Twelve people have walked on the Moon. Four of them are still living as of 2020 All crewed lunar landings took place between July 1969 and December 1972 as part of the Apollo program. Most astronauts at that time came from the military services and were considered to be on active duty during their NASA service; the few exceptions were considered civilian NASA astronauts.
and Fred Haise were scheduled to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 13 mission, but the lunar landing was aborted following a major malfunction en route to the Moon. Haise was again scheduled to walk on the Moon as commander of Apollo 19, but Apollo 18 and Apollo 19 were canceled on September 2, 1970. NASA announced in July 2019 plans for another man and the first woman to walk on the Moon during Artemis 3 in 2024.
Lunar activities
Armstrong descended the lunar module ladder and spoke his famous epigram, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He then went to work on collecting the contingency sample, which was a scoop of the lunar surface collected early in the mission in case there was an emergency. Armstrong took the TV camera off the lunar module and mounted it to a tripod. After that, Aldrin descended the ladder to join Armstrong. Aldrin egressed to the surface about nine minutes after Armstrong. They had some trouble planting the American flag into the lunar soil, but were able to secure it into the surface. Aldrin positioned himself in front of a video camera and began experimenting with different locomotion techniques on the surface. During these experiments, Armstrong and Aldrin received a phone call from President Nixon, congratulating them for the successful landing. Aldrin then set to work documenting the condition of the spacecraft to ensure it was in proper condition for their upcoming launch. After setting up a couple of experiments with Armstrong, Aldrin went to work hammering a tube into the lunar surface to obtain a core sample. Aldrin's EVA ended when they loaded the lunar samples into the spacecraft and tossed out unneeded items, just before sealing the hatch. Armstrong performed the majority of the photography on the surface, which is why there are only five photos of him on the Moon. Soon after piloting the LM Falcon to a landing at Hadley Rille, Scott accomplished the only stand-up EVA through the lander's top hatch, using it as a high place from which to refine the geology traverses he and Irwin would undertake during the following days. Scott became the first to drive a vehicle on the Moon as he drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle, more than doubling Apollo 14's EVA time. After the final traverse, back outside the LM, Scott performed a demonstration of Galileo's theory that all objects fall at the same rate in vacuum by dropping a hammer and a feather for the television camera. Irwin came onto the lunar surface soon after his commander, Scott. As the LRV's first passenger, he had an often rough ride as Scott swerved to avoid craters. It was Irwin who, during the second EVA, first spotted the Genesis Rock and aided Scott in collecting this bit of the early lunar crust. A man of deep Christian religious faith, Irwin quoted from Psalms while on the lunar surface and later became an evangelist.
