April 19th 1967 Surveyor Digs a Trench

Surveyor 3 landed on the moon and succeeded in digging a trench. It answered the final question as to whether or not the moon would be able support the weight of a lunar lander. The US had sent a series of spacecraft to the moon. NASA began with the Ranger series, the first six of which had failed. Next came the Orbitor series, which took exaustive pictures of the moon surface. The Surveyor series was the culimination of these efforts, helping to test whether the moon's surface could support a landing craft. Together, the missions provided the information needed to determine if and where a landing could take place.