1609 Lippershey invented the telescope.
1610 Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made the first telescopic observation of the moon.
1610 Thomas Harriot and Galilei drew first telescopic representation of moon.
1645 Michael Florent van Langren made first map of moon.
1647 Johannes Hevelius published first treatise devoted to the moon.
1651 Giovanni Battista Riccioli named craters after philosophers and astronomers.
1753 Roger Joseph Boscovich proved the moon has no atmosphere.
1824 Franz von Gruithuisen thought craters were formed by meteor strikes.
1920 Robert Goddard suggested sending rockets to the moon.
1959 Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 reached the moon, impacting near the crater Autolycus.
1961 President John F. Kennedy proposed a manned lunar program.
1964 Ranger 7 produced the fist close-up TV pictures of the lunar surface.
1966 Luna 9 made the first soft landing on the moon.
1967 Lunar Orbiter missions completed photographic mapping of the moon.
1968 Apollo 8 made the first manned flight to the moon, circling it 10 times before returning to Earth.
1969 Apollo 11 mission made the first landing on the moon and returned samples.
1972 Apollo 17 made the last manned landing of the Apollo Program.
1976 Soviet Luna 24 returned the last sample of the moon.
AC's remark: Nearly no lunar exploration activities from 1977 - 1993, probably because of the close of "cold war" between USA & Russia.
1990 Galileo spacecraft obtained multispectral images of the western limb and part of the far side of the moon.
1994 Clementine mission conducted multispectral mapping of the moon.
1998 Lunar Prospector launched.
2004 NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration unveiled
2007 Japanese SELENE (Kaguya) launched.
2007 Chinese Chang’e-1 launched.
2008 Indian Chandrayaan 1 launched.
2009 NASA’s LRO/LCROSS launched (THis is added by AC)
發表於 2009-10-8 12:37:56