How many people have walked on the Moon?

The first two

Eagle touched down at 20:17 UT on July 20, 1969, and Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface at 10:56 p.m. EDT on July 20 (02:56 UT on July 21). NASA's anniversary account says the landing came with less than 30 seconds of fuel remaining. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the Moon, and Armstrong's walk lasted 2 hours, 31 minutes. Later crews stayed longer, and the pairs on the last three missions drove a lunar rover. The numbers behind each landing are on Apollo missions by the numbers.

The oldest and the last

NASA records that Alan Shepard flew Apollo 14 as the oldest person to walk on the Moon, at 47. Apollo 17's crew left the surface in December 1972, and nobody has returned since.

Why Apollo ended

The program stopped before it had to. NASA's history pages say Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled because of budget limits, so Apollo 17 became the last landing. Project Apollo cost $25.4 billion, according to NASA's history office.

The twelve

The twelve people who have walked on the Moon
Name	Mission	Landed	Role	Landing site	Time outside, both crew
Neil Armstrong	Apollo 11	July 20, 1969	Commander	Mare Tranquilitatis	2.53 h
Buzz Aldrin	Apollo 11	July 20, 1969	Lunar module pilot	Mare Tranquilitatis	2.53 h
Pete Conrad	Apollo 12	November 19, 1969	Commander	Oceanus Procellarum	7.75 h
Alan Bean	Apollo 12	November 19, 1969	Lunar module pilot	Oceanus Procellarum	7.75 h
Alan Shepard	Apollo 14	February 5, 1971	Commander	Fra Mauro	9.38 h
Edgar Mitchell	Apollo 14	February 5, 1971	Lunar module pilot	Fra Mauro	9.38 h
David Scott	Apollo 15	July 30, 1971	Commander	Hadley Rille	19.13 h
James Irwin	Apollo 15	July 30, 1971	Lunar module pilot	Hadley Rille	19.13 h
John Young	Apollo 16	April 20, 1972	Commander	Descartes	20.23 h
Charles Duke	Apollo 16	April 20, 1972	Lunar module pilot	Descartes	20.23 h
Eugene Cernan	Apollo 17	December 11, 1972	Commander	Taurus-Littrow	22.07 h
Harrison Schmitt	Apollo 17	December 11, 1972	Lunar module pilot	Taurus-Littrow	22.07 h

The last column is the time both astronauts spent on the surface during all their moonwalks on that mission, not each person's own time.

The ones who went and didn't walk

12 more people traveled to the Moon on Apollo without setting foot on it: Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders, Thomas P. Stafford, Michael Collins, Richard F. Gordon Jr., Jack Swigert, Fred Haise, Stuart Roosa, Alfred Worden, Ken Mattingly and Ronald Evans. They flew the Apollo 8, 10 and 13 missions or stayed in orbit in the command module while two crewmates landed. Apollo 13's crew was meant to land and couldn't after an oxygen tank failed, so they flew around the Moon to get home.

Back for a second trip

3 Apollo astronauts flew to the Moon twice: James Lovell (Apollo 8 and Apollo 13), John Young (Apollo 10 and Apollo 16) and Eugene Cernan (Apollo 10 and Apollo 17).

Since Apollo

Nobody has walked on the Moon since Apollo 17 left the surface in December 1972. Artemis II carried Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen around the Moon between 1 and 10 April 2026. They didn't land, so they're counted among the people who have traveled to the Moon, not among those who have walked on it.

Moments from the surface

Not every moonwalk was all work. Apollo 12's lunar module landed 155 meters from Surveyor 3, a robot lander that had come before. Apollo 14 landed at Fra Mauro on February 5, 1971. NASA's Apollo 14 account says Alan Shepard hit golf balls with a six iron attached to a sample tool. On Apollo 15, David Scott dropped a geological hammer and a feather and they landed together, which tested the idea that objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum. Apollo 17's Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt, the first geologist to walk on the Moon, spent the last three days on the surface.

Artemis II

The record for the greatest distance people have traveled from Earth changed in 2026. Artemis II lifted off on April 1, 2026. NASA says the crew flew about 4,067 miles above the lunar surface and reached 252,756 miles from Earth, topping Apollo 13's 248,655 miles. They didn't land, so they count among those who've traveled to the Moon but not among those who've walked on it. The mission is in the Moon mission count.

Walking is harder than it looks

Moon gravity is much weaker than Earth's, which is why astronauts moved in long, loping hops. The weight calculator shows what that does to your own weight. The schedule changed with it. The time outside in the table above grew from 2.53 hours on Apollo 11 to 22.07 hours on Apollo 17.

Driving across the Moon

From Apollo 15 on, the walkers could ride. The Lunar Roving Vehicle was first used on July 31, 1971, and NASA says the Apollo 15 crew covered 17.5 miles using it. Apollo 17 followed on December 7, 1972, with the first night launch of an American crewed flight, and its crew reached Taurus-Littrow four days later.

Still twelve

The group has stayed at 12 for more than half a century. Artemis II, the first crewed flight of its program, flew around the Moon without landing. The distances and records from that flight are in the Moon mission count.

The pairs, mission by mission

The pairs who walked were, by mission, Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 12: Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, Apollo 14: Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 15: David Scott and James Irwin, Apollo 16: John Young and Charles Duke and Apollo 17: Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. In every case the commander went down with the lunar module pilot, and the command module pilot stayed in orbit.

The next landing

No landing crew has flown since Apollo 17, and Artemis II didn't land. A crewed flight around the Moon came first in both programs: Apollo 8 in 1968 and Artemis II in 2026. Apollo's first landing followed Apollo 8 by seven months.

A short window

All twelve walkers went in a window of 3 years and 4 months, from the first landing on July 20, 1969 to the last on December 11, 1972. The longest time outside on a single mission was 22.07 hours, on Apollo 17, shared by two people.

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