station in low Earth orbit. The US wouldn’t leave this unanswered, and thus Skylab was born.

Skylab was the US first space station and was launched May 14, 1973. The mission was to investigate the effects space had on the human body and how it adapted to an intensely foreign environment. Skylab also attempted to observe and study the sun in excruciating detail, and observations of Earth’s resources. Three successive crews visited Skylab during its operation between 1973 and 1974. 

By 1979, the Skylab had deteriorated much quicker than anyone expected and on July 11 it reentered the atmosphere, burning up on reentry. It broke into pieces and scattered in populated areas in Western Australia, while bulkier pieces went into the southeastern Indian Ocean. Thankfully, nobody was injured. 

8. Voyager

The Voyager missions were NASA’s attempts at sending satellites far beyond where anything from Earth had gone before. Launched in August and September 1977, the twin spacecrafts are on a 40-year journey across space to provide insight into what lies in the furthest regions of our galaxy.

In August 2012, Voyager 1 made history as it entered interstellar space. In November 2018, Voyager 2 exited the heliosphere and joined Voyager 1 in interstellar space. This wasn’t the original intention of the Voyager’s mission. After successfully completing its initial mission of exploring Jupiter and Saturn and making historic discoveries of the two gas planets, NASA extended the Voyager missions to explore Uranus and Neptune, and now the interstellar region.

The Voyager 1 satellite also carries a message for alien life, in the event it encounters life beyond our solar system. The message comes as a gold-plated record filled with a message to intelligent life forms. It contains a greeting in over 55 languages, pictures of Earth, pictures of people, knowledge, music, and Earth sounds.

7. Freedom 7

Freedom 7, also known as Mercury-Redstone 3, is historic for two reasons. For starters, it carried the first American successfully launched into space following the success of the Soviets launching the first ever human into space, Yuri Gagarin. Second, it acted as a catalyst for John F. Kennedy to announce the United States’ intentions to land on the moon. 

On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard Jr., a US Navy Commander, was launched in a Mercury Space Capsule – which would be formally known as the Freedom 7 – from Cape Canaveral. Shepard remained in space for 15 and a half minutes, making him the first American in space.

Three weeks after Freedom 7 safely returned to Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean, JFK announced the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

In one of the most historic speeches in presidential history, JFK said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

6. Apollo 13

The Apollo Program was one of NASA’s most successful programs in the agency’s history. However, the Apollo 13 mission is a unique success in that it was a successful failure.

Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970 with Astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise at the helm. It intended to land on Fra Mauro, a crater on the moon; however, it would instead never make it to its destination. This mission, as any 1990s movie buff now knows, became one of survival.

55 hours and 46 minutes into the mission, the crew had just finished a 49-minute address to the nation, letting them know everything was going to plan. The astronauts had just pressurized the lunar module, and while Lovell moved through the connecting tunnel on the way back to the command module, a loud explosion could be heard from the Aquarius lunar module.     

The explosion was the result of the astronauts needing to stir the cold oxygen by turning on internal fans periodically. The routine task caused the explosion. All three returned to the command module, and Lovell immediately reported to mission control, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Electricity was lost in the command module, and at 200,000 miles from Earth, they now faced a crisis of depleting oxygen, water, destroyed fuel tanks, and limited control.

For a while, the severity of the situation hadn’t been fully realized. They knew the cryogenic oxygen tanks’ pressure levels were dropping, so they fed supplies to the three fuel cells to keep everything running. Eventually, they abandoned the planned objective to land on the moon. The mission was now about getting the Apollo 13 crew home safely. Mission control determined that using the lunar module’s engine and gravity from the moon was the safest course of action meaning the Apollo 13 was no longer landing but instead swinging around the moon.

The crew was forced to work out their navigation by hand, in coordination with ground control. The idea of using the lunar module to make its way around the moon was a point of concern, considering it was not what the module was designed to do. On April 14, they executed a five minute engine burn putting them on a safe return trajectory. The journey was far from over, but now there was renewed hope that they’d return home.

For three days, Apollo 13 traveled through space in freezing conditions. Finally, on April 17, they reentered Earth’s atmosphere in a touch-and-go mission from the moment the explosion occurred. After four minutes of radio silence, mission control feared the worst, only for the parachutes to be spotted moments later, resulting in the astronauts safely landing in the Pacific Ocean. While one might say the mission was a failure, NASA might argue differently.

5. The Perseverance Rover

Since the dawn of the space age, Mars has been of particular interest to scientists. The reason behind this intense interest is because of Mars’ position as the most similar planet to our own. Since 1997, NASA has had a presence on Mars thanks to a series of rovers. The first rover to touch down on the red planet was Pathfinder, launched in 1996.

Before rovers became the primary tool of Mars exploration, the Viking mission in 1976 resulted in lander modules reaching the surface of Mars to investigate signs of life. 

