Elves

Humans are usually defined by the SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE so I'd say humans are the only ones who really care to bother going to the moon.

All my love, all my hate, and all my THIS

Humans want to go fucking nowhere.

The Apollo moon missions faced heavy resistance from the vast majority of us, and since then there's been nothing, no progress.

If we wanted to go anywhere we could be in Jupiter by now.

Elves because of magic.

These are fantasy humans

Where does this even come from? Elves are THE EARTH EMBODIED

>Humans want to go fucking nowhere.
Everest
North America
The Poles

Except every desert, every peak, every valley and every ocean. Coupla extraterrestrial bodies as well. We ain't wanna go nowhere, innit?

Why would the fantasy humans have traits real humans completely lack?

The Humans would

The Dwarves, while possessing the industrial capabilities, are crippled by their pride and hatred for standardization. Every Clan and company is busy perfecting their own designs and no doubt Dwarves would be the first ones in space but to create a rocket to go to the moon will be hampered.

The Elves have the knowledge to create the various components and create the needed industry but their desire for self mastery will keep them from doing so. They will learn everything about rocketry from both humans and Dwarves and then they will sit down and come up with their own standards and fill out their knowledge base to their own liking which can take time which is fine for them given their extended lifespans. They will no doubt have the most complete knowledge base and many theoretical models that could work but not actually be ready to actually build and test them out.

Humanity will have killed numerous pilots by this point, spent billions on various crashed and exploded test rockets and ultimately get to the moon within a few years give or take the industry/knowledge of the group able to pull it off

I DON'T SEE ANY ELF OR DWARF FLAGS ON THE MOON!

UH! UH! HUMANITY FUCK YEAH! OH FUCK YEAH!

That said, humanity will make ample use of the Dwarves engineering prowess and the Elves theoretical knowledge to help accomplish a large bulk of this and ultimately all 3 of the go into space.

This seems like the best answer. Dwarves have the tech, Elves have the knowledge (and potentially magic to reduce the requisite tech level, thus easing the dwarves' workload), and humans have the drive and the tendency to steal shit from everyone else and bring it together for their own purposes.

Goblins would land on the moon even before humans.

You didn't specify "survive landing".

>humans are the best at everything

BIAS

>The Dwarves refine a new Adamntine alloy that is lighter than regular Adamantine but not nearly to the degree of mithril
>The Elves perfect a special type of plant to use in a space suit design for scrubbing C02, They have tested this design in various diving suits and feel confident this will work in zero g environment

Why would the Elves want to go back?

EXPLAIN THIS

>Magically, probably the elves. But those elves died because nobody knew that space had no air.
I'd imagine an elf flying too high and finding it hard to breath and getting really cold as they flew higher and higher and returning before passing out would come pretty early in the history of magic. Likely before being able to get to the moon.

Yeah, by this pattern, goblins would get to the moon first.

Nah, less funny that way. Teleportation came before levitation.

>The human agrees to get tied to a pile of explosives and flung into the air while the other two watch and take notes.

Cat people high on meth made a pile of strung-out cat people and climbed it to the moon.

Whichever race first produces a Lich who realizes he can teleport to the moon and make an arcane sanctum up there.

Of course, he'd then realize other Liches probably thought of the same thing, and thus need to defend his sanctum from others.

Thus began the Lich Moon Wars.

Explains all the craters.

Dragons.

Elves came from the moon, thought that was obvious. They left for a very good reason.

gnomes

Because if you have the chance to imagine a fantasy setting the first thing anyone does is give their characters the chance to be more idyllic than real life humans. Even in gritty, Dark settings we still glamourize the dark parts with our own ideals about why it's "cool" or "interesting." We embellish, we have fun, we add to things, give style and substance where there is none.

You want to make resistance to planetary exploration a thing, fine, go ahead, but it's up to the individual to decide and they can either have fun with the idea of resistance, which could actually make for a decent plot hook in an Asimov-style campaign, or they can have humanity take to the stars and have fun with that.

In other words, Depends on the Setting, stop getting your No-Fun in my Fun.

Why not joint missions or teams divided along non-racial lines? An Elf-Human group would approach the problem differently from a Dwarf-Human group, and an Elf-Dwarf... well, maybe that one wouldn't work.

