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The Apollo 12 crew’s excursions on the Moon, 51 years ago

In celebration of the anniversary this week of the Apollo 12 mission to the Moon in November 1969, the science team for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have created a wonderful animation showing step-by-step where and when Pete Conrad and Alan Bean walked during their two EVAs on the lunar surface.

That video is below. It highlights strongly the need of any future short-term mission to any planetary landing to have a vehicle on board. Conrad and Bean accomplished a lot during their two four-hour walks, but nowhere near as much as they could have accomplished if they could have driven about on their EVAs. In fact, in the 1960s NASA had already recognized this, and was to put a rover on the last three Apollo lunar landings.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

2 comments

  • Jeff

    That was very interesting. Thanks for posting. Wonder if/how a Segway-like transport would work on the lunar surface? In bulky suits, might be easier to use?

  • LocalFluff

    776 year before Christ, when the first Olympic games were held, their motto was to be like their Gods: Faster, Higher, Stronger! 2744 years later the Apollo crews went higher and were faster, and with two millions of liters of Saturn V-fuel exploding in a couple of minutes certainly Stronger than anyone else. And they went to the Moon and frickin walked upon it with their human feet. Proving that humans are indeed Gods!

    So the natural instinct of civilization is to require the next generation to go even faster and much higher with more strength. And then higher again. And stronger. And faster. And higher…

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