document_title: Moon landing

question_text: when was the last time someone was on the moon

question_tokens: when was the last time someone was on the moon

text: Moon landing

text: Unmanned landings

text: After the unsuccessful attempt by the Luna 1 to land on the moon in 1959, the Soviet Union performed the first hard (unpowered) moon landing later that same year with the Luna 2 spacecraft, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with Ranger 4. Since then, twelve Soviet and U.S. spacecraft have used braking rockets to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface, between 1966 and 1976. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first soft landings and took the first pictures from the lunar surface during the Luna 9 and Luna 13 missions. The U.S. followed with five unmanned Surveyor soft landings.

text: The Soviet Union achieved the first unmanned lunar soil sample return with the Luna 16 probe on 24 September 1970. This was followed by Luna 20 and Luna 24 in 1972 and 1976, respectively. Following the failure at launch in 1969 of the first Lunokhod, Luna E-8 No.201, the Luna 17 and Luna 21 were successful unmanned lunar rover missions in 1970 and 1973.

text: Many missions were failures at launch. In addition, several unmanned landing missions achieved the Lunar surface but were unsuccessful, including: Luna 15, Luna 18, and Luna 23 all crashed on landing; and the U.S. Surveyor 4 lost all radio contact only moments before its landing.

text: More recently, other nations have crashed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon at speeds of around 8,000 kilometres per hour (5,000 mph), often at precise, planned locations. These have generally been end-of-life lunar orbiters that, because of system degradations, could no longer overcome perturbations from lunar mass concentrations ("masscons") to maintain their orbit. Japan's lunar orbiter Hiten impacted the Moon's surface on 10 April 1993. The European Space Agency performed a controlled crash impact with their orbiter SMART-1 on 3 September 2006.

text: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) performed a controlled crash impact with its Moon Impact Probe (MIP) on 14 November 2008. The MIP was an ejected probe from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter and performed remote sensing experiments during its descent to the lunar surface.

text: The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e 1 executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009. The rover mission Chang'e 3 was launched on 1 December 2013 and soft-landed on 14 December.

text: Manned landings

text: A total of twelve men have landed on the Moon. This was accomplished with two US pilot-astronauts flying a Lunar Module on each of six NASA missions across a 41-month period starting on 20 July 1969 UTC, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11, and ending on 14 December 1972 UTC with Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt on Apollo 17. Cernan was the last to step off the lunar surface.

text: All Apollo lunar missions had a third crew member who remained on board the Command Module. The last three missions had a rover for increased mobility.

text: Scientific background

text: In order to go to the Moon, a spacecraft must first leave the gravity well of the Earth. The only practical way of accomplishing this currently is with a rocket. Unlike other airborne vehicles such as balloons or jets, a rocket is the only known form of propulsion which can continue to increase its speed at high altitudes in the vacuum outside the Earth's atmosphere.

text: Upon approach of the target moon, a spacecraft will be drawn ever closer to its surface at increasing speeds due to gravity. In order to land intact it must decelerate to less than about 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph) and be ruggedized to withstand a "hard landing" impact, or it must decelerate to negligible speed at contact for a "soft landing" (which is the only viable option with human occupants). The first three attempts by the U.S. to perform a successful hard moon landing with a ruggedized seismometer package in 1962 all failed.[5] The Soviets first achieved the milestone of a hard lunar landing with a ruggedized camera in 1966, followed only months later by the first unmanned soft lunar landing by the U.S.

text: The speed of a crash landing on its surface is typically between 70 and 100% of the escape velocity of the target moon, and thus this is the total velocity which must be shed from the target moon's gravitational attraction for a soft landing to occur. For Earth's Moon, the escape velocity is 2.38 kilometres per second (1.48 mi/s).[6] The change in velocity (referred to as a delta-v) is usually provided by a landing rocket, which must be carried into space by the original launch vehicle as part of the overall spacecraft. An exception is the soft moon landing on Titan carried out by the Huygens probe in 2005. As the moon with the thickest atmosphere, landings on Titan may be accomplished by using atmospheric entry techniques that are generally lighter in weight than a rocket with equivalent capability.

text: The Soviets succeeded in making the first crash landing on the Moon in 1959.[7] Crash landings[8] may occur because of malfunctions in a spacecraft, or they can be deliberately arranged for vehicles which do not have an onboard landing rocket. There have been many such moon crashes, often with their flight path controlled to impact at precise locations on the lunar surface. For example, during the Apollo program the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V moon rocket as well as the spent ascent stage of the lunar module were deliberately crashed on the Moon several times to provide impacts registering as a moonquake on seismometers that had been left on the lunar surface. Such crashes were instrumental in mapping the internal structure of the Moon.

text: To return to Earth, the escape velocity of the Moon must be overcome for the spacecraft to escape the gravity well of the Moon. Rockets must be used to leave the Moon and return to space. Upon reaching Earth, atmospheric entry techniques are used to absorb the kinetic energy of a returning spacecraft and reduce its speed for safe landing.[citation needed] These functions greatly complicate a moon landing mission and lead to many additional operational considerations. Any moon departure rocket must first be carried to the Moon's surface by a moon landing rocket, increasing the latter's required size. The Moon departure rocket, larger moon landing rocket and any Earth atmosphere entry equipment such as heat shields and parachutes must in turn be lifted by the original launch vehicle, greatly increasing its size by a significant and almost prohibitive degree.

text: Political background

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text: The intense efforts devoted in the 1960s to achieving first an unmanned and then ultimately a manned moon landing become easier to understand in the political context of its historical era. World War II had introduced many new and deadly innovations including blitzkrieg-style surprise attacks used in the invasion of Poland and in the attack on Pearl Harbor; the V-2 rocket, a ballistic missile which killed thousands in attacks on London and Antwerp; and the atom bomb, which killed hundreds of thousands in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s, tensions mounted between the two ideologically opposed superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union that had emerged as victors in the conflict, particularly after the development by both countries of the hydrogen bomb.

text: Willy Ley wrote in 1957 that a rocket to the Moon "could be built later this year if somebody can be found to sign some papers".[9] On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 as the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth and so initiated the Space Race. This unexpected event was a source of pride to the Soviets and shock to the U.S., who could now potentially be surprise attacked by nuclear-tipped Soviet rockets in under 30 minutes.[citation needed] Also, the steady beeping of the radio beacon aboard Sputnik 1 as it passed overhead every 96 minutes was widely viewed on both sides[citation needed] as effective propaganda to Third World countries demonstrating the technological superiority of the Soviet political system compared to that of the U.S. This perception was reinforced by a string of subsequent rapid-fire Soviet space achievements. In 1959, the R-7 rocket was used to launch the first escape from Earth's gravity into a solar orbit, the first crash impact onto the surface of the Moon and the first photography of the never-before-seen far side of the Moon. These were the Luna 1, Luna 2 and Luna 3 spacecraft.

text: The U.S. response to these Soviet achievements was to greatly accelerate previously existing military space and missile projects and to create a civilian space agency, NASA. Military efforts were initiated to develop and produce mass quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would bridge the so-called missile gap and enable a policy of deterrence to nuclear war with the Soviets known as mutual assured destruction or MAD. These newly developed missiles were made available to civilians of NASA for various projects (which would have the added benefit of demonstrating the payload, guidance accuracy and reliabilities of U.S. ICBMs to the Soviets).

text: While NASA stressed peaceful and scientific uses for these rockets, their use in various lunar exploration efforts also had secondary goal of realistic, goal-oriented testing of the missiles themselves and development of associated infrastructure,[citation needed] just as the Soviets were doing with their R-7.

text: Early Soviet unmanned lunar missions (1958–1965)

text: After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historical records were released to allow the true accounting of Soviet lunar efforts. Unlike the U.S. tradition of assigning a particular mission name in advance of a launch, the Soviets assigned a public "Luna" mission number only if a launch resulted in a spacecraft going beyond Earth orbit. The policy had the effect of hiding Soviet Moon mission failures from public view. If the attempt failed in Earth orbit before departing for the Moon, it was frequently (but not always) given a "Sputnik" or "Cosmos" Earth-orbit mission number to hide its purpose. Launch explosions were not acknowledged at all.

text:
Mission
Mass (kg)
Launch vehicle
Launch date
Goal
Result

Semyorka – 8K72
23 September 1958
Impact
Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 93 s

Semyorka – 8K72
12 October 1958
Impact
Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 104 s

Semyorka – 8K72
4 December 1958
Impact
Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 254 s

Luna-1
361
Semyorka – 8K72
2 January 1959
Impact
Partial success – first spacecraft to reach escape velocity, lunar flyby, solar orbit; missed the Moon

Semyorka – 8K72
18 June 1959
Impact
Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 153 s

Luna-2
390
Semyorka – 8K72
12 September 1959
Impact
Success – first lunar impact

Luna-3
270
Semyorka – 8K72
4 October 1959
Flyby
Success – first photos of lunar far side

Semyorka – 8K72
15 April 1960
Flyby
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Semyorka – 8K72
16 April 1960
Flyby
Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 1 s

Sputnik-25

Semyorka – 8K78
4 January 1963
Landing
Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit

Semyorka – 8K78
3 February 1963
Landing
Failure – booster malfunction at T+ 105 s

Luna-4
1422
Semyorka – 8K78
2 April 1963
Landing
Failure – lunar flyby at 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi)

Semyorka – 8K78
21 March 1964
Landing
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Semyorka – 8K78
20 April 1964
Landing
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Cosmos-60

Semyorka – 8K78
12 March 1965
Landing
Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit

Semyorka – 8K78
10 April 1965
Landing
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Luna-5
1475
Semyorka – 8K78
9 May 1965
Landing
Failure – lunar impact

Luna-6
1440
Semyorka – 8K78
8 June 1965
Landing
Failure – lunar flyby at 160,000 kilometres (99,000 mi)

