Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon marked the pinnacle of achievement of the human spaceflight effort through the sixties. But Apollo was only the last step in a series of spaceflight programs, beginning with the single-seat Mercury, folowed by the Gemini program where Americans learned to live in orbit, and culminating with Apollo 17, the last human mission to the moon.

Since Apollo 17, human spaceflight has continued to achieve new milestones, provide valuable research, and even heal some of the ties severed by the Space Race.