What was the first U.S. crewed space program to land people on the Moon?

The Apollo program was the first U.S. crewed space program to land people on the Moon.

NASA’s Apollo program began in the early 1960s and was created to achieve a crewed lunar landing and return astronauts safely to Earth. Apollo 11 fulfilled that goal on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the lunar module Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility. Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command module Columbia.

Apollo 11 was preceded by increasingly ambitious test missions. Apollo 8 became the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon in 1968, and Apollo 10 rehearsed the landing approach. After Apollo 11, five more Apollo missions landed astronauts: Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17. In total, 12 people walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972.

Project Mercury came first and developed America’s early crewed orbital capability. Gemini followed with practice in spacewalks, rendezvous and long-duration flight. Artemis is a later NASA program intended to return humans to the Moon; it is not the program that achieved the first lunar landing.