Photo Gallery: Moon Exploration

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Moon Buggy

Photograph courtesy NASA

Apollo 17 mission Commander Eugene Cernan checks out the lunar roving vehicle (LRV) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site in December 1972. LRVs, also called moon buggies, are electric vehicles designed to expand astronauts' range of exploration on the low-gravity surface of the moon. The east end of the moon's South Massif rises in the background at right.

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Eagle Pilot Buzz Aldrin

Photograph courtesy NASA

Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin poses for a portrait in July 1969. The landing and subsequent emergence from the Eagle lander of astronaut Neil Armstrong drew the largest television audience for any live event up until that time and inspired Armstrong to utter the famous words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

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Lunar Salute

Photograph courtesy NASA

With lunar module Falcon gleaming in the background, Apollo 15 Commander Dave Scott salutes the American flag at the Hadley-Apennine landing site on July 30, 1971. Apollo 15 was the fourth mission to land men on the moon and the first flight carrying a lunar roving vehicle (LRV). Astronauts used the LRV to explore the geology of the Hadley-Apennine region.

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Apollo 12

Photograph courtesy NASA

Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean descends from the lunar module Intrepid. When it reached the Ocean of Storms on November 19, 1969, Apollo 12 became the second manned mission to land on the moon. As he walked on the moon for the first time, Commander Pete Conrad famously said, "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."

Lunar Module Challenger

Photograph courtesy NASA

Apollo 17's clumsy-looking Challenger lunar module returns to its command module, America, after its trip to the moon in December 1972. The mission was the sixth and last lunar landing in the Apollo program, and Commander Eugene Cernan remains the last person to leave a footprint on the moon.

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Tranquility Base

Photograph courtesy NASA

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin inspects equipment at Tranquility Base during Apollo 11's July 20, 1969, mission. The Passive Seismic Experiment Package sits in the foreground, and the Laser Ranging Retro-Reflector (LR-3) is in back. The instruments were designed to perform long-term lunar studies autonomously, long after astronauts left, and the LR-3 still returns data to Earth.

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Plum Crater

Photograph courtesy NASA

Apollo 16 lunar module pilot Charles Duke collects samples near the rim of Plum Crater, a 33-foot-deep (10-meter-deep) depression on the moon's surface. Launched on April 16, 1972, Apollo 16 was the fifth mission to land men on the moon. The United States plans to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually build a lunar staging point for human flight to Mars and beyond.