Apollo 12 lands on the Moon

Astronaut Alan Bean descends the Lunar Module ladder on one of many two EVAs he and Pete Conrad carried out on the Moon. Credit: NASA

Five days after their Nov. 14, 1969, launch amid stormy skies, Apollo 12’s Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed on the Moon in Oceanus Procellarum (the Ocean of Storms). Part of Apollo 12’s mission was to reveal enhancements to the precision of lunar landings, and Conrad piloted the Intrepid Lunar Module to a pinpoint touchdown on Nov. 19. While their crewmate Richard Gordon remained within the Command Module (Yankee Clipper) above them, Conrad and Bean started the primary of their two moonwalks. Conrad descended the ladder from the LM first, and as he stepped onto the Moon quipped, “Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”

Although Bean by accident pointed their colour TV digicam on the Sun, damaging it, each the Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) have been in any other case profitable. The astronauts collected rock and soil samples and deployed their Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP), which included a photo voltaic wind collector, and seismometer, and a magnetometer. They additionally visited the Surveyor 3 unmanned lander (which had been on the Moon since 1967), retrieving a number of parts of the spacecraft to return to Earth for research. After 31 and a half hours on the Moon (practically eight hours of these spent in EVAs), Intrepid lifted off and re-docked with Yankee Clipper. The crew safely splashed down again on Earth on Nov. 24.