We have several boxes of NASA press releases from the height of the space age, for the simple reason that it’s easier to pack things away than to sort and dispose of junk. None of them are worth much, really, but they can be entertaining. Take this, for example, a summary of the Ranger 4 launch. Not mentioned here, but interesting: Ranger 4 was the first US spacecraft to reach another solar system body.
By crashing into the Moon, as intended. You can read more in a brief summary by Leonard David, or by skimming Wikipedia.
Entertaining bits gleaned from the Space Activities Summary:
- “Major Objectives Impact Moon”
- “Major Results Impacted Moon”
- Velocity is listed as “At lunar impact, 5,963 mph,” but can safely be assumed to be zero very shortly thereafter.
- The “rough-land survivable seismometer” likely didn’t, although the fact that it crashed on the far side means we’ll never know.
- There may have been “[n]o scientific data obtained,” but they did slam a space probe into the Moon, and before anyone else.