https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_1 The US series of surveyor probes landed on the moon on the first try. I think

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_1 The US series of surveyor probes landed on the moon on the first try. I think it's reasonable to argue that these were the first US attempts to land on the moon - while the Ranger probes had seismometer capsules with retrorockets, they were meant to crash into the moon at 150 miles per hour and survive.