Apollo 12

Lest we forget, today marks the fortieth anniversary of the second manned landing on the Moon. Apollo 12 was a remarkable mission in other ways, too. Struck by lightning seconds after launch, the mission, far from being aborted, was successfully completed. The precision flying and pinpoint landing of Pete Conrad and Alan Bean proved Apollo was not limited to the wide open plains, setting the stage for later Apollo missions with challenging landing sites. Conrad and Bean also demonstrated astronauts could do important work over extended periods on the lunar surface.

Apollo 12 will probably never get the acclaim of Apollo 11, but it wrote a dramatic and extraordinary chapter in the history of space exploration.