U.S. space exploration history on U.S. stamps the multi-color Giori Press. Quantities issued totaled more than 187 million. The Apollo 11 mission landed the first humans on the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, the third lunar mission of NASA's Apollo Program was crewed by Commander Neil A. Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited in the Command Module. The Apollo 11 mission reached President John F. Kennedy's goal of putting a man on the Moon's surface by the end of
The First Men in the Moon he acknowledged "The First Men in The Moon" to be "the best of the sort [of science fiction] I have read..." (from a letter to Roger Lancelyn Green). The influence of Wells's book is especially visible in "Out of the Silent Planet", the first book of Lewis's "Space Trilogy". There, too, a central role in the story line is played by a partnership between a worldly businessman interested in the material gains from space travel (and specifically, in importing extraterrestrial gold to Earth) and a scientist with wider cosmic theories. Also in Lewis's book, the two quietly build themselves a