Luna-7
1504
Semyorka – 8K78
4 October 1965
Landing
Failure – lunar impact

Luna-8
1550
Semyorka – 8K78
3 December 1965
Landing
Failure – lunar impact during landing attempt

text: Early U.S. unmanned lunar missions (1958–1965)

text: In contrast to Soviet lunar exploration triumphs in 1959, success eluded initial U.S. efforts to reach the Moon with the Pioneer and Ranger programs. Fifteen consecutive U.S. unmanned lunar missions over a six-year period from 1958 to 1964 all failed their primary photographic missions;[10][11] however, Rangers 4 and 6 successfully repeated the Soviet lunar impacts as part of their secondary missions.[12][13]

text: Failures included three U.S. attempts[5][12][14] in 1962 to hard land small seismometer packages released by the main Ranger spacecraft. These surface packages were to use retrorockets to survive landing, unlike the parent vehicle, which was designed to deliberately crash onto the surface. The final three Ranger probes performed successful high altitude lunar reconnaissance photography missions during intentional crash impacts between 2.62 and 2.68 kilometres per second (9,400 and 9,600 km/h).[15][16][17]

text:
Mission
Mass (kg)
Launch vehicle
Launch date
Goal
Result

Pioneer 0
38
Thor-Able
17 August 1958
Lunar orbit
Failure – first stage explosion; destroyed

Pioneer 1
34
Thor-Able
11 October 1958
Lunar orbit
Failure – software error; reentry

Pioneer 2
39
Thor-Able
8 November 1958
Lunar orbit
Failure – third stage misfire; reentry

Pioneer 3
6
Juno
6 December 1958
Flyby
Failure – first stage misfire, reentry

Pioneer 4
6
Juno
3 March 1959
Flyby
Partial success – first US craft to reach escape velocity, lunar flyby too far to shoot photos due to targeting error; solar orbit

Pioneer P-1
168
Atlas-Able
24 September 1959
Lunar orbit
Failure – pad explosion; destroyed

Pioneer P-3
168
Atlas-Able
29 November 1959
Lunar orbit
Failure – payload shroud; destroyed

Pioneer P-30
175
Atlas-Able
25 September 1960
Lunar orbit
Failure – second stage anomaly; reentry

Pioneer P-31
175
Atlas-Able
15 December 1960
Lunar orbit
Failure – first stage explosion; destroyed

Ranger 1
306
Atlas – Agena
23 August 1961
Prototype test
Failure – upper stage anomaly; reentry

Ranger 2
304
Atlas – Agena
18 November 1961
Prototype test
Failure – upper stage anomaly; reentry

Ranger 3
330
Atlas – Agena
26 January 1962
Landing
Failure – booster guidance; solar orbit

Ranger 4
331
Atlas – Agena
23 April 1962
Landing
Partial success – first U.S. spacecraft to reach another celestial body; crash impact – no photos returned

Ranger 5
342
Atlas – Agena
18 October 1962
Landing
Failure – spacecraft power; solar orbit

Ranger 6
367
Atlas – Agena
30 January 1964
Impact
Failure – spacecraft camera; crash impact

Ranger 7
367
Atlas – Agena
28 July 1964
Impact
Success – returned 4308 photos, crash impact

Ranger 8
367
Atlas – Agena
17 February 1965
Impact
Success – returned 7137 photos, crash impact

Ranger 9
367
Atlas – Agena
21 March 1965
Impact
Success – returned 5814 photos, crash impact

text: Pioneer missions

text: Three different designs of Pioneer lunar probes were flown on three different modified ICBMs. Those flown on the Thor booster modified with an Able upper stage carried an infrared image scanning television system with a resolution of 1 milliradian to study the Moon's surface, an ionization chamber to measure radiation in space, a diaphragm/microphone assembly to detect micrometeorites, a magnetometer, and temperature-variable resistors to monitor spacecraft internal thermal conditions. The first, a mission managed by the United States Air Force, exploded during launch; all subsequent Pioneer lunar flights had NASA as the lead management organization. The next two returned to Earth and burned up upon reentry into the atmosphere after achieved maximum altitudes of around 110,000 kilometres (68,000 mi) and 1,450 kilometres (900 mi), far short of the roughly 400,000 kilometres (250,000 mi) required to reach the vicinity of the Moon.

text: NASA then collaborated with the United States Army's Ballistic Missile Agency to fly two extremely small cone-shaped probes on the Juno ICBM, carrying only photocells which would be triggered by the light of the Moon and a lunar radiation environment experiment using a Geiger-Müller tube detector. The first of these reached an altitude of only around 100,000 kilometres (62,000 mi), serendipitously gathering data that established the presence of the Van Allen radiation belts before reentering Earth's atmosphere. The second passed by the Moon at a distance of more than 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), twice as far as planned and too far away to trigger either of the on-board scientific instruments, yet still becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to reach a solar orbit.

text: The final Pioneer lunar probe design consisted of four "paddlewheel" solar panels extending from a one-meter diameter spherical spin-stabilized spacecraft body that was equipped to take images of the lunar surface with a television-like system, estimate the Moon's mass and topography of the poles, record the distribution and velocity of micrometeorites, study radiation, measure magnetic fields, detect low frequency electromagnetic waves in space and use a sophisticated integrated propulsion system for maneuvering and orbit insertion as well. None of the four spacecraft built in this series of probes survived launch on its Atlas ICBM outfitted with an Able upper stage.

text: Following the unsuccessful Atlas-Able Pioneer probes, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory embarked upon an unmanned spacecraft development program whose modular design could be used to support both lunar and interplanetary exploration missions. The interplanetary versions were known as Mariners; lunar versions were Rangers. JPL envisioned three versions of the Ranger lunar probes: Block I prototypes, which would carry various radiation detectors in test flights to a very high Earth orbit that came nowhere near the Moon; Block II, which would try to accomplish the first Moon landing by hard landing a seismometer package; and Block III, which would crash onto the lunar surface without any braking rockets while taking very high resolution wide-area photographs of the Moon during their descent.

text: Ranger missions

text: The Ranger 1 and 2 Block I missions were virtually identical.[18][19] Spacecraft experiments included a Lyman-alpha telescope, a rubidium-vapor magnetometer, electrostatic analyzers, medium-energy-range particle detectors, two triple coincidence telescopes, a cosmic-ray integrating ionization chamber, cosmic dust detectors, and scintillation counters. The goal was to place these Block I spacecraft in a very high Earth orbit with an apogee of 110,000 kilometres (68,000 mi) and a perigee of 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi).[18]

text: From that vantage point, scientists could make direct measurements of the magnetosphere over a period of many months while engineers perfected new methods to routinely track and communicate with spacecraft over such large distances. Such practice was deemed vital to be assured of capturing high-bandwidth television transmissions from the Moon during a one-shot fifteen-minute time window in subsequent Block II and Block III lunar descents. Both Block I missions suffered failures of the new Agena upper stage and never left low Earth parking orbit after launch; both burned up upon reentry after only a few days.

text: The first attempts to perform a Moon landing took place in 1962 during the Rangers 3, 4 and 5 missions flown by the United States.[5][12][14] All three Block II missions basic vehicles were 3.1 m high and consisted of a lunar capsule covered with a balsa wood impact-limiter, 650 mm in diameter, a mono-propellant mid-course motor, a retrorocket with a thrust of 5,050 pounds-force (22.5 kN),[12] and a gold- and chrome-plated hexagonal base 1.5 m in diameter. This lander (code-named Tonto) was designed to provide impact cushioning using an exterior blanket of crushable balsa wood and an interior filled with incompressible liquid freon. A 42 kg (56 pounds) 30-centimetre-diameter (0.98 ft) metal payload sphere floated and was free to rotate in a liquid freon reservoir contained in the landing sphere[citation needed].

text: This payload sphere contained six silver-cadmium batteries to power a fifty-milliwatt radio transmitter, a temperature sensitive voltage controlled oscillator to measure lunar surface temperatures, and a seismometer that was designed with sensitivity high enough to detect the impact of a 5 lb (2.3 kg) meteorite on the opposite side of the Moon. Weight was distributed in the payload sphere so it would rotate in its liquid blanket to place the seismometer into an upright and operational position no matter what the final resting orientation of the external landing sphere. After landing, plugs were to be opened allowing the freon to evaporate and the payload sphere to settle into upright contact with the landing sphere. The batteries were sized to allow up to three months of operation for the payload sphere. Various mission constraints limited the landing site to Oceanus Procellarum on the lunar equator, which the lander ideally would reach 66 hours after launch.

text: No cameras were carried by the Ranger landers, and no pictures were to be captured from the lunar surface during the mission. Instead, the 3.1 metres (10 ft) Ranger Block II mother ship carried a 200-scan-line television camera which was to capture images during the free-fall descent to the lunar surface. The camera was designed to transmit a picture every 10 seconds.[12] Seconds before impact, at 5 and 0.6 kilometres (3.11 and 0.37 mi) above the lunar surface, the Ranger mother ships took picture (which may be viewed here).

text: Other instruments gathering data before the mother ship crashed onto the Moon were a gamma ray spectrometer to measure overall lunar chemical composition and a radar altimeter. The radar altimeter was to give a signal ejecting the landing capsule and its solid-fueled braking rocket overboard from the Block II mother ship. The braking rocket was to slow and the landing sphere to a dead stop at 330 metres (1,080 ft) above the surface and separate, allowing the landing sphere to free fall once more and hit the surface[citation needed].

text: On Ranger 3, failure of the Atlas guidance system and a software error aboard the Agena upper stage combined to put the spacecraft on a course that would miss the Moon. Attempts to salvage lunar photography during a flyby of the Moon were thwarted by in-flight failure of the onboard flight computer. This was probably because of prior heat sterilization of the spacecraft by keeping it above the boiling point of water for 24 hours on the ground, to protect the Moon from being contaminated by Earth organisms. Heat sterilization was also blamed for subsequent in-flight failures of the spacecraft computer on Ranger 4 and the power subsystem on Ranger 5. Only Ranger 4 reached the Moon in an uncontrolled crash impact on the far side of the Moon.[citation needed]

text: Heat sterilization was discontinued for the final four Block III Ranger probes.[citation needed] These replaced the Block II landing capsule and its retrorocket with a heavier, more capable television system to support landing site selection for upcoming Apollo manned Moon landing missions. Six cameras were designed to take thousands of high-altitude photographs in the final twenty-minute period before crashing on the lunar surface. Camera resolution was 1,132 scan lines, far higher than the 525 lines found in a typical U.S. 1964 home television. While Ranger 6 suffered a failure of this camera system and returned no photographs despite an otherwise successful flight, the subsequent Ranger 7 mission to Mare Cognitum was a complete success.

text: Breaking the six-year string of failures in U.S. attempts to photograph the Moon at close range, the Ranger 7 mission was viewed as a national turning point and instrumental in allowing the key 1965 NASA budget appropriation to pass through the United States Congress intact without a reduction in funds for the Apollo manned Moon landing program. Subsequent successes with Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 further buoyed U.S. hopes.

