Exploration of the Moon that a lunar lander would not sink into a thick layer of dust, as had been feared. The first artificial satellite of the Moon was the Soviet probe Luna 10, launched March 31, 1966. On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders, became the first human beings to enter lunar orbit and see the far side of the Moon in person. Humans first landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The first human to walk on the lunar surface was Neil Armstrong, commander of the U.S. mission Apollo 11. The first
The First Men in the Moon direction. Nigel Kneale co-adapted the screenplay (with Jan Read) for the 1964 film version; it is reasonable to assume that Kneale's familiarity with the work may have inspired the idea of the Martian hives which feature so significantly in "Quatermass and the Pit", one of Kneale's most-admired creations. "The First Men in the Moon" has been adapted to film four times, and once prior to that as a mash-up Verne-Wells film: Soon after the publication of "The First Men in the Moon", Wells was accused by the Irish writer Robert Cromie of having stolen from his novel "A Plunge into