If not first, second will do: pete conrad, alan bean & dick gordon
Over the last 53 years of
to regain power and continue
manned spaceflight there has
on with their mission. Unlike
even been the opportunity
the first landing on Apollo 11,
to have a number of all Navy
which touched down over
crews fly a mission together.
four miles from where the
intended landing site was,
Apollo 12, the second
Apollo 12 intended to make a
manned landing on the surprecise landing in the Ocean
face of the Moon, was comof Storms on the Lunar Surmanded by Charles “Pete”
face. One of their tasks was
Conrad Jr. who was also a
to retrieve a piece of an unNavy pilot before entering
manned lander, Surveyor III,
NASA. His fellow moonwalker,
which had been there for over
Alan Bean, also known as
two and a half years. Conrad
the Lunar Module Pilot, was
piloted the Lunar Module,
a Navy pilot also. Rounding
named Intrepid, to a landing
out the crew was Command
just over 500 feet from SurveyModule Pilot Richard Gordon,
or III. Conrad and Bean made
and yes, yet another Navy
two EVAs, spending over sevpilot. They were a very close
en hours on the lunar surface.
crew and were friends beThey deployed numerous exfore and after their mission.
periments and sensors on the
Apollo 12 launched on
surface and returned about
November 14, 1969 from Ken75 pounds of lunar rocks and
nedy Space Center Pad 39-A.
soil to the earth for study.
One of the more memorable
Crew of the Apollo 12 mission (from left): Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr.,
events occurred 52 seconds
Conrad and Bean went on
Richard Gordon Jr., and Alan Bean. Credit: NASA
after launch when the rocket
to command different missions
was it by lightning, not once,
aboard Skylab, America’s
Command Module, to go offline.
but twice. This caused all three fuel
first orbiting space station while
Flying on just their batteries in the
cells, which provide power to the
Gordon retired from NASA in 1972.
Command Module, they were able
Once around the block: scott kelly
In order to better understand the
side effects of a long duration spaceflight where the crew could be in microgravity for a year or more, NASA
is currently preparing for a year-long
mission aboard the International
Space Station. Data from the mission
should help NASA develop and/or
validate countermeasures designed
to reduce the effects of long exposures in space. This will help them with
their goals of long duration Lunar missions and ultimately missions to Mars.
Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail “Misha” Kornienko
currently are scheduled to launch
aboard a Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station in March
of 2015 and they will stay aboard
the outpost for nearly a full year.
For Scott Kelly, a former Navy aviator, this will be his 4th spaceflight.
STS-118 Commander
CDR Scott Kelly posing
for a photo near a
window on the Space
Shuttle Endeavour.
The International
Space Station ISS
is visible behind him.
Credit: NASA
On STS-103 in 1999 he was the Pilot
on Discovery on what was the 3rd
Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. On STS-118 he served
as Commander of Space Shuttle
Endeavour on a ISS servicing flight
which delivered a third starboard
truss segment to the outpost. He
launched to the space station again
in 2010 and served as the Flight Engineer for Expedition 25 before assuming the role of Commander on
Expedition 26 after the departure
of the Expedition 25 Commander.
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