WHAT’S THE STORY?

EVERYONE always remembers who was the first to do something, and Neil Armstrong as the first man on the Moon is a perfect example. Many readers will recall that Buzz Aldrin was second. But do you remember who the third and fourth men on the Moon were?

It was 50 years ago today that Apollo 12, the second successful manned mission to the Moon, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre near Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The previous July, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had successfully sent Apollo II to the moon and back, but the world still held its collective breath as the second mission took off on the morning of November 19, 1969.

WHO WERE THE THREE ASTRONAUTS?

APOLLO 12 was commanded by Charles “Pete” Conrad Jnr, making his third spaceflight. The command module pilot was Richard “Dick”

F Gordon Jnr – making his second and last flight into space – while the lunar Module pilot was Alan

“Al” L Bean, making his first spaceflight. All three were US Naval Air Force officers, and their backup crew were all US Air Force officers.

HOW DID THE TRIP OUT GO?

IT started with near disaster when lightning twice struck the giant Saturn V three-stage rocket before the mission was even one minute old. Quick thinking by Al Bean and flight manager John Aaron preserved the power supply to the telemetry system otherwise the mission might have had to be aborted before it was much off the ground.

After going into orbit around the Earth, the three astronauts carefully checked everything they could and found no appreciable damage so the decision was taken to continue with the mission.

The flight controllers in Houston were worried that the lightning might have damaged the explosive bolts which would deploy the parachutes when Apollo 12 came back to Earth but they decided not to tell the crew.

The third stage of the rocket was fired accurately, although the empty stage missed its intended path and went into orbit around the Earth and later the Sun.

Apart from that it was plain sailing and on November 19, 1969, Apollo 12’s lunar module, codename Intrepid, landed on the Moon on the area known as the Ocean of Storms at almost exactly the landing point they had been aiming for.

WHAT DID THEY DO ON THE MOON?

INTREPID landed just 600ft from the Surveyor III spacecraft which had landed on the Moon on April 20, 1967.

As Conrad, who was 5ft 6ins tall compared to Neil Armstrong’s 5ft 11ins, became the third man on the Moon he joked: “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it’s a long one for me.”

Bean followed with a colour television camera but unfortunately he inadvertently pointed it at the Sun, frying its electronics.

Conrad and Bean walked over to the Surveyor and removed items for return to Earth. They then collected rocks and set up scientific experiments. Above them, Dick Gordon was orbiting the Moon in the command module, codename Yankee Clipper, and he took spectacular photographs of the lunar surface.

The two astronauts ended their moonwalk after nearly four hours and then returned to Intrepid to eat and sleep before doing it all over again for another four hours on November 20.

HOW WAS THE RETURN JOURNEY?

VERY smooth. Conrad and Bean returned safely to the Yankee Clipper and then jettisoned Intrepid which crashed spectacularly on to the Moon.

They stayed in orbit to take more photographs and then set off for home. They landed on November 24, splashing down 500 miles east of American Samoa to be recovered by the USS Hornet. Bean was knocked out by a loose camera but was fine after treatment.

WERE THEY NOT THE VICTIMS OF A PRANK?

WHEN Bean and Conrad opened their lunar checklists they found pictures of Playboy centrefolds taped inside – the back-up crew had put them there. They took it in good heart – well, it was the 1960s after all.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TRIO AFTERWARDS?

BEAN was very proud of his Scottish ancestry. He once said:

“I took Clan McBean tartan to the Moon and returned it to Earth. I did not leave any tartan on the surface. I did, in fact, give a piece of the tartan to the Clan McBean and also to St Bean’s Chapel in Scotland. And I’ve still got some of it in my possession.”

He was a talented artist and after retiring from Nasa he devoted most of his time to painting and writing. He admitted he had used real Moon dust in some of his lunar paintings.

Al Bean died in Houston in May last year, aged 86.

Pete Conrad went on to commend the first crewed Skylab mission before retiring from Nasa to take up a career in marketing. He died at the age of 69 after a motorcycle accident on July 8, 1999.

Dick Gordon never did get to walk on the Moon, He was scheduled to command Apollo 18 but that trip was cancelled to save money. Gordon died on November 6, 2017, at the age of 88.