Word: conrad
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...approached the moon early this week, Apollo 12 was scheduled to insert itself into a nearly circular orbit about 69 miles above the lunar surface. Conrad and Bean would then crawl through the tunnel leading from Yankee Clipper into Intrepid and cast off in the landing craft, leaving Gordon to guide the command ship through 19 solo orbits of the moon. Early Wednesday the two men would begin the gentle, arcing descent to the lunar surface...
...into a nearly perfect 118-mile-high earth orbit. By testing the spacecraft's navigational and guidance computers, the astronauts confirmed that the instruments had been left unscathed by the power surge. Halfway through the second revolution, after ground controllers were assured that Apollo was in perfect shape, Conrad fired the third stage S-4B rocket. The 51-minute burn increased the spacecraft's speed to 24,100 m.p.h., lifted it from orbit and sent it on its way to the moon. Said Conrad: "Everything is tickety...
...ship Yankee Clipper separated faultlessly from the S-4B, turned to dock with the lunar module Intrepid and extract it from the rocket's nose. Locked together, the two craft proceeded on a long coast to the moon. Before they bedded down for their first night in space, Conrad and Bean made an unscheduled inspection of Intrepid while Astronaut Gordon remained at the controls of the command module. To their relief, the LM's electronic gear had also withstood the sudden pulse of current. By now the astronauts were in such high spirits that they asked Mission Control...
Additional Risks. If all continued to go well, the mission would take ten days -two days more than the voyage of Apollo 11. Conrad would attempt a pinpoint landing only a few hundred feet from the resting place of Surveyor 3, the unmanned moon probe that soft-landed on the lunar surface April 19. 1967. He and Bean would stroll for as long as 74 hours on the moon and collect up to 75 lbs. of lunar rock. Most important, Apollo 12 would leave behind a more sophisticated array of sensitive instruments than those left by Apollo 11. Powered...
...free return" trajectory toward the moon. In the event of engine failure, such a path would allow the spacecraft to be whipped around the moon by lunar gravity and hurled back safely to the earth. Some 31 hours after liftoff, however, Apollo 12's situation was changed drastically. Conrad fired the 20,500-lb.-thrust service propulsion engine and sent his ship into a "hybrid" trajectory. The new flight path was necessary to set the astronauts down at their landing site on the Ocean of Storms at the right time of lunar day. On this course, too, Apollo could...