NASA put 12 men on the lunar surface more than half a century ago, beginning with Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. The two became the first humans to explore another world when their lander, bearing the patriotic name Eagle, settled onto the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969.

Apollo Lunar Module

The Apollo lunar module stood a little taller than a giraffe and looked just as ungainly. It had two sections: a lower descent stage with four legs and an upper stage that housed the crew. The descent stage got the moonwalkers to the lunar surface and remained behind as the men blasted back into lunar orbit.

All six descent stages will be there for perpetuity, clumped around the equator on the moon’s near side. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and other countries’ satellites around the moon have photographed them.

Artemis Program

For NASA’s new Artemis program, private businesses are handling lunar lander details and operations. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are scrambling to get their landers ready for a docking test in low-Earth orbit with a NASA crew capsule next year.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.