In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States and Soviet Union mounted dozens of missions to the Moon, orbiting it, crashing into it and landing softly on it. They even went so far as to return samples from it, either with a little help from some humans on hand or, in the Soviet case, without. Subsequently, neither spacefaring power touched the place for almost 20 years. In part this is because their race, such as it was, had ended. It was also because planetary scientists were far more interested in exploring other places. The Moon had a distinct been-there-done-that aura.
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