The moon which has been an object of human emotion, provides beautiful illumination in the night sky, and has watched human affairs of pleasure and sorrow on the earth and the moon where a rabbit is believed to be living under a cinnamon tree in a Korean folklore has to reveal its mystery-shrouded secrets kept within itself from time immemorial under the conquest of human wisdom and challenge.

As the yearing once man had toward the moon changes into a searching curiosity to look into the mystery of the moon, the U.S. had undertaken a human exploration into the space, first with unmanned satellite and then, with Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space program, finally paving way for man`s landing on the moon after 12 years of strenuous research and investment of tremendous resource. In the meantime, there was once a time particularly at a preparatory stage of the Apollo program when the Soviet Union appeared to be taking a lead in the space race, putting the U.S. on the second place.

Today the U.S., however, has established its position as the first space nation of the world by rallying its 200-odd university research teams, 20,000 industrial firms and 400,000-man technical staff. With man`s landing on the moon, a great feat and triumph of the human exploration, the scope of human activity will be extended into the space from the earth and a new space era will dawn on the whole mankind.

The Ministry of Communications issues a five different commemorative stamps to mark man`s epoch-making lunar landing, hoping that the human exploration of the moon contributes to the welfare of the whole mankind.