text: Soviet unmanned soft landings (1966–1976)

text: The Luna 9 spacecraft, launched by the Soviet Union, performed the first successful soft Moon landing on 3 February, 1966. Airbags protected its 99 kilograms (218 lb) ejectable capsule which survived an impact speed of over 15 metres per second (54 km/h).[20] Luna 13 duplicated this feat with a similar Moon landing on 24 December 1966. Both returned panoramic photographs that were the first views from the lunar surface.[21]

text: Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and safely return a sample of lunar soil back to Earth.[22] It represented the first lunar sample return mission by the Soviet Union, and was the third lunar sample return mission overall, following the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions. This mission was later successfully repeated by Luna 20 (1972) and Luna 24 (1976).

text: In 1970 and 1973 two Lunokhod ("Moonwalker") robotic lunar rovers were delivered to the Moon, where they successfully operated for 10 and 4 months respectively, covering 10.5 km (Lunokhod 1) and 37 km (Lunokhod 2). These rover missions were in operation concurrently with the Zond and Luna series of Moon flyby, orbiter and landing missions.

text:
Mission
Mass (kg)
Booster
Launch date
Goal
Result
Landing zone
Lat/Lon

Luna-9
1580
Semyorka – 8K78
31 January 1966
Landing
Success – first lunar soft landing, numerous photos
Oceanus Procellarum
7.13°N 64.37°W

Luna-13
1580
Semyorka – 8K78
21 December 1966
Landing
Success – second lunar soft landing, numerous photos
Oceanus Procellarum
18°52'N 62°3'W

Proton
19 February 1969
Lunar rover
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Proton
14 June 1969
Sample return
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Luna-15
5,700
Proton
13 July 1969
Sample return
Failure – lunar crash impact
Mare Crisium
unknown

Cosmos-300

Proton
23 September 1969
Sample return
Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit

Cosmos-305

Proton
22 October 1969
Sample return
Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit

Proton
6 February 1970
Sample return
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Luna-16
5,600
Proton
12 September 1970
Sample return
Success – returned 0.10 kg of Moon soil back to Earth
Mare Fecunditatis
000.68S 056.30E

Luna-17
5,700
Proton
10 November 1970
Lunar rover
Success – Lunokhod-1 rover traveled 10.5 km across lunar surface
Mare Imbrium
038.28N 325.00E

Luna-18
5,750
Proton
2 September 1971
Sample return
Failure – lunar crash impact
Mare Fecunditatis
003.57N 056.50E

Luna-20
5,727
Proton
14 February 1972
Sample return
Success – returned 0.05 kg of Moon soil back to Earth
Mare Fecunditatis
003.57N 056.50E

Luna-21
5,950
Proton
8 January 1973
Lunar rover
Success – Lunokhod-2 rover traveled 37.0 km across lunar surface
LeMonnier Crater
025.85N 030.45E

Luna-23
5,800
Proton
28 October 1974
Sample return
Failure – Moon landing achieved, but malfunction prevented sample return
Mare Crisium
012.00N 062.00E

Proton
16 October 1975
Sample return
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Luna-24
5,800
Proton
9 August 1976
Sample return
Success – returned 0.17 kg of Moon soil back to Earth
Mare Crisium
012.25N 062.20E

text: U.S. unmanned soft landings (1966–1968)

text: The U.S. robotic Surveyor program was part of an effort to locate a safe site on the Moon for a human landing and test under lunar conditions the radar and landing systems required to make a true controlled touchdown. Five of Surveyor's seven missions made successful unmanned Moon landings. Surveyor 3 was visited two years after its Moon landing by the crew of Apollo 12. They removed parts of it for examination back on Earth to determine the effects of long-term exposure to the lunar environment.

text:
Mission
Mass (kg)
Booster
Launch date
Goal
Result
Landing zone
Lat/Lon

Surveyor 1
292
Atlas – Centaur
30 May 1966
Landing
Success – 11,000 pictures returned, first U.S. Moon landing
Oceanus Procellarum
002.45S 043.22W

Surveyor 2
292
Atlas – Centaur
20 September 1966
Landing
Failure – midcourse engine malfunction, placing vehicle in unrecoverable tumble; crashed southeast of Copernicus Crater
Sinus Medii
004.00S 011.00W

Surveyor 3
302
Atlas – Centaur
20 April 1967
Landing
Success – 6,000 pictures returned; trench dug to 17.5 cm depth after 18 hr of robot arm use
Oceanus Procellarum
002.94S 336.66E

Surveyor 4
282
Atlas – Centaur
14 July 1967
Landing
Failure – radio contact lost 2.5 minutes before touchdown; perfect automated Moon landing possible but outcome unknown
Sinus Medii
unknown

Surveyor 5
303
Atlas – Centaur
8 September 1967
Landing
Success – 19,000 photos returned, first use of alpha scatter soil composition monitor
Mare Tranquillitatis
001.41N 023.18E

Surveyor 6
300
Atlas – Centaur
7 November 1967
Landing
Success – 30,000 photos returned, robot arm & alpha scatter science, engine restart, second landing 2.5 m away from first
Sinus Medii
000.46N 358.63E

Surveyor 7
306
Atlas – Centaur
7 January 1968
Landing
Success – 21,000 photos returned; robot arm & alpha scatter science; laser beams from Earth detected
Tycho Crater
041.01S 348.59E

text: Transition from direct ascent landings to lunar orbit operations

text: Within four months of each other in early 1966 the Soviet Union and the United States had accomplished successful Moon landings with unmanned spacecraft. To the general public both countries had demonstrated roughly equal technical capabilities by returning photographic images from the surface of the Moon. These pictures provided a key affirmative answer to the crucial question of whether or not lunar soil would support upcoming manned landers with their much greater weight.

text: However, the Luna 9 hard landing of a ruggedized sphere using airbags at a 50 kilometres (31 mi)-per-hour ballistic impact speed had much more in common with the failed 1962 Ranger landing attempts and their planned 160 kilometres (99 mi)-per-hour impacts than with the Surveyor 1 soft landing on three footpads using its radar-controlled, adjustable-thrust retrorocket. While Luna 9 and Surveyor 1 were both major national accomplishments, only Surveyor 1 had reached its landing site employing key technologies that would be needed for a manned flight. Thus as of mid-1966, the United States had begun to pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the so-called Space Race to land a man on the Moon.

text: Advances in other areas were necessary before manned spacecraft could follow unmanned ones to the surface of the Moon. Of particular importance was developing the expertise to perform flight operations in lunar orbit. Ranger, Surveyor and initial Luna Moon landing attempts all utilized flight paths from Earth that traveled directly to the lunar surface without first placing the spacecraft in a lunar orbit. Such direct ascents use a minimum amount of fuel for unmanned spacecraft on a one-way trip.

text: In contrast, manned vehicles need additional fuel after a lunar landing to enable a return trip back to Earth for the crew. Leaving this massive amount of required Earth-return fuel in lunar orbit until it is used later in the mission is far more efficient than taking such fuel down to the lunar surface in a Moon landing and then hauling it all back into space yet again, working against lunar gravity both ways. Such considerations lead logically to a lunar orbit rendezvous mission profile for a manned Moon landing.

text: Accordingly, beginning in mid-1966 both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. naturally progressed into missions which featured lunar orbit operations as a necessary prerequisite to a manned Moon landing. The primary goals of these initial unmanned orbiters were extensive photographic mapping of the entire lunar surface for the selection of manned landing sites and, for the Soviets, the checkout of radio communications gear that would be used in future soft landings.

text: An unexpected major discovery from initial lunar orbiters were vast volumes of dense materials beneath the surface of the Moon's maria. Such mass concentrations ("mascons") can send a manned mission dangerously off course in the final minutes of a Moon landing when aiming for a relatively small landing zone that is smooth and safe. Mascons were also found over a longer period of time to greatly disturb the orbits of low-altitude satellites around the Moon, making their orbits unstable and forcing an inevitable crash on the lunar surface in the relatively short period of months to a few years.

text: Controlling the location of impact for spent lunar orbiters can have scientific value. For example, in 1999 the NASA Lunar Prospector orbiter was deliberately targeted to impact a permanently shadowed area of Shoemaker Crater near the lunar south pole. It was hoped that energy from the impact would vaporize suspected shadowed ice deposits in the crater and liberate a water vapor plume that would be detectable from Earth. No such plume was observed. However, a small vial of ashes from the body of pioneer lunar scientist Eugene Shoemaker was delivered by the Lunar Prospector to the crater named in his honor – currently the only human remains on the Moon.

text: Soviet lunar orbit satellites (1966–1974)

text:
U.S.S.R. mission
Mass (kg)
Booster
Launched
Mission goal
Mission result

Cosmos – 111

Molniya-M
1 March 1966
Lunar orbiter
Failure – stranded in low Earth orbit

Luna-10
1,582
Molniya-M
31 March 1966
Lunar orbiter
Success – 2,738 km x 2,088 km x 72 deg orbit, 178 m period, 60-day science mission

Luna-11
1,640
Molniya-M
24 August 1966
Lunar orbiter
Success – 2,931 km x 1,898 km x 27 deg orbit, 178 m period, 38-day science mission

Luna-12
1,620
Molniya-M
22 October 1966
Lunar orbiter
Success – 2,938 km x 1,871 km x 10 deg orbit, 205 m period, 89-day science mission

Cosmos-159
1,700
Molniya-M
17 May 1967
Prototype test
Success – high Earth orbit manned landing communications gear radio calibration test

Molniya-M
7 February 1968
Lunar orbiter
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit – attempted radio calibration test?

Luna-14
1,700
Molniya-M
7 April 1968
Lunar orbiter
Success – 870 km x 160 km x 42 deg orbit, 160 m period, unstable orbit, radio calibration test?

