What is the best NASA mission of all time?

Crewed flights compete with robots that outlived their own engineers. Distance, discovery and difficulty pull the answer three ways.

1. 1
   Apollo 8

   The first crewed flight to leave Earth orbit, which circled the Moon at Christmas 1968.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Viking 1

   Made the first successful landing on Mars in 1976 and kept transmitting for six years.
   780pts
3. 3
   Galileo

   Orbited Jupiter for eight years and found evidence of an ocean under the ice of Europa.
   738pts
4. 4
   James Webb Space Telescope

   Unfolded its mirror a million miles from Earth in 2022 and now sees the earliest galaxies.
   639pts
5. 5
   Apollo 11

   The first crewed landing on another world, in July 1969.
   511pts
6. 6
   Apollo 13

   A failed landing that became the agency's most-studied rescue.
   511pts
7. 7
   Hubble Space Telescope

   Launched in 1990 with a flawed mirror, repaired in orbit, and still returning science more than thirty years on.
   511pts
8. 8
   Mercury-Atlas 6

   John Glenn's 1962 flight, the first time an American orbited the Earth.
   443pts
9. 9
   Voyager

   Two probes launched in 1977 that toured the outer planets and are now the only human objects in interstellar space.
   443pts
10. 10
    Artemis II

    Sent four astronauts around the Moon in April 2026, the first crewed flight beyond Earth orbit since Apollo.
    365pts
11. 11
    Curiosity

    Landed in Gale Crater in 2012 using a rocket-powered sky crane and is still driving.
    365pts
12. 12
    New Horizons

    Flew past Pluto in 2015 after nine years in transit, turning a smudge into a mapped world.
    275pts
13. 13
    Perseverance

    Cached samples for a future return to Earth and flew the first aircraft on another planet.
    170pts
14. 14
    The Space Shuttle Programme

    135 flights that built the International Space Station and launched and repaired Hubble.
    170pts
15. 15
    Cassini-Huygens

    Orbited Saturn for thirteen years, landed a probe on Titan, and ended by flying into the planet.
    46pts