Word: conrad
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What turned out to be one of Apollo 12's most valuable tools-the hammer-again came in handy before the deployment of ALSEP. While Bean offered encouragement ("Pound harder. Keep going, baby"), Conrad tapped on the plutonium core, which had become stuck in its protective cask. Finally loosened, the core was removed and inserted into the generator. Without the core, the generator would have been unable to provide electricity to power ALSEP's experiments and its radio gear...
...Conrad and Bean had already exceeded the 2 hr. 21 min. lunar walk taken by Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin. But they hardly noticed the passage of time. With the enthusiasm of Tenderfoot Boy Scouts, they photographed and collected rocks, took a sample core of the lunar soil, poked into innumerable small craters and fascinated geologists with their descriptions of small, strange-looking mounds. "Don't take this the wrong way," Bean cautioned, "but they look like small volcanoes-only they're just about 4 ft. high." After four hours of exploring, during which they strayed about...
Twelve hours later, the astronauts again suited up, left Intrepid and headed back to check the ALSEP experiments. As Conrad approached the ion detector, the instrument sensed his presence and reported it to earth. "Can the guy with the seismometer hear me running?" Conrad asked. Responded Houston: "Looks as though you're really thundering by it." Conrad also tested the seismometer by tossing a rock-he called it an "extra grapefruit-size goody"-into a small crater. The instrument promptly signaled to Houston that it had detected the lunar version of the rolling stones...
Earth Bugs. Later, as they bounded across the lunar landscape, Conrad asked Bean: "Ever see those giraffes in slow motion? That's exactly what I feel like." Fanning out 1,300 ft. from Intrepid, they visited half a dozen craters, sank more cores and tried to collect any gases that might be venting from beneath the lunar surface by holding a small can in a 6-in.-deep trench. AH the while, Conrad filled the airwaves with ho-ho-hos, dum-de-dum-dums, cackles and other sounds of pure enjoyment. "We could work out here for eight...
...wide Surveyor Crater. Descending slowly, they walked to the Surveyor spacecraft. Except for a thin coating of lunar dust and white paint that may have turned tan in the intense sunlight, it had apparently been unharmed by its long exposure on the lunar surface. While Dean photographed the spacecraft, Conrad picked up some valuable souvenirs. First, he clipped off some of Surveyor's insulated TV cable, which had contained a known quantity of microorganisms when it left the earth; by examining the cable after it is returned to Houston, biologists will learn if any terrestrial bugs survived and multiplied...