Since 1996, five rovers have been sent to Mars to study the planet: Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and perhaps most impressive of them all, Perseverance. The Perseverance rover – the most recent of the bunch – is specifically designed to examine Mars for future human-led missions. One of the leading science experiments on board the Perseverance rover aims to showcase the ability to produce oxygen on the surface of Mars. Perseverance also contains a drone, which has since become the first object to fly on Mars. 

With humans closer than ever to exploring the red planet, the Perseverance rover is equipped to examine the climate, weather, dust, and collect samples for future study, to better understand the geological history and potential of Mars.

4. James Webb Space Telescope

Less than a decade after the launch of the Hubble Telescope (we’ll get to that in a minute), work had already begun on a successor telescope. It would become known as the James Webb Space Telescope. Named after NASA’s second administrator, the James Webb Space Telescope has been in development since 1996, and in construction since 2004, with it finally launching on December 24, 2021.

The road to launch was a long and rocky one, and the threat of the project being scrapped came up many times during its lengthy development. Regardless of the tiresome journey to launch, the power of the James Webb Space Telescope is undeniable. A collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian satellite observatory, it’s a technical marvel.

The hope of the James Webb telescope is to discover the first stars and galaxies formed in the earliest iterations of the universe. The telescope detects light in infrared, allowing it to see inside dusty clouds, as well as stars forming planetary systems.

This mission is far from over, but the sheer magnitude of its very existence is an achievement. It took a considerable effort to get the James Webb telescope from concept to launch. If successful, the telescope will hopefully observe the farthest reaches of the galaxy, helping scientist find exoplanets and potentially even signs of life.

3. Hubble

On April 24, 1990, the Discovery space shuttle launched from the Kennedy Space Center and, with it, took what would become one of NASA’s most significant efforts to answer the mysteries of space for decades to come: the Hubble Telescope.

Before the Hubble’s existence, scientists relied on ground-based light telescopes to help provide a view into space. However, considering the limitations of ground-based telescopes, the images often lacked defined representations of space.

In 1979, work began on the Hubble Telescope in collaboration with the ESA. It was named after Edwin P. Hubble, an early 20th-century astronomer credited with discovering the expanding universe. Initially, the telescope was intended to launch in the ’80s, but setbacks, the Challenger disaster of 1986, and political fallout delayed the project into the ’90s.

Throughout its three-decade existence, the Hubble Telescope has provided unprecedented access into the universe. Since launching in 1990, it’s made over 1.5 million observations. It’s provided scientists and space enthusiasts around the world with new ways of understanding this vast solar system we inhabit.

2. The ISS

In 1980, President Ronald Reagan approved the development of the International Space Station, which at the time was a domestic attempt at a space station named Freedom. NASA was given 10 years to build and launch the station. In 1989, with the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States dying down before formally ending in 1990 with the dissolution of the USSR, plans were adapted to make Freedom the International Space Station.

This reformation, and complete redesign of the space station, was part of an effort to reduce the costs and promote global cooperation in the advancement of science. 1993 saw two former rivals joining forces when Russia agreed to merge their independent space station module to the ISS. Russia joined a growing list of countries in contributing to the ISS.

On November 20, 1998, Russia launched the first segment of the ISS. The United States launched their first module called Unity 15 days later. The ISS would host its first residents on November 2, 2000, with astronaut Bill Shepherd being joined by cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev, and Yuri Gidzenko.

Over the course of the decade, further additions have been made to the ISS, including a Russian-built habitat and control center, a NASA microgravity lab, a European lab, and a Japanese lab. This pivotal player in science has the involvement of many countries from around the world, including the US, Russia, Canada, Brazil, 11 members of the EU, and Japan.

251 astronauts have stayed in the ISS for varying periods of time. The ISS has played a role in groundbreaking discoveries in diseases, medicine, water purification, and the effects space has on the human body.

1. Apollo 11

One can’t talk about NASA’s greatest achievements without mentioning the historic success that was Apollo 11 in 1969. JFK made it clear after the success of Freedom 7 that the United States fully intended to send a man to the moon before the end of the decade. Sadly, he didn’t live to see Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the lunar surface, as he was assassinated in 1963.

Despite his death, his successors Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon didn’t take the nation’s foot off the gas. Thanks to the longstanding rivalry between the two superpowers during the Cold War, once JFK set the goal of getting a man on the moon, nothing could derail what would become a defining moment in history. It became not just a means of prestige, but also national security. LBJ had the words of Eisenhower in his head and feared that if Russia achieved dominance in space, the potential for a nuclear attack from beyond the Earth’s surface was imminent. He famously said on March 1, 1968 at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, “We will not abandon our dream. We will never evacuate the frontiers of space to any other nation.”

The Apollo 11 rocket launched on the July 16, 1969 from Cape Canaveral. Three astronauts were chosen to be a part of history: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. It traveled for four days before landing on the moon on July 20.

It was estimated that an astounding 650 million people watched Armstrong’s televised descent to the lunar surface and heard him say the first words ever uttered on the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”