Luna-19
5,700
Proton
28 September 1971
Lunar orbiter
Success – 140 km x 140 km x 41 deg orbit, 121 m period, 388-day science mission

Luna-22
5,700
Proton
29 May 1974
Lunar orbiter
Success – 222 km x 219 km x 19 deg orbit, 130 m period, 521-day science mission

text: Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon on 3 April 1966.

text: U.S. lunar orbit satellites (1966–1967)

text:
U.S. mission
Mass (kg)
Booster
Launched
Mission goal
Mission result

Lunar Orbiter 1
386
Atlas – Agena
10 August 1966
Lunar orbiter
Success – 1,160 km X 189 km x 12 deg orbit, 208 m period, 80-day photography mission

Lunar Orbiter 2
386
Atlas – Agena
6 November 1966
Lunar orbiter
Success – 1,860 km X 52 km x 12 deg orbit, 208 m period, 339-day photography mission

Lunar Orbiter 3
386
Atlas – Agena
5 February 1967
Lunar orbiter
Success – 1,860 km X 52 km x 21 deg orbit, 208 m period, 246-day photography mission

Lunar Orbiter 4
386
Atlas – Agena
4 May 1967
Lunar orbiter
Success – 6,111 km X 2,706 km x 86 deg orbit, 721 m period, 180-day photography mission

Lunar Orbiter 5
386
Atlas – Agena
1 August 1967
Lunar orbiter
Success – 6,023 km X 195 km x 85 deg orbit, 510 m period, 183-day photography mission

text: Soviet circumlunar loop flights (1967–1970)

text: It is possible to aim a spacecraft from Earth so that it will loop around the Moon and return to Earth without entering lunar orbit, following the so-called free return trajectory. Such circumlunar loop missions are simpler than lunar orbit missions because rockets for lunar orbit braking and Earth return are not required. However, a manned circumlunar loop trip poses significant challenges above and beyond those found in a manned low-Earth-orbit mission, offering valuable lessons in preparation for a manned Moon landing. Foremost among these are mastering the demands of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere upon returning from the Moon.

text: Manned Earth-orbiting vehicles such as the Space Shuttle return to Earth from speeds of around 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 km/h; 7,600 m/s). Due to the effects of gravity, a vehicle returning from the Moon hits Earth's atmosphere at a much higher speed of around 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 km/h; 11,000 m/s). The g-loading on astronauts during the resulting deceleration can be at the limits of human endurance even during a nominal reentry. Slight variations in the vehicle flight path and reentry angle during a return from the Moon can easily result in fatal levels of deceleration force.

text: Achieving a manned circumlunar loop flight prior to a manned lunar landing became a primary goal of the Soviets with their Zond spacecraft program. The first three Zonds were unmanned planetary probes; after that, the Zond name was transferred to a completely separate manned program. The initial focus of these later Zonds was extensive testing of required high-speed reentry techniques. This focus was not shared by the U.S., who chose instead to bypass the stepping stone of a manned circumlunar loop mission and never developed a separate spacecraft for this purpose.

text: Initial manned spaceflights in the early 1960s placed a single person in low Earth orbit during the Soviet Vostok and U.S. Mercury programs. A two-flight extension of the Vostok program known as Voskhod effectively used Vostok capsules with their ejection seats removed to achieve Soviet space firsts of multiple person crews in 1964 and spacewalks in early 1965. These capabilities were later demonstrated by the U.S. in ten Gemini low Earth orbit missions throughout 1965 and 1966, using a totally new second-generation spacecraft design that had little in common with the earlier Mercury. These Gemini missions went on to prove critical techniques for orbital rendezvous and docking that were crucial to a manned lunar landing mission profile.

text: After the end of the Gemini program, the Soviets Union began flying their second-generation Zond manned spacecraft in 1967 with the ultimate goal of looping a cosmonaut around the Moon and returning him immediately to Earth. The Zond spacecraft was launched with the simpler and already operational Proton launch rocket, unlike the parallel Soviet manned Moon landing effort also underway at the time based on third-generation Soyuz spacecraft requiring development of the advanced N-1 booster. The Soviets thus believed they could achieve a manned Zond circumlunar flight years before a U.S. manned lunar landing and so score a propaganda victory. However, significant development problems delayed the Zond program and the success of the U.S. Apollo lunar landing program led to the eventual termination of the Zond effort.

text: Like Zond, Apollo Moon flights were generally launched on a free return trajectory that would return them to Earth via a circumlunar loop in the event that a Service Module malfunction failed to place them in lunar orbit as planned. This option was implemented after an explosion aboard the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, which is the only manned circumlunar loop mission flown to date.

text:
U.S.S.R mission
Mass (kg)
Booster
Launched
Mission goal
Payload
Mission result

Cosmos-146
5,400
Proton
10 March 1967
High Earth Orbit
unmanned
Partial success – Successfully reached high Earth orbit, but became stranded and was unable to initiate controlled high speed atmospheric reentry test

Cosmos-154
5,400
Proton
8 April 1967
High Earth Orbit
unmanned
Partial success – Successfully reached high Earth orbit, but became stranded and was unable to initiate controlled high speed atmospheric reentry test

Proton
28 September 1967
High Earth Orbit
unmanned
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Proton
22 November 1967
High Earth Orbit
unmanned
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Zond-4
5,140
Proton
2 March 1968
High Earth Orbit
unmanned
Partial success – launched successfully to 300,000 km high Earth orbit, high speed reentry test guidance malfunction, intentional self-destruct to prevent landfall outside Soviet Union

Proton
23 April 1968
Circumlunar Loop
non-human biological payload
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit; launch preparation tank explosion kills three in pad crew

Zond-5
5,375
Proton
15 September 1968
Circumlunar Loop
non-human biological payload
Success – looped around Moon, returned live biological payload safely to Earth despite landing off-target outside the Soviet Union in the Indian Ocean

Zond-6
5,375
Proton
10 November 1968
Circumlunar Loop
non-human biological payload
Partial success – looped around Moon, successful reentry, but loss of cabin air pressure caused biological payload death, parachute system malfunction and severe vehicle damage upon landing

Proton
20 January 1969
Circumlunar Loop
non-human biological payload
Failure – booster malfunction, failed to reach Earth orbit

Zond-7
5,979
Proton
8 August 1969
Circumlunar Loop
non-human biological payload
Success – looped around Moon, returned biological payload safely to Earth and landed on-target inside Soviet Union. Only Zond mission whose reentry G-forces would have been survivable by human crew had they been aboard.

Zond-8
5,375
Proton
20 October 1970
Circumlunar Loop
non-human biological payload
Success – looped around Moon, returned biological payload safely to Earth despite landing off-target outside Soviet Union in the Indian Ocean

text: Zond 5 was the first spacecraft to carry life from Earth to the vicinity of the Moon and return, initiating the final lap of the Space Race with its payload of turtles, insects, plants and bacteria. Despite the failure suffered in its final moments, the Zond 6 mission was reported by Soviet media as being a success as well. Although hailed worldwide as remarkable achievements, both of these Zond missions flew off-nominal reentry trajectories resulting in deceleration forces that would have been fatal to human crewmembers had they been aboard.

text: As a result, the Soviets secretly planned to continue unmanned Zond tests until their reliability to support manned flight had been demonstrated. However, due to NASA's continuing problems with the lunar module, and because of CIA reports of a potential Soviet manned circumlunar flight in late 1968, NASA fatefully changed the flight plan of Apollo 8 from an Earth-orbit lunar module test to a lunar orbit mission scheduled for late December 1968.

text: In early December 1968 the launch window to the Moon opened for the Soviet launch site in Baikonur, giving the USSR their final chance to beat the US to the Moon. Cosmonauts went on alert and asked to fly the Zond spacecraft then in final countdown at Baikonur on the first manned trip to the Moon. Ultimately, however, the Soviet Politburo decided the risk of crew death was unacceptable given the combined poor performance to that point of Zond/Proton and so scrubbed the launch of a manned Soviet lunar mission. Their decision proved to be a wise one, since this unnumbered Zond mission was destroyed in another unmanned test when it was finally launched several weeks later.

text: By this time flights of the third generation U.S. Apollo spacecraft had begun. Far more capable than the Zond, the Apollo spacecraft had the necessary rocket power to slip into and out of lunar orbit and to make course adjustments required for a safe reentry during the return to Earth. The Apollo 8 mission carried out the first manned trip to the Moon on 24 December 1968, certifying the Saturn V booster for manned use and flying not a circumlunar loop but instead a full ten orbits around the Moon before returning safely to Earth. Apollo 10 then performed a full dress rehearsal of a manned Moon landing in May 1969. This mission orbited within 47,400 feet (14.4 km) altitude above the lunar surface, performing necessary low-altitude mapping of trajectory-altering mascons using a factory prototype lunar module that was too overweight to allow a successful landing. With the failure of the unmanned Soviet sample return Moon landing attempt Luna 15 in July 1969, the stage was set for Apollo 11.

text: Manned Moon landings (1969–1972)

text: US strategy

text: Plans for manned Moon exploration originated during the Eisenhower administration. In a series of mid-1950s articles in Collier's magazine, Wernher von Braun had popularized the idea of a manned expedition to the Moon to establish a lunar base. A manned Moon landing posed several daunting technical challenges to the US and USSR. Besides guidance and weight management, atmospheric re-entry without ablative overheating was a major hurdle. After the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, von Braun promoted a plan for the United States Army to establish a military lunar outpost by 1965.

text: After the early Soviet successes, especially Yuri Gagarin's flight, US President John F. Kennedy looked for a US project that would capture the public imagination. He asked Vice President Lyndon Johnson to make recommendations on a scientific endeavor that would prove US world leadership. The proposals included non-space options such as massive irrigation projects to benefit the Third World. The Soviets, at the time, had more powerful rockets than the United States, which gave them an advantage in some kinds of space mission.

text: Advances in US nuclear weapon technology had led to smaller, lighter warheads, and consequently, rockets with smaller payload capacities. By comparison, Soviet nuclear weapons were much heavier, and the powerful R-7 rocket was developed to carry them. More modest potential missions such as flying around the Moon without landing or establishing a space lab in orbit (both were proposed by Kennedy to von Braun) were determined to offer too much advantage to the Soviets, since the US would have to develop a heavy rocket to match the Soviets. A Moon landing, however, would capture world imagination while functioning as propaganda.

text: Johnson had championed the US manned space program ever since the Sputnik scare, sponsoring the legislation which created NASA when he was in the Senate in 1958. When Kennedy asked him in 1961 to research the best manned space achievement to counter the Soviets' lead, Johnson responded that the US had an even chance of beating the USSR to a manned lunar landing, but not for anything less. Kennedy seized on Apollo as the ideal focus for efforts in space. He ensured continuing funding, shielding space spending from the 1963 tax cut, but diverting money from other NASA scientific projects. This last dismayed NASA's leader, James E. Webb, who perceived the need for NASA's support from the scientific community.

