July 20th

On this day - July 20th 1969 - Apollo 11 lands on the moon 

Apollo 11 was the first manned spacecraft to land on the moon. The flight had started in Florida on July 16th and was the 5th manned mission from NASA. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were  the two first people to land on the moon, although the moon-walk wasn't done until 6 hours later, and therefore the next day. Aldrin and Armstrong stayed for 21 and a half hour on the lunar surface. They collected 21.5 kg of moon-material and brought it back to earth for research.

February 5th

On this day - February 5th 1971 - The Apollo 14 mission landed on the moon 

Commander Alan Shepard, commander Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and  Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their nine-day mission on January 31, 1971. When they landed on the moon it was the third moon landing. The Apollo mission series placed man on the moon six times and Apollo 17 is the last time there have been people on the Moon. Shepard and Mitchell made their decent in the original target for Apollo 13 who aborted its mission. The lessons learned by Apollo 13 caused Apollo 14 to be changed to not repeat the accident.  During their mission they collected 42.80 Kg of Moon rocks. Shepard even made time for hitting two golf balls with a makeshift club. Mitchell and Shepard spent 33.5 hours on the Moon. Commander Roosa never sat foot on the Moon, he stayed behind doing experiments and took photos.  When the mission returned to Earth they landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9th.

Alan Shepard next to the American Flagg 

January 27th

On this day - 27th January 1967 - The Outer Space Treaty opened for signatures

The treaty opened for signatures on this day in 1967 and the treaty entered into force on October 10th the same year. The treaty consists of a framework for basic space law's which all signature countries have to adhere to. The agreements includes a ban on nuclear weapons in orbit around earth, on the moon or otherwise in space in general. The use of the moon is limited to peacefully activities, specifically  banning the testing of weapons on the moon and the building of military stations. The development of the treaty had is background in the cold war conflict and the rapidly technological advancements related to war and space at the time. Both the Soviet Union and the US created a draft treaty in 1966, and in 1967 was an agreement reached between the two draft treaties and their creators through United Nations. Several countries signed the treaty on the 27th of January. Those countries includes UK, USA and The Soviet Union. The treat still exists today and over 100 countries have signed it.

January 24

On this day - January 24th 1990 - Hiten lunar probe launched 

The Hiten spacecraft was built by the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science(ISAS). It was the first lunar probe built by any other state than USA or Russia. On its first swing-by Hiten released a smaller orbiter called Hagoromo into orbit. The orbiter failed to transmit home but it was visually confirmed to be in orbit from Earth. After the eight swing-by Hiten successfully used the aerobraking technique. It was the first deep space probe to do such a maneuver. Aerobraking is a spaceflight maneuver that reduces the high point of an elliptical orbit (apoapsis) by flying the vehicle through the atmosphere at the low point of the orbit(periapsis). The resulting drag slows the spacecraft. When the main mission was over Hiten was placed in lunar orbit and then deliberately crashed into the moon on April 10th 1993. 

December 11th

On this day – 11^th December 1972 – The last Apollo mission landed on the moon

Apollo 17 left earth on December 7^th and landed on the moon for a three day stay on the 11^th December 1972. This was the last of the Apollo missions and also the last manned moon expedition. It was also the longest moon stay for any of the Apollo missions. No human being have been to the moon, or to the low earth orbit, ever since. Apollo 11 was the first to land on the moon in 1969, thereafter followed Apollo 12 (1969), Apollo 14 (1971), Apollo 15 (1971) and Apollo 16 (1972). A total of 24 U.S astronauts have been to the moon, and 12 of those have walked on it.

The Apollo 17 expedition crew consisted of three members, Cernan, Evans and Schmitt, who returned safely to the earth on December 19^th. Evans conducted a 1 hour and 7 minutes spacewalk on their return trip, but the return went without any significant happenings. On December 7th, took the crew the famous "Blue Marble" picture of the earth (see below). The crew landed in the Pacific Ocean, only 6.4 km (4.0 miles) from the rescue boat, and a helicopter picked them up shortly after. And with that, the history of the US moon-missions came to its end. 

The "Blue marble" picture from the mission