The date, and what 1967 really was
No one landed on the Moon in 1967. The first crewed landing, Apollo 11, took place on 20 July 1969, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface. What 1967 produced was a set of milestones on the road to that landing, most of them uncrewed, and one terrible loss that slowed everything down.
The year began badly. The Apollo 1 fire on 27 January killed three astronauts, and in April the Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died on Soyuz 1. But in the background, uncrewed missions kept supplying the information and proof that the Moon programme needed.
Apollo 4: the first Saturn V
The central milestone of the year came on 9 November 1967, when the Apollo 4 test flight carried the first Saturn V off Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was an uncrewed flight of a rocket far larger than anything launched before; at liftoff its first stage burned with tremendous noise and force, and observers some distance away felt the effects physically.
The mission was ambitious in that it tested the whole three-stage vehicle in a single flight, rather than stage by stage. It also restarted the upper stage in orbit, which Apollo would later need to leave Earth orbit for the Moon, and it sent the command module back into the atmosphere at a speed close to that of a return from the Moon. That last point tested the heat shield under conditions that no earlier flight had matched. The mission was regarded as a success, and it eased fears that the Saturn V would have fundamental flaws. The broader significance is that the largest and riskiest piece of hardware worked on its first attempt.
Surveyors on the lunar surface
Alongside the rocket work, a series of American robotic spacecraft were examining the Moon directly. Surveyor spacecraft were soft landers designed to show that the surface was firm enough for a landing and to take pictures and soil measurements. Surveyor 1 had landed in June 1966. In 1967 Surveyor 3 landed in April, and its scoop dug into the soil. Surveyor 4 lost contact shortly before its planned landing in July. Surveyor 5 landed in September and Surveyor 6 in November, with Surveyor 6 later lifting briefly and landing again a short distance away in a demonstration of engine use on the surface. Taken together they suggested that the Moon was not covered in deep dust and that astronauts could land without sinking.
Lunar Orbiter surveys
The Lunar Orbiter spacecraft were mapping satellites. Lunar Orbiter 1 and 2 flew in 1966, and Lunar Orbiter 3, 4 and 5 followed in 1967. By the end of the series they had photographed large parts of the Moon, including the far side and a number of candidate landing areas. The images allowed planners to narrow down possible landing sites on the near side, away from steep slopes and large boulders. The third mission in particular provided close views of areas near the lunar equator which were later considered for landings.
Legal groundwork and the other side
In January 1967 the Outer Space Treaty, signed on the same day as the Apollo 1 fire, set the rule that the Moon and other celestial bodies could not be claimed by any nation. It made no difference to the engineering, but it provided a legal framework for what an American landing would mean.
The Soviet Union was also working toward the Moon, and its plans included both crewed flights around the Moon and a landing. The N1 rocket, its counterpart to the Saturn V, had not yet flown in 1967, and it would be unsuccessful in its first attempts in 1969. The Soviet side also had uncrewed programmes under way. The loss of Komarov, however, showed how far behind its schedule it was.
What the milestones added up to
By the end of 1967 the picture was mixed. The crewed Apollo spacecraft needed a redesign and had not flown a crew. But the Saturn V had flown, and the Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter results were encouraging. NASA could say that the main unknowns about the lunar surface and the launch vehicle had been addressed, while the main remaining problem was the spacecraft the astronauts would use.
That is how 1967 earns its place in the story. The landing of July 1969 was a result of work started long before, but the combination of uncrewed successes and a chastening disaster gave the programme the shape that it had when the astronauts finally flew.