How Many People Have Been to the Moon?
As part of the Artemis space program, launched in 2017, NASA aims to return humans to the Moon. The goal is to establish, by 2025, a sustainable presence there and on other planets. The program also seeks to land the first woman and first person of colour on the Moon, and that woman may be Jessica Meir.
Even if you weren’t alive for the first Moon landing on July 20, 1969, you’ve probably seen footage of it, when astronaut Neil Armstrong famously declared, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind,” and Buzz Aldrin helped him plant an American flag on the surface. And didn’t they also ride around in a golf cart? Or did they putt a few golf balls? Actually, that was Alan Shepard with a golf club during the Apollo 14 mission. And that wasn’t a golf cart. It was a lunar rover, and it also came later: David Scott and James Irwin used one for the first time during the Apollo 15 mission.
Considering that Americans lost interest in Moon landings in subsequent decades, you can be forgiven for not keeping all the details straight. You might be wondering just how many missions and how many people have been to the Moon. In fact, during nine Apollo missions, 24 astronauts (all Americans) went to the Moon, and 12 of them walked on it. What follows is a quick history.