Apollo 12: Pete Conrad and Al Bean

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The moon landing was never meant to be a one time thing. Many missions were slotted for the moon, and each mission advanced in complexity. The Apollo 11 astronauts had only spent a seven hours exploring the lunar surface. In later missions, the science portion of the mission would be expanded. Chosen for Apollo 12 were Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr.; as Commander, with Al Bean as the Lunar Module Pilot, and Richard Gordon, Jr. as the Command Module Pilot. This would be Bean's first spaceflight, and he would be walking on the moon. Conrad was an old pro with this being his third flight. This would be Gordon's second flight into space.

When their Saturn V launched, it was raining outside. At 36 seconds after launch, the rocket was hit by lightning. Then, it was hit again at 52 seconds. Still, the Saturn V continued to fly correctly. However, it caused the shutdown of the fuel cells and put the Command/Service Module (CSM( entirely on batteries. The screen in front of the crew lit up with red. Thankfully, John Aaron remembered this type of failure from an earlier test when the power supply failed in the CSM Signal Conditioning Equipment (SCE). The SCE is responsible for converting raw signals from the instruments into standard voltages for the spacecraft instrument displays and telemetry encoders. He told the astronauts to try "SCE to aux" which switched the power supply for the SCE to a backup power supply. However, it was fairly obscure. Most of the flight controllers didn't know it nor did Conrad. Thankfully, Bean did. He flipped the switch, and the warning lights went away. Aaron and Bean's actions saved the mission being aborted.

After this, they were on their way to the moon. They followed the standard procedure and arrived at the moon on November 19, 1969. Conrad and Bean would conduct two EVAs lasting a total of 7 hours and 45 minutes. When Conrad stepped off the LEM onto the lunar surface, his first words were "Whoopie! That may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" Another notable incident was with the television they brought with them. Al Bean accidentally pointed directly at the sun which broke the SEC tube. The camera didn't work after this this. They also visited the Surveyor 3 probe and collected moon rocks before leaving the lunar surface and docking with Gordon in the Command Module.

The crew headed back to Earth where they splashed down on November 24. During splashdown, Bean was hit in the head by a camera and was knocked temporarily unconscious. He suffered a mild concussion from the incident, but the rest of the trip was safe for the astronauts. To learn more about the Apollo program and this mission, I recommend watching From the Earth to the Moon and reading A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin.

Read about Apollo 13