On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off the Apollo 11 lunar lander and onto the surface of the Moon, becoming the first human to set foot on another world. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Buzz Aldrin followed him out about 20 minutes later.
Between 1969 and 1972, six different Apollo missions landed crews on the Moon - Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Apollo 13 was famously aborted after an explosion in space; they made it back safely without landing. Twelve men in total walked on the Moon’s surface during those three years.
And then… nobody went back. Funding ran out, public interest waned, and humans haven’t set foot on the Moon since December 1972. New programs (NASA’s Artemis, others) plan to return crews to the Moon’s surface - but more than 50 years have passed since the last footprint. The footprints themselves, with no wind or weather on the Moon, are still right where Apollo’s astronauts left them.