text: The Moon landing required development of the large Saturn V launch vehicle, which achieved a perfect record of zero catastrophic failures or launch vehicle-caused mission failures, in thirteen launches.

text: For the program to succeed, its proponents would have to defeat criticism from politicians on the left, who wanted more money spent on social programs, and on those on the right, who favored a more military project. By emphasizing the scientific payoff and playing on fears of Soviet space dominance, Kennedy and Johnson managed to swing public opinion: by 1965, 58 percent of Americans favored Apollo, up from 33 percent two years earlier. After Johnson became President in 1963, his continuing defense of the program allowed it to succeed in 1969, as Kennedy planned.

text: Soviet strategy

text: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said in October 1963 that the USSR was "not at present planning flight by cosmonauts to the Moon," while insisting that the Soviets had not dropped out of the race. Only after another year would the USSR fully commit itself to a Moon-landing attempt, which ultimately failed.

text: At the same time, Kennedy had suggested various joint programs, including a possible Moon landing by Soviet and U.S. astronauts and the development of better weather-monitoring satellites. Khrushchev, sensing an attempt by Kennedy to steal Russian space technology, rejected the idea: if the USSR went to the Moon, it would go alone. Sergey Korolev, the Soviet space program's chief designer, had started promoting his Soyuz craft and the N1 launcher rocket that would have the capability of carrying out a manned Moon landing.

text: Khrushchev directed Korolev's design bureau to arrange further space firsts by modifying the existing Vostok technology, while a second team started building a completely new launcher and craft, the Proton booster and the Zond, for a manned cislunar flight in 1966. In 1964 the new Soviet leadership gave Korolev the backing for a Moon landing effort and brought all manned projects under his direction.

text: With Korolev's death and the failure of the first Soyuz flight in 1967, the co-ordination of the Soviet Moon landing program quickly unraveled. The Soviets built a landing craft and selected cosmonauts for the mission that would have placed Aleksei Leonov on the Moon's surface, but with the successive launch failures of the N1 booster in 1969, plans for a manned landing suffered first delay and then cancellation.

text: A program of automated return vehicles was begun, in the hope of being the first to return lunar rocks. This had several failures. It eventually succeeded with Luna 16.[23] But this had little impact, because the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 lunar landings and rock returns had already taken place by then.

text: Apollo missions

text: In total, twenty-four U.S. astronauts have traveled to the Moon. Three have made the trip twice, and twelve have walked on its surface. Apollo 8 was a lunar-orbit-only mission, Apollo 10 included undocking and Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), followed by LM staging to CSM redocking, while Apollo 13, originally scheduled as a landing, ended up as a lunar fly-by, by means of free return trajectory; thus, none of these missions made landings. Apollo 7 and Apollo 9 were Earth-orbit-only missions. Apart from the inherent dangers of manned Moon expeditions as seen with Apollo 13, one reason for their cessation according to astronaut Alan Bean is the cost it imposes in government subsidies.[24]

text: Manned Moon landings

text:
Mission name
Lunar lander
Lunar landing date
Lunar liftoff date
Lunar landing site
Duration on lunar surface
Crew
Number of EVAs
Total EVA Time (HH:MM)

Apollo 11
Eagle
20 July 1969
21 July 1969
Sea of Tranquility
21:31
Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin
1
2:31

Apollo 12
Intrepid
19 November 1969
21 November 1969
Ocean of Storms
1-day, 7:31
Charles "Pete" Conrad, Alan Bean
2
7:45

Apollo 14
Antares
5 February 1971
6 February 1971
Fra Mauro
1-day, 9:30
Alan B. Shepard, Edgar Mitchell
2
9:21

Apollo 15
Falcon
30 July 1971
2 August 1971
Hadley Rille
2 days, 18:55
David Scott, James Irwin
3
18:33

Apollo 16
Orion
21 April 1972
24 April 1972
Descartes Highlands
2 days, 23:02
John Young, Charles Duke
3
20:14

Apollo 17
Challenger
11 December 1972
14 December 1972
Taurus–Littrow
3 days, 2:59
Eugene Cernan, Harrison "Jack" Schmitt
3
22:04

text: Other aspects of the Apollo Moon successful landings

text: Unlike other international rivalries, the Space Race has remained unaffected in a direct way regarding the desire for territorial expansion. After the successful landings on the Moon, the U.S. explicitly disclaimed the right to ownership of any part of the Moon.

text: President Richard Nixon had speechwriter William Safire prepare a condolence speech for delivery in the event that Armstrong and Aldrin became marooned on the Moon's surface and could not be rescued.[25]

text: In 1951, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke forecast that man would reach the Moon by 1978.[26]

text: On 16 August 2006, the Associated Press reported that NASA is missing the original Slow-scan television tapes (which were made before the scan conversion for conventional TV) of the Apollo 11 Moon walk. Some news outlets have mistakenly reported that the SSTV tapes were found in Western Australia, but those tapes were only recordings of data from the Apollo 11 Early Apollo Surface Experiments Package.[27]

text: Scientists believe the six American flags planted by astronauts have been bleached white because of more than 40 years of exposure to solar radiation.[28] Using LROC images, five of the six American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11.[29] Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11.[29]

text: Late 20th century–Early 21st century unmanned crash landings

text: Hiten (Japan)

text: Launched on 24 January 1990, 11:46 UTC. At the end of its mission, the Japanese lunar orbiter Hiten was commanded to crash into the lunar surface and did so on 10 April 1993 at 18:03:25.7 UT (11 April 03:03:25.7 JST).[30]

text: Lunar Prospector (USA)

text: Lunar Prospector was launched on 7 January 1998. The mission ended on 31 July 1999, when the orbiter was deliberately crashed into a crater near the lunar south pole after the presence of water ice was successfully detected.[31]

text: SMART-1 (ESA)

text: Launched 27 September 2003, 23:14 UTC from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. At the end of its mission, the ESA lunar orbiter SMART-1 performed a controlled crash into the Moon, at about 2 km/s. The time of the crash was 3 September 2006, at 5:42 UTC.[32]

text: SELENE (Japan)

text: SELENE or Kaguya was launched on 14 September 2007. After successfully orbiting the Moon for a year and eight months, the main orbiter was instructed to impact on the lunar surface near the crater Gill at 18:25 UTC on 10 June 2009.[33]

text: Chang'e 1 (China)

text: The Chinese lunar orbiter Chang'e 1, launched 24 October 2007, 10:05 UTC, executed a controlled crash onto the surface of the Moon on 1 March 2009, 20:44 GMT, after a 16-month mission.[34]

text: Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 (India)

text: Chandrayaan-1 was launched on 22 October 2008, 00:52 UTC. The impactor, the Moon Impact Probe, impacted near Shackleton Crater at the south pole of the lunar surface at 14 November 2008, 20:31 IST.[35] Chandrayaan-2 is scheduled for launch in 2018.

text: LCROSS (USA)

text: The LCROSS data collecting shepherding spacecraft was launched together with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009 on board an Atlas V rocket with a Centaur upper stage. On 9 October 2009, at 11:31 UTC, the Centaur upper stage impacted the lunar surface, releasing the kinetic energy equivalent of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.86 GJ).[36] Six minutes later at 11:37 UTC, the LCROSS shepherding spacecraft also impacted the surface.[37]

text: GRAIL (USA)

text: The GRAIL mission consisted of two small spacecraft: GRAIL A (Ebb), and GRAIL B (Flow). They were launched on 10 September 2011 on board a Delta II rocket. GRAIL A separated from the rocket about nine minutes after launch, and GRAIL B followed about eight minutes later.[38][39] The first probe entered orbit on 31 December 2011 and the second followed on 1 January 2012.[40] The two spacecraft impacted the Lunar surface on 17 December 2012.[41]

text: LADEE (USA)

text: LADEE was launched on 7 September 2013.[42] The mission ended on 18 April 2014, when the spacecraft's controllers intentionally crashed LADEE into the far side of the Moon,[43][44] which, later, was determined to be near the eastern rim of Sundman V crater.[45][46]

text: 21st century unmanned soft landings

text: Chang'e 3 (China)

text: On 14 December 2013 at 13:12 UTC[47] Chang'e 3 soft-landed a rover on the Moon. This was the first lunar soft landing since Luna 24 on 22 August 1976.[48]

text: Landings on moons of other Solar System bodies

text: Progress in space exploration has recently broadened the phrase moon landing to include other moons in the Solar System as well. The Huygens probe of the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn performed a successful unmanned moon landing on Titan in 2005. Similarly, the Soviet probe Phobos 2 came within 120 mi (190 km) of performing an unmanned moon landing on Mars' moon Phobos in 1989 before radio contact with that lander was suddenly lost. A similar Russian sample return mission called Fobos-Grunt ("grunt" means "soil" in Russian) launched in November 2011, but stalled in low Earth orbit. There is widespread interest in performing a future moon landing on Jupiter's Europa moon to drill down and explore the possible liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface.

text: Proposed future missions

text: China is planning to land another rover and collect samples in the Chang'e 4 mission and return lunar soil samples by 2018 in the Chang'e 5 mission.[49]

text: ISRO, the Indian National Space agency, is planning a second version of Chandrayaan named Chandrayaan 2. According to former ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair, "The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) hopes to land two rovers – one Indian and another Russian – on the Moon in 2018, as a part of its second Chandrayaan mission. The rover will be designed to move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, do on-site chemical analysis and send the data to the mother-spacecraft Chandrayaan II, which will be orbiting above. Chandrayaan II will transmit the data to Earth." The payloads have already been finalized.[50][51] ISRO has mentioned that due to weight restrictions it will not be carrying any overseas payloads on this mission. The lander weight is projected to be 1,250 kg, and the spacecraft will be launched by the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.

text: Russia's Luna-Glob 1 is expected to be launched in 2018.[52] In 2007 the head of the Russian Space Agency announced plans to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanent robotically operated base there in 2027–2032.[53] In 2015, Roscosmos stated that Russia plans to place a cosmonaut on the Moon by 2030, leaving Mars to NASA. The purpose is to work jointly with NASA and avoid another Space Race.[54]

text: The Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP) is a program of robotic spacecraft missions which NASA will use to prepare for future Moon landings.[55] Three orbiters have been launched in the program, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), and the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), launched in 2013, but no Moon landings are scheduled yet.

