Though it wasn't called Pioneer 0 until much later and most folks don't
even know about it, due to the efforts to downplay its existence, it
was 50 years ago on August 17, 1958 that the USAF launched our
species first attempt to reach the Moon with a lunar probe.

Had all gone well, Pioneer 0 would have reached the Moon almost
3 days later and gone into a wide orbit about our satellite, where it
would have spent 2 weeks taking photos and science data. Sadly,
the probe was lost 77 seconds into the flight when the first stage
of the Thor-Able booster apparently ruptured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_0

But almost amazingly, just one decade later, not only had many
probes successfully made it to the Moon, but three humans
would find themselves circling that world aboard Apollo 8,
with the first group of 12 astronauts landing and walking
on the Moon less than one year later.