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 Space" (1890), which used an antigravity device similar to that in Chrysostom Trueman's "The History of a Voyage to the Moon" (1864). Both novels had certain elements in common, such as a globular spaceship built in secret after inventing a way to overcome Earth's gravity. Wells simply replied: "I have never heard of Mr Cromie nor of the book he attempts to advertise by insinuations of plagiarism on my part." Jules Verne was publicly hostile to Wells's novel mainly due to Wells having his characters go to the moon via a totally fictional creation of an anti-gravitational material rather than