Posted on 11/03/2009 8:57:44 AM PST by chimera
I loved the episode in “From the Earth to The Moon” that dealt with Apollo 12. Just a complete feel-good episode.
Once they got the guidance platform and other items straightened out, Conrad told Houston that maybe they needed a “little more all-weather testing”. Great flight except for when Al Bean pointed their tv camera into the sun and burned out the electronics. Had to wait until Apollo 14 to get some color tv from the moon.
You’re right. That was a great episode in a truly wonderful series.
There was another glitch at splashdown. They hit a cresting wave at impact and it shook loose a 16 mm film camera in the crew cabin that conked Al Bean (him again!) on the noggin. He was momentarily stunned and it opened a one-inch gash that Conrad had to bandage before they got into their biological isolation garments.
I knew it! It was a fake!
I had the pleasure of meeting Al Bean in September. He’s a very nice unassuming man.
And a lot of people think that the ruined TV camera set the stage for the “faked landings” crowd......when the TV went kaput, NASA had to scramble to have something to show the viewing audience....voila! We will mimic the astronauts on the moon with a simulation here on the earth (in a simulation room somewhere at the JSC.
The 3 major networks never forgave NASA.....
I LOVED the Series “From the Earth to the Moon”. Apollo 12 was my favorite episode. Spider’s is Mr. Peel’s. Loved the dialog they gave to Conrad: “Al Bean, we’re going to the moon, you tag along if you’d like.”
WOW! What a treat!
I was going to post the same thing. What a wonderful mini-series.
Mr. Peel’s favorite is mine too. The other one I liked is Apollo 13 and how the anchor was frozen out for the other reporter who operated with an ambush style.
I get such a kick out of that advice!
Yep.
My favorite episode.
They’re great episodes, too!
I found something completely charming about that episode. I don’t know if it was that they managed to convey that cameraderie effectively, or whether it was the guy who played Alan Bean who carried it.
I had heard Alan Bean interviewed sometime back in the early to mid Seventies, and I remember thinking “Wow, he isn’t working, he is having fun!”
To this day, it wasn’t anything that had to do with the Apollo 12 mission that makes me think of him, it is that interview. What a lucky man, and luckier still never to let it go to his head...
I took a picture of Pete Conrad and others from an earlier flight when they were picked up in the Pacific and brought back to San Diego. They are standing by their capsule
on the elevator of the carrier.
Alan Bean’s immigrant ancestor and 8th great grandfather, was John MacBean a young Highland soldier captured in the battle of Worster in 1652 by Cromwell. He and other POWs
were shipped on the “Sarah & John” to Boston and shortly after John Bean removed to Exeter, New Hampshire. (the Mac was taken off by the clerk on the ship)
John Bean was my 9th great grandfather.
Amazing. From the Scottish highlands to the plains of Texas and then the dust of the Ocean of Storms. Quite a well-travelled family history, I’d say.
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