1960s the Apollo 8 crew (Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders) being the first manned mission to orbit another celestial body (the moon) during Christmas of 1968. On 20 July 1969, Apollo 11, the first human spaceflight landed on the Moon. Launched on 16 July 1969, it carried mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and the Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin. Apollo 11 fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on 25 May 1961: "I
First Men to the Moon First Men to the Moon First Men to the Moon is a novel by rocketry expert Wernher von Braun, published in 1960. It tells the story of John Mason and Larry Carter, fictional astronauts traveling to the moon. Von Braun's book is dedicated to his daughters Iris and Margrit, who he believed would live in a world in which flights to the moon were commonplace. Along with detailed illustrations by Fred Freeman, von Braun's story is based on his own scientific knowledge and includes technical explanations of a journey into space. The novel describes the use of a method of