2. History The cold war inspired a space-race between the Soviet Union and the US during 1950’s and 60’s. The Soviet Union became the first country to reach the moon, with a un-manned space probe called Luna-2 in 1959. The impediment to human exploration was the lack of an adequate heat shield for re- entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

3. History The United States eventually became the 1 st to put a man on the moon in July of 1969. This mission was named Apollo-11. The first man to walk on the moon was Neil Armstrong. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s there were 65 moon landings In 1976 they suddenly stopped as focus shifted to space stations and Mars.

4. Images from Moon Exploration Apollo 11 from CSM

5. Recent Exploration In 1990, Japan became the 3 rd country to orbit the moon. China and the European Space Agency have also launched lunar orbiters. In November 2008, India became the 4 th country to touch down on the lunar surface

6. Future Plans In January 2004, President Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration- a plan leading to new manned lunar missions by 2020. A preliminary unmanned mission is planned during 2009. Several other countries also have plans to send orbiters and rovers to the moon during the next 10 years.

7. In September 2007, the X-prize Foundation and Google announced the Google Lunar X Prize. The challenge requires competitors to land a privately funded robotic rover on the moon and complete several tasks successfully. Prize: $15 million Deadline: December 31, 2014 As of December 2008, there are 16 officially registered teams competing for the prize

8. What do you know? 1.State the names for the 1 st US moon landing and the 1 st person to walk on the moon. 2.What prevented the US from getting to the moon? 3.Since 1990, what two countries have sent probes to the moon? 4.By what year does the US hope to have conducted a manned lunar mission?

9. Use your notes from the movie clip to answer the following: (Your answer should be in paragraph form) What is the main goal of the new moon missions? What are some challenges that NASA faces in developing these missions? How are we preparing for the moon missions? Do you think it is possible to sustain life on the moon and why? Do you think that this is a worthwhile exploration and why?