Liches.

The elves will make most of the headway and progress, only to be leapfrogged by the humans at the last second to claim "victory".

The dwarves wouldn't get off the ground, because their propellant of choice is also their drink of choice, and they ain't wasting that on some pissing contest. They will be later commissioned by the other two parties to help build parts, though.

Humans. Elves wouldn't wish to deface it, dwarves build too heavily.

Gnomes. It's the only place they can be safe from people constantly kicking them like footballs

>Elves, because they were making magic moon gates before the dinosaurs walked the earth
>Dwarves, because there was a drunken wager and they got to Dorfin
>Man because the author wants humans to be special

Irish potato detected. Sorry all your ancestors died because they were too stupid to realize food is more important than booze.

>The elves will make most of the headway and progress, only to be leapfrogged by the humans at the last second to claim "victory".
I Imagen it in Monty Python and holy grail style

>"At last my brothers, finally we have reached our sacred land and...wait whats that fortress there...and whats that coming at our direction"
>*bomb drops and blows up half of the elf crew*
>*humans appear from fortress*
>"AHAHA, take that you knife eared I'm-so-perfect treehuggers! So, you thought that you subhumans could best us at claiming moon, eh?"
>"HOW DARE YOU TO DESECRATE THIS PLACE! WE DEMAND THAT YOU LEA..."
>"You don't frighten us, Elven pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you and all your silly Elven """warriors"""."

this

Most fsscinating

>Scots
Wazzock detected

>Humans
They ask if they can, instead of if they should. So they land first, and all die horribly but are forever remembered as heroes who weren't afraid to do the impossible.

>Elves
They learn from the humans mistakes and get there second. Plant a flag, and then go home and never set foot on the moon again. Turning it into some sort of moral/wisdom lesson to pass on to the next generation

>Dwarves
They plan for the long haul, find some rare mineral/stone/magic/whatever that you can only find in large supplies on the moon. They get there third, set up a colony, and wind up amassing a fortune while mocking both humans and elves.

Until the Moon Dragon decides to fuck their shit up.

Gnomes.

They just wouldn't make it back to earth.

>humans want to go fucking nowhere
>colonised the entire earth with boats just because

Not even boats, canoes man. Canoes.

Elves would teleport there with fancy magic before others even get airplanes.

>colonised the entire earth with boats just because
Just because? JUST BECAUSE? Dont be so naive, Everyone had a reason to go to the new world, colonizing continents, from religious, to purely material.
Some wanted Fame and their names to be marked in the history.
Some were devout believers and wanted to show other nations light of Christ.
Some were blinded by mystic tales of El Dorado and went after it.
Most of the Humans, who were colonizing other places had serious reasons to do so, several actually: Fame, Fortune, Spreading Christianity, you name it. There was never "hey man, see that fucking desert, lets colonize it because why not." It never happened, Tribes such as Tuaregs just had no other choice to live in that shithole.
Even if we take an old times, before Age of Colonization, when Humans were spreading on the world, it was due to shortage of food, land and resources, not "just because".
So no, Humans are quite rational while choosing their destination and their motives. It is combination of material (wealth, land, luxuries) and immaterial (religious, fame, honor), but never "just do it".

That doesn't really explain the spreading of people to Australia and New Zealand.
Those folks just headed on over in canoes because fuck knows why. Neither place had anything special for pre-bronze age peoples and Australia actively kills anything that tries to live there.

Why are you so triggered over generalisation you muppet?

>Humans wanna go everywhere, do all the thing, sex all the whats, and eat all the it

Cringe.

Yet factually correct.

A small chunk of humans have the drive to go out and explore, which is fine and all so go wander around the countryside on your own time and money.

This happens until your expeditions become harder and harder to do as they become more extravagant, so you start having to ask people for money. Most people will laugh in your face, they're not going to help finance your travels for the "sake of exploration", they don't give two shits about it. Only when you wage the investment rights to exploit and have their share of the spoils of whatever you find, and some verification that there is something there to find usually, will you have people suddenly give two shits about helping you explore.

Undead

Orcs

Elves are from the moon, user.