text: The Google Lunar X Prize competition offers a $20 million award for the first privately funded team to land a robotic probe on the Moon. Like the Ansari X Prize before it, the competition aims to advance the state of the art in private space exploration.[56] Of the several competing teams, Puli Space Technologies at one time (2012) planned to launch in 2014[57][needs update] and Astrobotic Technology plans to launch in the second half of 2016 with their own rover plus another team's lunar rovers from Hakuto.[58][59]

text: In 2019, a consortium of Vodafone, Audi and PT Scientists are planning a moon landing. The mission is to launch a lander and two small rovers to the moon from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket during the 50th-anniversary year of NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing.[60] Nokia will assist to setup a LTE network in moon to manage lunar terrestrial communication system of the mission.[61]

text: Historical empirical evidence

text: Many conspiracy theorists hold that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax;[62] however, empirical evidence is readily available to show that manned moon landings did indeed occur. Anyone on Earth with an appropriate laser and telescope system can bounce laser beams off three retroreflector arrays left on the Moon by Apollo 11,[63] 14 and 15, verifying deployment of the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment at historically documented Apollo Moon landing sites and so proving equipment constructed on Earth was successfully transported to the surface of the Moon. In addition, in August 2009 NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began to send back high resolution photos of the Apollo landing sites. These photos show not only the large Descent Stages of the lunar landers left behind but also tracks of the astronauts' walking paths in the lunar dust.[64]


document_title: South Pass (Wyoming)

question_text: who discovered south pass in the oregon country

root

text: South Pass (Wyoming)

text: History[edit]

text: The 1812 discovery of the pass, by European Americans, as a natural crossing point of the Rockies was a significant, but surprisingly difficult achievement in the westward expansion of the United States. Because the Lewis and Clark Expedition was searching for a water route across the Continental Divide, it did not learn of South Pass from any Native Americans in the area. Instead, the expedition followed a northerly route up the Missouri River, crossing the Rockies over difficult passes in the Bitterroot Range in Montana.

tag: p

text: In 1812 Robert Stuart and six companions from the Pacific Fur Company (the Astorians) happened to cross the Rockies at this point, while trying to avoid Indians further north, on their return to St. Louis, Missouri from Astoria, Oregon. In 1856 Ramsay Crooks, one of the party, wrote a letter describing their journey:

text: Despite Stuart's meticulous journal of the trip, which he presented to Astor and President James Madison, and published in France, the location of the South Pass did not become widely known. For more than a decade, European-American trappers continued to use a longer, more northern route. It included an extra mountain range to be crossed and had a shorter season for crossing.

text: In 1823 a St. Louis merchant named W. H. Ashley led a party up the Sweetwater to its source, rediscovered the pass, and spent the summer in its vicinity trapping. He returned again in 1824, this time going as far as Great Salt Lake and setting up a trading post there, which after three profitable years he sold to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, headed by Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, and David Jackson.[6]

text: In 1832 Captain Benjamin Bonneville and a caravan of 110 men and 20 wagons became the first group to take wagons over the pass. In July 1836, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding were the first white pioneer women to cross South Pass. Between 1848 and 1868, South Pass was the preferred crossing point for emigrants westward, most of whom followed the Sweetwater River across Wyoming to its headwaters, following the Central Route. Before the railroads offered an easier crossing in 1869, perhaps half a million emigrants would trek through South Pass.

text: Gold had been discovered in the gulches near the pass as early as 1842. However, it was not until 1867, when an ore sample was transported to Salt Lake City, that an influx of miners descended into the region. The gold rush led to the establishment of booming mining communities, such as South Pass City and Atlantic City. The placer gold in the streams was exhausted quickly, however, and by 1870 the miners began leaving the region. In 1884, Emile Granier, a French mining engineer, established a hydraulic drilling operation that allowed gold mining to continue. Gold mining was revived in nearby Rock Creek in the 1930s. Additionally, from the 1960s through 1983, a U.S. Steel iron ore mine operated in Atlantic City.

text: South Pass was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.[2][7]

text: Wyoming Highway 28 traverses the modern pass, roughly following the route of the Oregon Trail. Wagon ruts are still clearly visible at numerous sites within a few miles of the highway.[8]


document_title: The Last Starfighter

question_text: recruited alex rogan video gamer to save the galaxy in the last starfighter

text: The Last Starfighter

text: Plot[edit]

text: Alex Rogan is a teenager living in a trailer park with his mother and younger brother, Louis. After being disapproved for a scholarship application, Alex becomes angry at his go-nowhere existence. The only entertainment in the trailer park comes from an arcade game, called "Starfighter", in which the player defends "the Frontier" from Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada in a space battle. After Alex becomes the game's highest-scoring player, he is approached by the game's inventor, Centauri, who invites him to take a ride in his fancy car as a prize for winning the game. Centauri is actually an alien and his car a spacecraft; Alex is essentially abducted, and a doppelganger android named Beta is used to cover Alex's absence.

text: Alex learns that the Starfighter arcade game represents a real-life conflict between the Rylan Star League and the Ko-Dan Empire; the latter is led by Xur, a native Rylan traitor to whom the Ko-Dan Emperor has promised control of Rylos. The game was designed as a test to find those "with the gift"; Alex, expected to be the gunner for a Starfighter spacecraft called the Gunstar, befriends a reptilian pilot named Grig. He also learns that the Frontier is a forcefield protecting Rylos and its surrounding planets from invasion; Xur has given the Ko-Dan the means to breach it.

text: Xur reveals he has discovered an infiltrator in his ranks and broadcasts the spy's execution to the Star League. He then proclaims that once Rylos' moon is in eclipse, the Ko-Dan Armada will begin their invasion. Unnerved by everything he has seen, Alex asks to be taken home. On Earth, Centauri tells Alex to contact him should he change his mind. Meanwhile, a saboteur eliminates the Starfighter base defenses, causing heavy damage, killing the Starfighters, and destroying the Gunstars. Only Grig and an advanced prototype Gunstar survive.

text: Alex discovers Beta and contacts Centauri to retrieve him. Centauri arrives just as Alex and Beta are attacked by an alien assassin, a Zando-Zan, in Xur's service; Centauri shoots off its right arm. He then explains that more Zando-Zan will be coming and the only way for Alex to protect his family (and Earth) is to embrace his ability as a Starfighter. Before Alex can reply, the assassin (mentally controlling its severed arm) attempts to shoot Alex. Centauri jumps in the way, taking the hit and killing the alien. Alex and Centauri fly back to the Starfighter base, where Centauri succumbs to his injuries. Alex finds Grig and they prepare the Gunstar to battle the Ko-Dan Armada.

text: While Grig trains Alex, Beta finds it difficult to maintain his impersonation of Alex, particularly with Maggie, Alex's girlfriend. After discovering that a group of Zando-Zan have set up a communication center from their spaceship outside the trailer park, Beta reveals everything to Maggie. She does not believe him until the Zando-Zan discover the pair and Beta is shot, exposing damaged circuitry. They steal a friend's pickup truck and charge it at the Zando-Zan ship; Beta has Maggie jump out before sacrificing himself by crashing into the ship, destroying it.

text: Alex and Grig attack the Ko-Dan mothership, crippling its communications. Once Alex's weapons are depleted, he desperately activates a secret weapon on the Gunstar, the "Death Blossom", that destroys the remaining Ko-Dan fighters. With the fleet destroyed, Lord Kril orders Xur executed for his arrogance and failure to ensure victory, but Xur escapes the mothership just before Alex cripples its guidance controls, causing it to crash into Rylos' moon.

text: Alex is proclaimed the savior of Rylos and invited to help rebuild the Star League, as the is still vulnerable: the Frontier has collapsed and Xur escaped. An unknown alien approaches, revealing himself as Centauri and explaining he was in a healing stasis. Alex agrees to stay, but he returns to Earth, landing his Gunstar in the trailer park. Grig tells Alex's mother and the people of the trailer park of Alex's heroism, and Alex asks Maggie to come with him; she agrees. Louis is inspired to join Alex and begins playing the Starfighter game.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Lance Guest as Alex Rogan / Beta Alex
Dan O'Herlihy as Grig
Catherine Mary Stewart as Maggie Gordon
Robert Preston as Centauri
Norman Snow as Xur
Kay E. Kuter as Enduran
Barbara Bosson as Jane Rogan
Chris Hebert as Louis Rogan
Dan Mason as Lord Kril
Vernon Washington as Otis
John O'Leary as Rylan Bursar
George McDaniel as Kodan Officer
Charlene Nelson as Rylan Technician
John Maio as Friendly Alien
Al Berry as Rylan Spy
Scott Dunlop as Tentacle Alien
Peter Nelson as Jack Blake
Peggy Pope as Elvira
Meg Wyllie as Granny Gordon
Ellen Blake as Clara Potter
Britt Leach as Mr. Potter
Bunny Summers as Mrs. Boone
Owen Bush as Mr. Boone
Marc Alaimo as Hitchhiker
Wil Wheaton as Louis' friend
Cameron Dye as Andy
Geoffrey Blake as Gary

tag: ul

text: Production[edit]

text: The Last Starfighter is one of the earliest films to make extensive use of computer graphics for its special effects. In place of physical models, 3D rendered models were used to depict space ships and many other objects. The Gunstar and other spaceships were the design of artist Ron Cobb, who also worked on Alien, Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian.

