Colonization of the Moon the Soviet leadership made some of its first public pronouncements about landing a man on the Moon and establishing a lunar base. Crewed exploration of the lunar surface began in 1968 when the Apollo 8 spacecraft orbited the Moon with three astronauts on board. This was mankind's first direct view of the far side. The following year, the Apollo 11 Apollo Lunar Module landed two astronauts on the Moon, proving the ability of humans to travel to the Moon, perform scientific research work there, and bring back sample materials. Additional missions to the Moon continued this exploration phase. In 1969,
The First Men in the Moon are the villains of the piece. Moreover, his scientist, Professor Weston, has a philosophy diametrically opposite to Cavor's, being an outspoken proponent of human colonisation of other planets, up to and including extermination of "primitive natives". Brian Stableford argues this is the first alien dystopia. The book could also be considered to have launched the science fiction subgenre depicting intelligent social insects, in some cases a non-human species such as the space-traveling Shaara "bees" in the future universe of A. Bertram Chandler, in others (such as Frank Herbert's "Hellstrom's Hive") humans who evolved or consciously engineered their society in this