March 24th: Ranger 9 Crashed Into The Moon
What Happened On March 24th? Just three short years after the Earth was orbited for the first time, a grainy black and white image flickered across television screens around the world on March 24th, 1965. The image wasn't a majestic view of the lunar surface, but a close-up photo of rugged lunar terrain, moments before a crash landing. This was the finale of NASA's Ranger 9 mission, a controlled crash designed to gather high-resolution images of the Moon's surface through a feat of television, so that spectators around the world could follow virtually! The Ranger program, often overshadowed by the…