BTW, Socrates!
Few people know this. NASA kept
trying to send spacecraft to the Moon
during the years 1959 and 1960,
to try and orbit it.
[I hope either Carl or JimO would confirm]
None of the missions succeeded.

Pioneer-4 [March, 1959] was Von Braun's
attempt to take the sting out of the Luna-1's
achievements.
Unfortunately, Von Braun's Juno rocket,
topped off with a cluster of solid-fuel "Baby Sergeants"
could only send a 13-Ib payload to escape-velocity.
[about the weight of a large hardback dictionary]
So Pioneer 4 couldn't possibly orbit the moon.
In addition, it would have been miraculous targeting
accuracy by NASA for it to have hit the moon.

Other attempted NASA moon missions after
Pioneer-4, and before the first Ranger launch in August, 1961,
were forced to rely on a unique booster combination.
ATLAS-ABLE.
NASA was denied access to AGENA upperstages in the years
1959-1960, because?..
Because the CIA's space project, "Project Corona",
used all available AGENA's for upperstages as well as 'civilian' THOR rockets to attempt to launch their 1,800Ib "Discoverer" spy satellites
during those years.