NASA’s Surveyor 1, the first of seven robotic spacecraft sent to the moon to prepare for Apollo 11, touched down on the lunar surface on June 2, 1966. The cover of our June 13 edition featured a photo of a lunar “footprint” made by one of Surveyor’s legs after it retracted. “Necessity for Apollo astronauts to hover in the lunar excursion module and carefully select landing sites to avoid boulders and other surface irregularities is emerging as a prime finding in early analysis of the pictures,” Aviation Week’s Harold D. Watkins reported in an accompanying article. Over a period of about 30 days, Surveyor 1 transmitted more than 11,000 photographs as well as data on the moon's surface and temperature. Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed three years later, on July 20, 1969. | 
