How Far We've Come

In this article written for Day Seven of World Space Week 2019, I write a short piece about how far we have come from the first days of lunar exploration.

You all know by now (and by reading my past articles, of course) that the first time humans landed on the Moon was in July 1969 during the infamous Apollo 11 landings. However, mankind’s fascination with the Moon had begun long ago, and a lot of preparation had to be done before landing a man on the Moon.

The first mission ever that was launched in the pursuit of lunar exploration was the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 spacecraft in 1959. It was the first successful landing of an unmanned probe on the Moon, but as the name implies, it was not actually the 2nd craft to reach the Moon, it was the sixth. However, the previous six launches’ failures provided experience for the success of Luna 2.

Apart from taking photos of the Moon, Luna 2 helped us understand more about the Van Allen radiation belt (which is a lot of radiation above the lunar surface), solar winds, magnetic fields, and more. After that, there were a multitude of missions to the Moon, mostly unmanned ones, which helped pave the way to our current understanding of the Moon. And we still have a long way to go!

This ends my ‘World Space Week 2019’ short article series! I hope you enjoyed reading about different aspects of the Moon, lunar exploration, and related space history events!