text: The computer graphics for the film were rendered by Digital Productions on a Cray X-MP supercomputer. The company created 27 minutes of effects for the film. This was considered an enormous amount of computer generated imagery at the time.[3] For the 300 scenes containing computer graphics in the film, each frame of the animation contained an average of 250,000 polygons, and had a resolution of 3000 × 5000 36-bit pixels. Digital Productions estimated that using computer animation required only half the time, and one half to one third the cost of traditional special effects. The result was a cost of $14 million for a film that made about $21 million at the box office.[3]

text: Not all special effects in the film were done with computer animation. The depiction of the Beta unit before it had taken Alex's form was a practical effect, created out of materials and produced on-set. The Starcar created by Gene Winfield and driven by Centauri was also a real prop.[4]

text: Because the test audiences responded positively to the Beta Alex character, director Nick Castle added more scenes of Beta Alex interacting with the trailer park community. Because Lance Guest had cut his hair short after initial filming had completed and he contracted an illness during the re-shoots, his portrayal of Beta Alex in the added scenes has him wearing a wig and heavy makeup. Wil Wheaton had some scenes filmed before they were ultimately deleted from the final print.[4]

text: Music[edit]

text: Composer Craig Safan wanted to go "bigger than Star Wars" and thereby utilized a "Mahler-sized" orchestra, resulting in an unusual breadth of instruments, including "quadruple woodwinds" and "eight trumpets, [trombones], and horns!"[5]

text: Reception[edit]

text: This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2017)

tag: table

text: The Last Starfighter earned over $28 million on an estimated budget of $15 million.[6]

text: Based on 29 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes ranks The Last Starfighter at a 76% "fresh" rating.[7] Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, stating that while the actors were good, The Last Starfighter was "not a terrifically original movie," but was nonetheless "well-made".[8] Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as "a surprisingly pleasant variation on the Star Wars boom, with sharp and witty performances from two reliable character actors and some elegant gadgetry to offset the teenage mooning."[9] Gene Siskel included the film on his list of "Guilty Pleasures", describing it as "a Star Wars rip-off, but the best one". Over time it has developed a cult following.[10]

text: Adaptations[edit]

text: The Last Starfighter's popularity has resulted in several non-film adaptations of the storyline and uses of the name. Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the film shortly after it was released (ISBN 0-425-07255-X). In the same year as the release of the film, Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Bill Mantlo and artists Bret Blevins and Tony Salmons in Marvel Super Special #31.[11] The adaptation was also available as a three issue limited series.[12] In 2004, it was also adapted as an off-Broadway musical debuting at the Storm Theatre in New York City.

text: In 1984, FASA, a noted sci-fi tabletop game maker, created a gaming system for The Last Starfighter.

text: Video games[edit]

text: Arcade[edit]

text: A real The Last Starfighter arcade game by Atari, Inc. is promised in the end credits, but was never released. If released, the game would have been Atari's first 3D polygonal arcade game to use a Motorola 68000 as the CPU. Gameplay would have been taken from game scenes and space battle scenes in the film and would have included the same controller that was used on the first Star Wars arcade game. The game was abandoned once Atari representatives saw the film in post-production and decided it was not going to be a financial success.[13]

text: Home computer and console[edit]

text: Home versions of the game for the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200[14] consoles and Atari 8-bit home computers were also developed, but never commercially released under the Last Starfighter name. The home computer version was eventually renamed and released (with some minor changes) as Star Raiders II.[15] A prototype exists for the Atari 2600 Last Starfighter game, which was in actuality a game already in development by Atari under the name Universe. This game was eventually released as Solaris.[16]

text: In 1990, an NES game titled The Last Starfighter was released, but it was actually a conversion of Uridium for Commodore 64, with modified sprites, title screen and soundtrack.[17]

text: A freeware playable version of the game, based on what is seen in the film, was released for PC in 2007. This is a faithful reproduction of the arcade game from the film and features full sound effects and music from the game. The creators of this game, Rogue Synapse, have also built a working arcade cabinet of the game.[18]

text: Sequel[edit]

text: In February 2008, production company GPA Entertainment added "Starfighter – The sequel to the classic motion picture Last Starfighter" to its list of projects and two months later the project was reported to be "stuck in the pre-production phase".[19] It was still there as of January 2012.[20] Hollywood directors including Seth Rogen and Steven Spielberg, as well as screenwriter Gary Whitta, have expressed interest in creating a sequel or remake, but Jonathan R. Betuel has allegedly indicated that he does not want another film made.[21]

text: The rights to the film have not been clearly defined due to conflicting information. Multiple sources say Universal Pictures still owns the theatrical and home media distribution rights while Warner Bros., which absorbed Lorimar Pictures in 1992, has the international distribution rights. Another source states that Universal has the option to remake the film while Betuel has sequel rights. Further complicating the situation is a claim that both Universal and Warner Bros. each have remake and sequel rights.[22]

text: In July 2015, it was reported that Betuel will write a TV reboot of the film.[23]

text: On April 4, 2018, Whitta posted concept art for The Last Starfighter sequel on his Twitter account.[24] In the same tweet he also indicated that Betuel will be collaborating with him on the project. In a follow-up interview with Gizmodo, Whitta referred to the project as "a combination of reboot and sequel that we both think honors the legacy of the original film while passing the torch to a new generation."[25]


document_title: A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)

question_text: when was the last nightmare on elm street made

text: A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)

text: Films[edit]

text:
Film
Director
Writer(s)
Producer(s)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Robert Shaye

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
Jack Sholder
David Chaskin

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Chuck Russell
Wes Craven, Frank Darabont, Chuck Russell, Bruce Wagner

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Renny Harlin
Brian Helgeland, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat
Robert Shaye and Rachel Talalay

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
Stephen Hopkins
Leslie Bohem
Robert Shaye and Rupert Harvey

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Rachel Talalay
Michael De Luca
Robert Shaye and Aron Warner

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Marianne Maddalena

Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Ronny Yu
Damian Shannon & Mark Swift
Sean S. Cunningham

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Samuel Bayer
Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer
Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller

text: Overview[edit]

text: The original film, written and directed by Wes Craven and titled A Nightmare on Elm Street, was released in 1984. The story focuses on Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) attacking Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) and her friends in their dreams, successfully killing all but Nancy, in fictional Springwood, Ohio. Krueger's back-story is revealed by Nancy's mother, Marge, who explains he was a child murderer. The parents of Springwood killed Krueger after he was acquitted on a technicality. Nancy defeats Freddy by pulling him from the dream world and stripping him of his powers when she stops being afraid of him.[6] Freddy returns to attack the new family, the Walshes, living in Nancy Thompson's house in 1985's A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. Freddy possesses the body of Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton), using him to kill. Jesse is temporarily saved by his girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers), who helps him exorcise Krueger's spirit.[7]

text: Wes Craven returned to write A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, released in 1987. In the second sequel, Freddy is systematically killing the last of the Elm Street children. The few remaining children have been placed in Westin Hills Mental Institution, for allegedly attempting suicide. Nancy Thompson arrives at Westin Hills as a new intern, and realizes the children are being killed by Freddy. With the help of Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson), Nancy helps Kristen (Patricia Arquette), Joey (Rodney Eastman), Taryn (Jennifer Rubin), Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), and Will (Ira Heiden) find their dream powers, so they can kill Freddy once and for all. Neil, unknowingly until the end, meets the spirit of Freddy's mother, Amanda Krueger (Nan Martin), who instructs him to bury Freddy's remains in hallowed ground in order to stop him for good. Neil completes his task, but not before Freddy kills Nancy.[8]

text: The story of Kristen Parker would continue with 1988's A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. This time, Kristen (Tuesday Knight) unwittingly releases Freddy, who immediately kills Kincaid and Joey. Before Freddy can kill Kristen, she transfers her dream powers to Alice (Lisa Wilcox), a friend from school. Alice begins inadvertently providing victims for Freddy when she begins pulling people into her dreams while she sleeps. Alice, who begins taking on traits of the friends who were murdered, confronts Freddy. She uses the power of the Dream Master to release all the souls Freddy has taken; they subsequently rip themselves from Freddy's body, killing him in the process.[9]

text: Picking up shortly after the events of The Dream Master, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child involves Freddy using Alice's unborn child, Jacob (Whitby Hertford), to resurrect himself and find new victims. The spirit of Amanda Krueger (Beatrice Boepple) returns, revealing that Freddy was conceived when she, a nun working in a mental asylum, was accidentally locked in a room with "100 maniacs" and raped "hundreds of times". Amanda Krueger convinces Jacob to use the powers he was given by Freddy against him, which gives her the chance to subdue Freddy long enough for Alice and Jacob to escape the dream world.[10]

text: 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare followed the exploits of "John Doe" (Shon Greenblatt), an amnesiac teenager from Springwood, who was sent out to find Freddy's daughter Maggie (Lisa Zane), whom he needs to leave Springwood. Freddy's goal is to create new "Elm Streets", and begin a new killing spree after having killed all of the children in Springwood. Maggie, utilizing new dream techniques, uncovers Krueger's past, which include: being taunted by schoolmates for being the "son of 100 maniacs", being cruel to animals, beaten by his stepfather, the murder of his own wife when she discovers he has been killing children, and the moment when the Dream Demons arrive in his boiler room to make him the offer of eternal life. Eventually, Maggie pulls Freddy out of the dream world, and uses a pipe bomb to blow him up.[11]

text: Wes Craven returned to the Nightmare series a third time with New Nightmare in 1994. This film focuses on a fictional "reality", where Craven, Langenkamp, and Englund all play themselves, and where the character of Freddy Krueger is really an evil entity that has been trapped in the realm of fiction by all the movies that have been made. Since the movies have stopped, the entity, which likes being Freddy Krueger, is trying to escape into the real world. The only person in its way is Heather Langenkamp, whom the entity sees as "Nancy" – the first person who defeated him. Craven explains to Langenkamp the only way to keep the entity contained is for her to "play Nancy one last time". Langenkamp pursues "Krueger", who has kidnapped her son, into the dream world as "Nancy". There, she and her son trap Krueger in a furnace until he is finally destroyed.[12] In 2003, New Line pitted Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhees against Freddy Krueger. The film, Freddy vs. Jason, explains that Freddy Krueger has grown weak as people in Springwood, his home, have suppressed their fear of him. Freddy, who is impersonating Pamela Voorhees, the mother of Jason Voorhees, sends Jason (Ken Kirzinger) to Springwood to cause panic and fear. Jason accomplishes this, but refuses to stop killing. A battle ensues in both the dream world and Crystal Lake between the two villains. The winner is left ambiguous, as Jason surfaces from the lake holding Freddy's severed head, which winks and laughs.[13]

text: In 2010, a remake of the original Nightmare on Elm Street was released. Here, Freddy (Jackie Earle Haley) stalks the dreams of Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara) and her friends as they discover that they all share a common link from their childhood; they were all physically and sexually abused by Freddy before he was murdered by their vengeful parents. Now a supernatural force in their dreams, Freddy kills off the children that alerted the parents about his transgressions. Freddy slowly works his way to Nancy, his favorite of the children, and manipulates her into going without sleep long enough that her body falls into a coma, resulting in permanent sleep and life with Freddy forever. Nancy is awakened when her friend Quentin (Kyle Gallner) injects adrenaline into her and pulls Freddy out of the dreamworld, where she and Quentin kill him and burn the remains of his body.[14]

text: Development[edit]

