Honestly, it feels like forever since anyone actually touched the moon. We talk about it like it’s this distant, ancient myth, but there’s a very real, very short list of men who walked on the moon—only twelve of them. Just twelve. Think about that. More people have been inside a Starbucks at 8:00 AM on a Tuesday than have stood on the lunar surface.
It wasn't some huge crowd. It was a tiny group of guys in pressurized suits, hoping their math was right.
Between 1969 and 1972, the Apollo program sent six successful missions to the surface. It’s kinda wild that after Gene Cernan stepped back into the Lunar Module in December 1972, we just... stopped. We haven't been back since. Not with humans, anyway. But those twelve men? They saw things no one else has. They walked through gray dust that smelled like spent gunpowder and looked at an Earth that was the size of a marble.
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The First Pair: Apollo 11
Everyone knows Neil Armstrong. He’s the guy. The legend. On July 20, 1969, he became the first name on the list of men who walked on the moon. His boots hit the dust, he said the line about the "giant leap," and history was basically written right there.
But he wasn't alone.
Buzz Aldrin followed him out about twenty minutes later. People forget that Buzz was actually the first person to celebrate a religious ceremony on the moon; he took communion in the Lunar Module before stepping out. They spent about two and a half hours outside. Just two and a half hours to change the world forever. They didn't even go that far from the ship. If you look at the maps of their walk, they basically stayed in an area smaller than a football field.
They were pioneers, sure, but they were also just two guys trying not to die in a vacuum. Armstrong had to manually fly the "Eagle" away from a crater full of boulders at the last second. They almost ran out of fuel. It was that close.
Apollo 12 and the "Goofy" Landing
Next up were Pete Conrad and Alan Bean in November 1969.
Conrad was shorter than Armstrong. When he jumped off the ladder, he joked, "Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" He didn't care about the "stoic hero" vibe. He wanted to have fun.
Bean was an artist at heart. Later in life, he actually spent his time painting lunar scenes, sometimes mixing real moon dust into his paint. That’s a level of commitment you've gotta respect. They landed so accurately they were able to walk over to the Surveyor 3 probe, which had been sitting there for years. It was the first time humans visited a robot we’d sent earlier.
The Golf Pro and the Pilot: Apollo 14
After the near-disaster of Apollo 13 (which, remember, didn't land, so those guys aren't on this list), Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell headed up in 1971.
Shepard was the "old man" of the group. He was 47. He’d already been the first American in space a decade earlier, and he had to fight through a balance-destroying inner ear disease just to get back on flight status.
- He hit golf balls on the moon.
- Literally brought a six-iron head and some balls.
- One went "miles and miles and miles," or so he claimed.
Mitchell, on the other hand, was deeply interested in consciousness. He actually conducted private ESP experiments on the way to the moon. He later founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences. These weren't just "pilots"; they were complex, sometimes quirky individuals.
Driving on the Moon: Apollo 15 and 16
Apollo 15 changed the game. David Scott and James Irwin were the first to bring a car.
The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) meant they could actually explore. They covered miles. They went to the edge of Hadley Rille, a massive canyon, and looked down into the abyss. Scott famously dropped a hammer and a feather at the same time to prove Galileo right—they hit the ground simultaneously because there’s no air resistance.
Then came Apollo 16 in April 1972. John Young and Charles Duke.
Young was a NASA workhorse. He flew six times in his career, including the first Space Shuttle mission. On the moon, he was known for his "Grand Prix" run with the rover, pushing it to its limits. Duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon at age 36, left a photo of his family on the surface. It’s still there, probably bleached white by the sun by now.
The Final Footprints: Apollo 17
The list of men who walked on the moon ends with Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.
Schmitt was different. He wasn't a test pilot. He was a geologist. NASA finally sent a scientist to look at the rocks, and he found "orange soil," which was a huge deal for understanding the moon's volcanic history.
Cernan was the commander. He was the last human to stand on the surface. Before he left, he traced his daughter's initials, "TDC," into the dust. He thought we'd be back in a few years. He died in 2017, still waiting for that to happen.
Why Does This List Still Matter?
People love to argue that the moon landings were faked. Honestly? It would have been harder to fake it with 1960s technology than to just actually go there. We have 842 pounds of moon rocks. We have the tracks from the rovers visible from satellites.
The reality is that these twelve men represent a peak of human engineering that we’re only just now trying to climb again with the Artemis program.
What You Should Do Next
If you’re fascinated by this, don't just stop at a list. Here is how you can actually "touch" this history:
- Check out the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) images. NASA has a public gallery where you can zoom in on the Apollo landing sites. You can see the descent stages of the Lunar Modules and even the dark paths where the astronauts walked.
- Visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. If you're ever in DC, seeing the Apollo 11 command module in person is a trip. It’s smaller than you think.
- Read "A Man on the Moon" by Andrew Chaikin. It’s basically the definitive account of these twelve men and what they went through. It moves past the "NASA-speak" and gets into their heads.
The moon is still there, hanging in the sky. It's waiting for the 13th person. For now, we just have the stories of the twelve who paved the way.