Need help badly will mark brain 70 pts Apollo's moon mission was one of the biggest challenges that the government had undertaken. Over 34,000 NASA employees and 375,000 outside contractors took part in the Apollo program to make the dream of walking on the moon come true. The Apollo program began as a "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union (present-day Russia). However, President Kennedy surprised the world by suggesting that the two countries would work together to fulfill the world's dream of exploring the moon.

NASA had planned a total of 17 Apollo missions. At the beginning, most Apollo missions focused on successfully orbiting Earth. However, many of those missions failed. On October 11, 1968, following several unmanned Earth-orbit flights, Apollo 7 successfully orbited Earth 163 times. Apollo 7 carried a full crew of three astronauts. Later, Apollo 8 took the first step toward manned lunar exploration. Apollo 9 carried out a long mission around Earth's orbit to check if the lunar module functioned properly. Apollo 10 journeyed to the lunar orbit and tested the lunar module to within 15.2 kilometers of the moon's surface. Finally, in July 1969, Apollo 11 performed the step-by-step procedure and landed on the moon. On July 20, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon's surface.

The Apollo 13 mission was launched in April 1970, intending to land on the moon. However, when an oxygen tank exploded, NASA aborted the mission. The Apollo 13 made it safely back to Earth, but many safety updates were made because of this mission. The other Apollo missions that followed conducted several experiments on the moon's surface and even collected 842 pounds of moon rock. Apollo 17 was the final mission of the Apollo Space Program in December 1972. This was the final mission NASA made to the moon. In total, there were six successful moon landings, and twelve American astronauts walked on the moon.

The Apollo Space Program proved to the world that human space exploration was a real possibility. The current space programs are only at an intermediate stage of development, but soon they will advance to help humans walk on not just the moon but possibly on different planets.