text: The basis for the original Nightmare on Elm Street has been said to have been inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the LA Times in the 1970s on a group of Khmer refugees, who, after fleeing to America from the Khmer Rouge Genocide in Cambodia, were suffering disturbing nightmares after which they refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon "Asian Death Syndrome". The condition itself afflicted only men between the ages of 19-57 and is believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome and/or Brugada syndrome.[15] The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to "jump off" from, but a synthesizer riff from the Elm Street soundtrack as well.[16] It has also been stated that he drew some inspiration after studying eastern religions.[17]

text: Initially, Fred Krueger was intended to be a child molester, but Craven eventually decided to characterize him as a child murderer to avoid being accused of exploiting a spate of highly publicized child molestation cases that occurred in California around the time of production of the film.[18] By Craven's account, his own adolescent experiences led to the naming of Fred Krueger. He had been bullied at school by a child named Fred Krueger, and named his villain accordingly.[18] The colored sweater he chose for his villain was based on the DC Comics character Plastic Man, and Craven chose to make Krueger's sweater colors that of red and green, after reading an article in Scientific American in 1982 that said the two most clashing colors to the human retina were this particular combination.[19]

text: On January 29, 2008, Variety reported that Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company would be rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with a remake of the original 1984 film.[20] To provide a freshness to the character, producer Brad Fuller explained that they were abandoning the things that made the character less scary—Freddy would not be "cracking jokes" as had become a staple of his character in later sequels—and focus more on trying to craft a "horrifying movie".[21] There was not agreement among the original crew as to whether it would be a good idea to remake the film. Craven expressed his displeasure, primarily because the filmmakers chose not to have him as a consultant to the film, unlike with the 2009 remake The Last House on the Left where he "shepherd[ed] it towards production".[22] In contrast, Robert Englund felt it was time for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be remade. Englund liked the idea of being able to "exploit the dreamscape" with CGI and other technologies that did not exist when Craven was making the original Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984.[23]

text: Box office[edit]

text: When comparing A Nightmare on Elm Street with the other top-grossing horror franchises—Child's Play, Friday the 13th, Halloween, the Hannibal Lecter series, Psycho, Saw, Scream, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre—and adjusting for the 2010 inflation,[24] A Nightmare on Elm Street is the second highest grossing horror franchise, in the United States, at approximately $583.4 million.[2] The series is topped by Friday the 13th at $671.5 million.[25] Closely following A Nightmare on Elm Street is the Hannibal Lecter series with $579.4 million,[26] then Halloween with $547.8 million,[27] Saw with $404.5 million,[28] Scream with $398.3 million,[29] Psycho with $370.3 million,[30] The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with $314.6 million,[31] and the Child's Play film series rounding out the list with approximately $199.7 million.[32]

text:
Film
Release date (US)
Budget
Box office revenue
Reference

United States
Foreign
Worldwide

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
November 9, 1984 (1984-11-09)
$1,800,000[33]
$25,504,513
N/A
$25,504,513
[34]

2. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
November 1, 1985 (1985-11-01)
$3,000,000[35]
$29,999,213
N/A
$29,999,213
[36]

3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
February 27, 1987 (1987-02-27)
$5,000,000[37]
$44,793,222
N/A
$44,793,222
[38]

4. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
August 19, 1988 (1988-08-19)
$13,000,000[39]
$49,369,899
N/A
$49,369,899
[40]

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
August 11, 1989 (1989-08-11)
$6,000,000[41]
$22,168,359
N/A
$22,168,359
[42]

6. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
September 13, 1991 (1991-09-13)
$5,000,000[43]
$34,872,033
N/A
$34,872,033
[44]

7. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
October 14, 1994 (1994-10-14)
$8,000,000[45]
$18,090,181
$1,631,560
$19,721,741
[46]

8. Freddy vs. Jason
August 15, 2003 (2003-08-15)
$25,000,000[47]
$82,622,655
$32,286,175
$114,908,830
[48]

9. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
April 30, 2010 (2010-04-30)
$35,000,000[49]
$63,075,011
$52,589,026
$115,664,037
[50]

Total
$101,800,000
$370,495,086
$86,506,761
$457,001,847

text: The franchise is rated M in New Zealand for violence, offensive language and horror.

text: Documentary[edit]

text: On May 4, 2010, a 4-hour documentary chronicling the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise was released. The documentary includes interviews with the cast and crew for all of the Nightmare films.[51] In a wish to utilize individuals who contributed to the franchise, the makers of the documentary procured poster artist Matthew Joseph Peak to create the artwork for the release poster and DVD cover, and composer Charles Bernstein for the film's main title music.[52][53] As part of a special offering, the filmmakers gave away a limited edition poster to anyone that ordered the documentary from the official website. Those same individuals would also be entered into a drawing to win one of three 27" × 40" teaser posters signed by dozens of people who worked on the films and were interviewed in the documentary.[54] Michael Gingold of Fangoria felt the filmmakers did an amazing job bringing together all of the behind-the-scenes footage, picture, never-before-seen deleted scenes, FX scenes, and other "treasures". Gingold noted that even die-hard fans would find something new.[55] Bloody Disgusting's Ryan Daley praised the film for being educational, and looking at the legacy of both A Nightmare on Elm Street and New Line Cinema. Daley believed that there was no better horror documentary.[56] Nick Hyman of Under the Radar noted that Never Sleep Again, unlike the earlier His Name Was Jason documentary, provided a more candid interview process with the people involved. Hyman pointed out that the best part of the documentary is the look at New Line's success through the Elm Street franchise, and the financial struggles and deadlines that plagued the film series.[57]

text: Television[edit]

text: Beginning on October 9, 1988, Freddy's Nightmares was an anthology series, in the vein of The Twilight Zone, which featured different horror stories each week. The show was hosted by Freddy Krueger, with Robert Englund reprising his role from the films. Freddy played more of a background character, but occasionally showed up to influence the plot of particular episodes. The series ran for two seasons and a total of 44 episodes, ending March 10, 1990.[58] Although most of the episodes did not feature Freddy taking a major role in the plot, the pilot episode "No More Mr. Nice Guy" depicts the events of Krueger's trial, and his subsequent death at the hands of the parents of Elm Street after his acquittal. Directed by Tobe Hooper, creator of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Freddy's acquittal is based on the arresting officer, Lt. Tim Blocker, not reading him his Miranda rights, which is different from the original Nightmare that stated he was acquitted because someone forgot to sign a search warrant. After the town's parents burn Freddy to death he returns to haunt Blocker in his dreams. Freddy gets his revenge when Blocker is put to sleep at the dentist's office, and Freddy shows up and kills him.[59]

text: Literature[edit]

text: Since his inception in 1984, Freddy Krueger has appeared in multiple works of literature, including countless behind-the-scenes compilations, short stories, novels (including novelizations) and comics.

text: Novels[edit]

text: Between 1987 and 2003, Freddy Krueger appeared in the novelization of each of the films. The first five films were adapted by St. Martin's Press. Those adaptations follow the films closely, with minor changes to specific details that occurred in the film. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 does not follow the respective film, instead utilizing the same plot elements to tell a different story altogether. This novel also provides a different backstory for Freddy.[60][61] In 1992, Abdo & Daughters Publishing Company released adaptations of their own for the first six films. Written by Bob Italia, each was under one hundred pages and followed the films' plot.[62][63][64][65][66][67] The final two books, Wes Craven's New Nightmare and Freddy vs. Jason, were published by Tor Books and Black Flame. These novels also followed the films closely, with the adaptation of Freddy vs. Jason containing a different ending than the movie.[68][69]

text: Comic books[edit]

text: The popularity of the film series also led to the creation of several comic book series published by companies such as Marvel Comics, Innovation Comics, Trident Comics, Avatar Press and, most recently, WildStorm Comics. Writers such as Steve Gerber, Andy Mangels, Chuck Dixon and Brian Pulido have all contributed stories to the various series. There have been crossovers with other franchises, such as Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors.

text: Merchandise[edit]

text: In February 2010, Funko released a Freddy Bobblehead.[70] Also in 2010, NECA released a 10" puppet of Freddy Krueger from Phillip's death scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,[71] a metal replica of his glove, and two action figures: Freddy before he was burned and the other being him after the burning, including two interchangeable heads.[72]

text: Video games[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: A Nightmare on Elm Street is the shared name of two unrelated video games released in 1989, both loosely based on the series. From among those films, Dream Warriors and The Dream Master were particular influences on the gameplay of each.

text: LJN (programmed by Rare) released one title for the NES, and Monarch Software the other for the Commodore 64 and IBM PC compatibles.

text: Up to four players control characters who jump and punch their way through Elm Street locations as they collect the bones of Freddy Krueger to place them in a furnace and end his reign of terror. Each character can withstand only four hits from opponents before losing a life.

text: An on-screen meter slowly diminishes (more quickly when sustaining damage), representing how close a particular character is to falling asleep. Obtaining cups of coffee within the game restores characters' sleep bar. When any character's sleep bar empties, all the players are transported to the dream world, where enemies take on new appearances and are more difficult to defeat. In the dream world, coffee cups are replaced with radios, which return the characters to the normal world and difficulty.

text: Also, Dream Warrior icons appear that, once collected by any player, permit transformation into one of three "Dream Warriors". Each warrior has a projectile attack and improved movement: ninja (throwing stars, jump kick), acrobat (javelins, somersault), and magician (fireballs, hovering). These icons appear only in the normal world, and can be used only in the dream. If a character remains asleep too long, the film's theme song plays and a combative encounter with Freddy ensues.

text: Upon collecting all the bones in a level, the player is automatically put in the dream world and battles Freddy, who takes on a special form similar to those presented in the films. The final level is set at Elm Street High School as players navigate to the boiler room to burn Freddy's bones. Here one final battle with Freddy Krueger occurs.

text: The game can utilize the NES Four Score or NES Satellite accessories to enable four-player gameplay.

text: The game produced by Monarch Software differs greatly from that for the NES. Developed by Westwood Associates, its role-playing elements and overhead viewpoint bear some similarity to Gauntlet. The player chooses to play as either Kincaid, Kristen, Will, Nancy, or Taryn on a quest to save Joey and defeat Freddy.

text: The player must locate keys to open doors. Weapons and items are scattered about the levels or can be purchased from vending machines. Enemies are varied, from skeletons to wheelchairs. Freddy assumes the role of "boss monster" and transforms into a snake, much like his appearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.