Looking back: man on the moon

Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin stands near the leg of the lunar module on the Moon, July 1969. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

26 May 1961

President Kennedy asks for moon mission funding. He tells Congress that an estimated $7,000m to $9,000m would be needed to meet Russia’s challenge in outer space.

16 May 1963

Longest spaceflight orbits around Earth – Major Gordon Cooper is the first American astronaut to take a nap in space and the last one to take part in a solo orbital mission.

Apollo 16 is launched from Kennedy Space Center. Photograph: Stocktrek Images/Getty Images/Stocktrek Images

21 April 1965

Astronauts smuggle sandwich into orbit - officials say the stunt goes beyond minor clowning and could have disrupted scientific research.

28 January 1967

America’s first three Apollo astronauts killed when fire engulfs their cabin at the launchpad.

12 October 1968

Perfect takeoff for Apollo 7 – first mission to carry a crew into space.

31 December 1968

Earthrise over the moon picture captured by astronaut Bill Anders on Christmas Eve 1968. Apollo 8 – the mission that changed everything.

Earthrise over the moon made on 24 December 1968 December, from Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

21 July 1969

Man walks on the moon – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first men on the moon. ‘The Eagle has landed’: final minutes of Apollo 11 lunar module’s descent to the surface of the moon.

15 October 1969

Globetrotting Apollo wives talk moonshop – astronauts’ wives are perfectly able to take this public parade in their stride.

15 April 1970

Apollo 13 heads home after space ship suffers a mysterious explosion that puts the mission in jeopardy. Celebrating the unsung heroes of mission control.

Three of the four Apollo 13 flight directors applaud the successful splashdown of the command module Odyssey, 17 April 1970. Photograph: ullstein bild via Getty Images

13 December 1972

Running repairs on the moon – engineers at mission control in Houston work out a do-it-yourself repair routine for a broken mudguard on the Apollo 17 team’s lunar rover.

21 June 2009

Apollo ... the dream that fell to Earth: the Apollo moon missions were to herald a new dawn of space exploration but they marked not the beginning, but the end, of our space dreams.

10 July 2009

The moon walkers: 12 men who have visited another world. What did it take to become a member of the most exclusive club in human history?

16 December 2012

Apollo: how the moon missions changed the world for ever.

John Young salutes the US flag at the Descartes landing site on the moon, April 1972. Photograph: Charles M. Duke Jr./AP

5 October 2015

Nasa’s Apollo missions – in pictures. One small click: thousands of Apollo astronaut photos have been shared online, from first steps on the moon to mundane tasks.

31 March 2016

Eugene Cernan – The last man on the moon on crash-landings, losing his wife and watching an Earthrise.