The Apollo program was a series of human spaceflight missions undertaken by the United States of America using the Apollo spacecraft, conducted during the years 1961-1972. It was devoted to the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth within the decade of the 1960s. This goal was achieved with the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. The program continued into the early 1970s to carry out the initial hands-on scientific exploration of the Moon. The Apollo program was at least partly motivated by psycho-political considerations, in response to persistent perceptions of American inferiority in space technology vis-a-vis the Soviets, in the context of the Cold War. Apollo 1 - crew perished in fire during a test Aplollo 2 - test flight (unmanned) Aplollo 3 - test flight (unmanned) Apollo 4 - first test of the Saturn V booster (unmanned) Apollo 5 - test of the Saturn IB booster and Lunar Module (unmanned) Apollo 6 - test of the Saturn V booster (unmanned) Apollo 7 - first manned Apollo flight, first manned flight of the Saturn IB Apollo 8 - first manned flight around the Moon, first manned flight of the Saturn V Apollo 9 - first manned flight of the Lunar Module Apollo 10 - first manned flight of the Lunar Module around the Moon Apollo 11 - first manned landing on the Moon Apollo 12 - first precise manned landing on the Moon Apollo 13 - aborted landing after oxygen tank exploded en route Apollo 14 - Alan Shepard becomes the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the moon Apollo 15 - first mission with the Lunar Rover vehicle Apollo 16 - first landing in the lunar highlands Apollo 17 - final Apollo lunar mission The scheduled Apollo 18/19/20 missions were cancelled in light of the drastically shrinking NASA budget and the decision not to produce a second batch of Saturn Vs, these missions were cancelled to make funds available for the development of the Space Shuttle, and to make their Apollo spacecraft and Saturn V launch vehicles available to the Skylab program.

Then in 75 there was also the Apollo-Soyuz mission which was the first space mission conducted jointly by two nations.