Space Rocket History Archive

Space Rocket History #257 – Apollo 12 – Return, Re-entry and Splashdown

Ten days ago, their Saturn V rocket had blasted Bean and his crew mates out of earth’s gravitational pull. Now their home planet was pulling them back at more than 24,000 miles per hour, twelve times faster than a high-speed rifle bullet. “Boy,” said Bean, “we are really hauling!”

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Space Rocket History #256 – Apollo 12 – Leaving the Moon

Dick Gordon opened the tunnel to Intrepid, saw his companions floating in a dirty cloud of moon dust, and slammed the hatch closed. He called out, “You guys ain’t gonna mess up my nice clean spacecraft!”

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Space Rocket History #255 – Apollo 12 – Lunar Liftoff

After a total of 31.6 hours on the moon, the Lunar Module ascent stage fired for about 7 minutes placing Intrepid into an orbit of 10 miles by 54 miles.

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Space Rocket History #254 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 2 – Part 5 – Blocky Crater & Closeout

Conrad and Bean now walked north, up Surveyor Crater’s 14 degree slope. Fatigue set in as Pete and Al walked up the crater wall. The hand tool carrier was nearly full of rocks now and Bean felt the full weight of it.

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Space Rocket History #253 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 2 – Part 4 – Surveyor Crater & Surveyor 3

Surveyor 3 was now to their right, 300 feet away, gleaming in the morning sunlight. Antennas and sensors still reached upward from its tubular frame, just as they had on April 20, 1967, when the spacecraft thumped onto the moon amid blasts from its braking rockets.

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Space Rocket History #252 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 2 – Part 3 – Rock ‘n’ Roll at Halo Crater

The problem with running into the sun was it was so bright that Conrad and Bean could not see the moon’s surface features until they were right on top of them.

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Space Rocket History #251 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 2 – Part 2 – Bench and Sharp Craters

While Conrad led the way, Bean watched the ground for something interesting. It wasn’t easy to do field geology while running, and on the moon.

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Space Rocket History #250 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 2 – Part 1 – Head Crater – Tang Ceremony

Pete and Al could not hear the excited shouts of the geologists in the back room down the hall from mission control, but they knew they had found something significant.

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Space Rocket History #249 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 1 – Part 3

Most of the remaining moon walk time was spent collecting rock samples, making surface observations such as the small mounds or hills, and taking pictures.

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Space Rocket History #248 – Apollo 12 – Moonwalk 1 – Part 2 – ALSEP

According to the checklist, Bean was allowed 5 minutes to gain his balance and learn to walk on the Moon. Bean was amazed at his new buoyancy saying, “You can jump up in the air…”  But Conrad wanted to press on saying, “Hustle, boy, hustle! We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

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