Panel text content. Racing to the moon – unmanned missions. It wasn’t until the development of rocket engines after the Second World War that lunar travel became a real possibility. The Soviets and the Americans sent the first unmanned rockets to the moon in the 1950s. A space race began between the two superpowers. These early missions included fly-bys, probes that crashed into the moon’s surface and even automated lunar landers and rovers. Some of these missions returned with lunar rocks and dust. A lot of what we know about the moon today came from these missions.

Panel text content. A giant leap – the Apollo 11 mission. In July 1969, the first humans walked on the moon. An astonished world watched on television - a seemingly impossible dream had become a reality. The incredible achievement of the United States of America’s Apollo 11 mission was a giant leap for science and space exploration. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts came home with samples of moon dust and rocks and showed the world the first photos of the lunar surface. The astronauts also left behind scientific devices, to help us further understand the moon. NASA is still the only organisation to successfully send astronauts to the moon and back. Four photographs taken from the moon, clockwise from top left [disambiguation needed] A yellow robot like moon rover with a three panel solar power array unfolded for charging. A moon buggy operated by a fully suited astronaut travels across a sand-dune like surface. Looking down from a steel platform, presumably a step of the Apollo 11 lunar lander, towards a deep boot print in the surface of the moon.