Exploration of the Moon and indeed of human history in general. The first man-made object to reach the Moon was the unmanned Soviet probe Luna 2, which made a hard landing on September 14, 1959, at 21:02:24 Z. The far side of the Moon was first photographed on October 7, 1959, by the Soviet probe Luna 3. Though vague by today's standards, the photos showed that the far side of the Moon almost completely lacked maria. In an effort to compete with these Soviet successes, U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed the national goal of landing a human on the Moon. Speaking to a
Space exploration on 16 June 1963. China first launched a person into space 42 years after the launch of "Vostok 1", on 15 October 2003, with the flight of Yang Liwei aboard the "Shenzhou 5" (Divine Vessel 5) spacecraft. The first artificial object to reach another celestial body was Luna 2 in 1959. The first automatic landing on another celestial body was performed by Luna 9 in 1966. Luna 10 became the first artificial satellite of the Moon. The first crewed landing on another celestial body was performed by Apollo 11 on 20 July 1969. The first successful interplanetary flyby was the