Did neil armstrong land on moon

1) Twelve 12 American astronauts have walked on the moon.

Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin
Apollo 12: Pete Conrad & Alan Bean
Apollo 13: << failed to land on the moon >>
Apollo 14: Alan Shepard & Edgar (Ed) Mitchell
Apollo 15: David Scott & James Irwin
Apollo 16: John Young & Charles Duke
Apollo 17: Eugene (Gene) Cernan & Harrison Schmidt


2) Why haven't we been back?

a) American astronauts visited the moon on six occasions.

b) The moon race was an extension of the cold war. It was mostly about national prestige. We got there first and achieved our primary objective. There was some good science: surveys, measurements, sample collection. But it was mostly about being there first. Once we achieved our primary objective, there was no political will to go back. There still isn't. Perhaps, if we discover He3 or something else valuable, there will be.

c) I used to travel to Crested Butte, Colorado every year to ski. Because I don't go anymore, does it mean that I never went?


3) What about the Van Allen radiation belts? Wouldn't it have killed the astronauts?

The existence of the Van Allen radiation belts postulated in the 1940s by Nicholas Christofilos. Their existence was confirmed in *1958* by the Explorer I satellite launched by the USA.

The radiation in the Van Allen radiation belts is not particularly strong. You would have to hang out there for a week or so in order to get radiation sickness. And, because the radiation is not particularly strong, a few millimeters of metal is all that is required for protection. An object satellite shielded by 3 mm of aluminum will receive about 2500 rem (25 Sv) per *year*.

In practice, Apollo astronauts who travelled to the moon spent very little time in the belts and received a harmless dose. [6]. Nevertheless NASA deliberately timed Apollo launches, and used lunar transfer orbits that only skirted the edge of the belt over the equator to minimise the radiation. When the astronauts returned to Earth, their dosimeters showed that they had received about as much radiation as a couple of medical X-rays.