Page 54 - The Appollo Story

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Apollo 12 (AS-507) A Sea Of Storms
As Pete Conrad stepped of the lower rung of the LM' s ladder onto the Moon's Ocean of Storms, he ex-
claimed, 'Whoopie! ' Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me. '
If it hadn't been for the reshuffling of Apollo 8 and 9 bumping the crew back one mission, Conrad might
have commanded Apollo 11. And, if either Apollo 9 or 10 hadn't gone so incredibly smoothly, Apollo 12
could have been the first to make the lunar landing. But it was Conrad's fate to command the follow-up
mission, and history has a cruel way of passing over those who come second. As the public and media
saw it, America had already landed on the Moon, so what was the big deal about going back there? To
make matters worse a malfunction of the television equipment made this the one landing without live pic-
tures. Apollo 12 wasn't only in the shadows of its illustrious predecessor, it went almost unnoticed.
Below is a launch cover from Cape Canaveral signed by the entire crew, Charles Conrad, Alan
Bean and Richard Gordon.

The Apollo 12 m1ss10n patch shows the
crew's Navy background. It features a clip-
per ship arriving at the Moon, representing
the command module Yankee Clipper. The
ship trails fire and flies the flag of the
United States. The mission name APOLLO
XII and the crew names are on a wide gold
border, with a small blue trim. Blue and
gold are traditionally Navy colours. The
patch has four stars on it - one each for the
three astronauts who flew the mission and
one for Clifton Williams, who was killed on
October 5, 1967, after a mechanical failure
caused the controls of his T-38 trainer to
stop responding. He trained with Conrad
and Gordon as part of the back-up crew for
what would be the Apollo 9 mission, and
would have been assigned as Lunar Module
pilot for Apollo 12.

APOLL0-12 ~
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' "' "' "" JOHN F. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
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