Who are the 12 astronauts who have set foot on the Moon so far?

After the one-astronaut Mercury and two-astronaut Gemini space expedition programs, NASA launched the three-astronaut Apollo space expedition program. The program, the preparations of which began during President Eisenhower's term, turned into a manned mission to the Moon in the early 1960s under President Kennedy. On December 21, 1968, the first manned mission to the Moon took place with the Apollo 8 space expedition. Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders became the first people to both make the first trip to the Moon and the first people to leave the Earth's low orbit and enter the orbit of another celestial body (the Moon). The Apollo 8 crew, who reached the Moon in 68 hours, successfully returned to Earth orbit after making 10 revolutions around the Moon for 21 hours in lunar orbit.

Between December 21, 1968, and December 19, 1972, 24 astronauts traveled to the Moon in 9 missions organized by NASA to the Moon. These 24 astronauts are also the 24 who have traveled beyond Earth's low orbit to date. Of these six missions to land humans on the Moon, one astronaut stayed in the spacecraft, while the other two astronauts landed on the Moon with modules and walked on the Moon. When the first man set foot on the moon, the calendars on Earth were showing July 20, 1969. The last time a human stood on the Moon was December 13, 1972.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon on July 20, 1969, with the Apollo 11 expedition, saying, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". Buzz Aldrin, who emerged from the Eagle Module 19 minutes after that, became the second human to set foot on the Moon. The Eagle module, which Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon from the lunar orbiting spacecraft, remained on the lunar surface for 21 hours and 36 minutes. The two astronauts spent 2 hours and 31 minutes of this walking on the lunar surface, mostly recording photographs and images.

Aldrin, a religious Presbyterian, was also the first person to perform a religious service on the Moon, by performing a communion in an invisible corner, not in front of the camera, as it would be against secularism. The command module carrying the three astronauts returned to Earth on July 24.

Charles Conrad and Alan Bean

Conrad, one of the Apollo 12 crew members who reached the Moon in November 1969, became the third man to walk on the Moon, while his friend Bean became the fourth man to set foot on the Moon. Conrad, when he set foot on the Moon, perhaps did not utter a phrase as grandiose as Neil Armstrong, with the relief that it was no longer a historical event: "Whoopee! It may have been a small step for Neil, but it was too big for me.” Conrad and Bean spent a total of 7 hours and 45 minutes on the lunar surface during their two walks leaving the module.

Edgar Mitchell and Alan Shepard

Edgar Mitchell, who reached the Moon in February 1971 with the Apollo 14 expedition, conducted seismology experiments during his Moon walk with astronaut Alan Shepard.

James Irwin and David Scott

Lunar module pilot James Irwin of the Apollo 15 crew landed on the Moon on August 1, 1971. Irwin, who resigned from NASA in 1972 after returning from the Moon, lived in Colorado Springs until 1991 at the head of the religious group he founded. David Scott, the seventh man to walk on the moon, lived in Los Angeles.

Charles Duke and John Young

They set foot on the Moon on April 21, 1972, with the Apollo 16 expedition.

While Mattingly waited inside Apollo 16, Young and Duke landed on the Moon. Duke, who was 36 that day, became the 10th and youngest person to set foot on the Moon. Currently, 86, Duke lives in Texas with a devout Evangelical group.

John Young, the 9th astronaut to set foot on the Moon, is the only astronaut in NASA history to go to space with both the Gemini and Apollo programs and the shuttles that started in the 1980s. He also became the first astronaut to fly into space 6 times. He assumed command of the first shuttle expedition in 1981. He died of pneumonia at his home in Houston in 2018 at the age of 87.

Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan

The duo, who set foot on the Moon in December 1972 with the Apollo 17 expedition, are still the last two people to set foot on the Moon. Apollo 17 expedition, the longest time spent on the Moon, record for the longest time walking on the Moon (22 hours 4 minutes in total), returning with the largest sample load (110.5 kg), longest staying in lunar orbit (6 days 4 hours), broke many records, such as the most laps (75) around the Moon.

Cernan, who was the first to leave the module, became the 11th person to set foot on the Moon, and Schmitt, who came out of the module after that, became the last and 12th person to set foot on the Moon. Geologist Harrison Schmitt is also the first scientist to set foot on the Moon. The other 11 people who set foot on the moon were astronauts who had received military pilot training. After retiring from NASA in 1975, Schmitt entered politics and was elected Senator for New Mexico in 1976. After 6 years as a senator, he became a professor at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the NASA advisory board.

Eugene Cernan, the last man on the Moon because he boarded the module after Schmitt after the third and final Moonwalk, wrote the initials of his only child on the lunar surface before boarding the lunar module to return. Another interesting detail was that Cernan, the last man on the Moon, was a Purdue University graduate, just like Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon. Gene Cernan, who worked in the private sector after retiring from NASA in 1976, died in Texas in 2017 at the age of 82.