Exploration of the Moon (1900s)
The first humans to walk on the Moon were American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin with NASA's Apollo 11, which launched in 1969. It took them just over three days to reach the Moon, where they landed in the Mare Tranquillitatis, the Sea of Tranquillity. The Sea of Tranquillity had been photographed by earlier NASA missions, Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5. Whilst they explored the surface, the command module was piloted by Michael Collins.
Apollo 12 launched four months later, whilst Command Module Pilot Richard Gordon remained in orbit, Pete Conrad, Jr. and Alan Bean landed in the Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms, and spent over thirty hours on the lunar surface. NASA's Surveyor 3 had previously landed here so they were able to take parts of it back to Earth and study the long term effects. They went on to look at a ray of white dust that had been thrown from the crater Copernicus and so saw both the black and white parts of the surface.
The Star Garden
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Lunar Landing Research Vehicle Apollo 11 launch Eagle in Lunar Orbit Base on Tranquillity
Footprint left by Apollo 11 Bean at the Ocean of Storms Conrad unfurls the American flag
Apollo 13 was launched in 1970 and crewed by James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise. Its mission was aborted after one of the oxygen tanks in the Command Module exploded, two days into the journey. The crew used the Lunar Module as a 'life boat' and safely returned home. Apollo 13 had planned to go to a light area that Ranger 7 had photographed and so, in 1971, Apollo 14 went instead. Edgar Mitchell and Alan Shepard landed just to the right of the Apollo 12 landing site, on the edge of Cone crater at Fra Mauro, whilst Stuart Roosa remained in orbit.
Later that year, David Scott and James Irwin landed, with Apollo 15, in Palus Putredinis, the Marsh of Decay, whilst Alfred Worden remained in orbit. They landed inside the third ring of the Imbrium basin, a crater that covers an area the size of a continent on Earth. This was the first mission to include the Lunar Rover which allowed them to travel further than before and collect more rocks, taking back seventy seven kilograms in total. They explored the highlands above the crater and Hadley Rille, a huge ridge carved into the side of the Moon by rivers of lava.
Apollo 16 was launched in 1972. Whilst Ken Mattingly Jnr. remained in orbit, Charles Duke and John Young landed at Descartes, in the southern Highlands. This site was chosen by looking at photographs taken by Apollo 12 and 14. This mission also used the Rover and brought back over ninety four kilograms of rocks.
Descartes
The final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, launched in December of 1972. While Ronald Evans remained in orbit, Eugene Cernan and geologist Jack Schmitt landed above the Apollo 11 landing site, in the Taurus-Littrow region of the Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity. This was the first mission to include a geologist, it involved the most time spent both on the surface and in orbit and brought back the most lunar rocks. The highlands were found to mostly be composed of Anorthosite, a kind of igneous rock that forms when lava cools slowly. These formed when the Moon first settled into orbit as a molten ball.
Apollo 17 launch Schmitt collects lunar dirt Cernan jumping
In September 2009, data from three spacecraft, including India's Chandrayaan 1 probe, confirmed the existence of frozen water on the Moon. A month later, NASA crashed a 2,200 kilogram rocket into the one hundred kilometre wide Cabeus Crater and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) detected more than one hundred kilograms of water. Russia, Europe, Japan, China, and India have all stated that they would like to complete a manned mission to the Moon within the next century.
References
See NASA's profile of the Apollo Missions.