1969 in spaceflight 1969 in spaceflight 1969 saw humanity step onto another world for the first time. On 21 July 1969, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, "Eagle," landed on the moon's surface with two astronauts aboard. Days later the crew of three returned safely to Earth, satisfying U.S. President John F. Kennedy's 1962 challenge of 25 May 1961, that "this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." There were four Apollo missions in total in 1969, three of which traveled to the moon,
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