system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How was it decided where astronauts would land on the moon?
gpt
Based on what a professor in a planetary science class explained to me:

 * Step one: Send unmanned orbiters to take large, low-resolution photos and make a global map
 * Step two: Give the map to the geologists and rocket engineers and have them argue about the most interesting vs. safest place to land, come up with a list of candidate landing sites
 * Step three: Send more unmanned orbiters to take high-res photos of the candidates
 * Step four: Same as step two, with more information on each site

Of course there's other constraints and tools used as well.  Since the moon is so close you can get a lot done with ground-based telescopes.  On the other hand they knew they would be landing on the near side of the moon so they could have a direct line of sight back to Earth for communication.  Stuff like that.  But this same basic process is used for exploring any planet, whether it's Mercury or Titan.