Seven years before the Ranger 7 went up, Russia shocked the world by announcing the first satellite in space. Over the following years they also sent up the first man, woman, animal, and moon orbiter. But they had not landed on the moon. That, the U.S. decided, would be their honor. Landing on the moon was a degree of difficulty higher than just sending a person into space: not only did a takeoff and landing on earth have to be coordinated, but a flight to the moon, as well as landing and takeoff from there. At the time the plan was formed there were not even high-resolution photographs of the moon’s surface.

On this day, July 31, in 1964, the Ranger 7 space probe started transmitting the first close-up images of the moon . Over the 18 minutes it was active transmitted 4,308 images in total, at a resolution a thousand times greater than anything achievable through earth-bound telescopes.

The Ranger’s mission was to be a heroic one-way trip to impact the lunar surface. It had around 18 minutes from activation of its almost twenty camera to the final crash northwest of the Sea of Clouds to take as many pictures as it could. Each camera, to that end, was fitted with its own independent transmitter. The pictures showed the lunar surface not excessively dusty, making a human landing feasible. Another small step toward making the giant leap for mankind.