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 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