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The fourth person to walk on the Moon, astronaut Alan Bean, died over the weekend. This is the wild true story of Apollo 12, and how a little creativity and ingenuity saved the day. Astronaut and artist Alan Bean died over the weekend at age 86. He was the fourth human to walk on the moon as part of the crew of Apollo 12, and spent 31 hours on the lunar surface. Before he got there, the astronaut had to survive his first, hectic launch into space and help the crew find the right way to the moon in a...

The Apollo astronaut and the fourth man to walk on the moon, Alan Bean has died at age 86. Bean died on Saturday at Houston Methodist Hospital. "Alan was the strongest and kindest man I ever knew. He was the love of my life and I miss him dearly," said Leslie Bean, Alan Bean's wife of 40 years. "A native Texan, Alan died peacefully in Houston surrounded by those who loved him."

HE was an astronaut on the second manned mission to the moon and the fourth man to walk on its surface. Alan Bean, 85, is one of only 12 people to have taken “one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind” on the moon.

Legendary astronaut and former Navy pilot received a pair of honorary Naval Astronaut Wings in a ceremony aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) (Ike) March 10 in recognition for his dedicated service to the Navy and in the field of space exploration. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon July 20, 1969, was aboard Ike as part of the "Legends of Aerospace" tour sponsored by Morale Entertainment. "Today is a special occasion for all of naval aviation. As you can imagine, it is a tremendous honor for me to present Neil Armstrong with astronaut wings,"...

Lightning struck Apollo 12's...Saturn V twice during the launch. While the astronauts had some trouble with the displays on board after the lightning strikes, the rocket remained functional and placed the spacecraft in its target orbit around Earth... During landing, Conrad and Bean anxiously looked outside, hoping that what they saw on the surface would correspond with what they had memorized from maps while back on Earth. When Conrad spotted a familiar crater, he whooped, "There it is! Son of a gun, right down the middle of the road!" … The crew faced problems as their first spacewalk progressed. Bean...

New 'moon' found around Earth There could be another one By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor An amateur astronomer may have found another moon of the Earth. Experts say it may have only just arrived. Much uncertainty surrounds the mysterious object, designated J002E2. It could be a passing chunk of rock captured by the Earth's gravity, or it could be a discarded rocket casing coming back to our region of space. It was discovered by Bill Yeung from his observatory in Arizona and reported as a passing Near-Earth Object. It was soon realised however that far from...

Mystery Object Orbits Earth A puzzling object just discovered in orbit around Earth might be an Apollo rocket on a fantastic journey through the solar system. NASA Sept. 20, 2002: Something odd is circling our planet. It's small, perhaps only 60-ft long, and rotates once every minute or so. Amateur astronomer Bill Yeung first spotted the 16th magnitude speck of light on Sept. 3rd in the constellation Pisces. He named it J002E3. Automated asteroid surveys scan the skies every few weeks, yet there was no sign of Yeung's object earlier this year. "It must have entered Earth orbit recently," says...

Long-Lost Apollo Rocket Returns to Earth Orbit Fri Sep 20, 4:46 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A long-lost piece of an Apollo rocket has returned to Earth orbit after decades of racing around the Sun, the first time our planet has captured an object from solar orbit, astronomers said on Friday. Earth's new satellite is most likely the third stage of a massive Saturn V rocket that lifted Apollo 12 astronauts to the moon in November 1969, according to astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Last seen in an elongated 43-day orbit around Earth, the bus-sized rocket...

Mystery Object Orbits Earth A puzzling object just discovered in orbit around Earth might be an Apollo rocket on a fantastic journey through the solar system. Listen to this story via streaming audio , a downloadable file , or get help . Sept. 20, 2002: Something odd is circling our planet. It's small, perhaps only 60-ft long, and rotates once every minute or so. Bill Yeung, an amateur astronomer in California, first spotted the 16th magnitude speck of light on Sept. 3rd in the constellation Pisces. He named it J002E3.Automated asteroid surveys scan the skies every few weeks, yet...

Thursday, 12 September, 2002, 11:57 GMT 12:57 UKEarth's new 'moon' is space junk Has this rocket returned to Earth? By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor So, it looks like Earth does not have a new "moon" after all The latest analysis of the mysterious object called J002E3 suggests it could well be a leftover Saturn V rocket component from one of the Apollo lunar missions. The suspicious, fast-moving object was discovered on 3 September by Bill Yeung from his observatory in Arizona, US. Initial orbit calculations indicated that it was only about twice as far away as...

MYSTERY OBJECT: Yesterday, astronomers in Arizona, New Mexico and Spain, all hunting for near-Earth asteroids, discovered a "mystery object" orbiting Earth. Temporarily named "9U01FF6," it is small and in an elongated, 31-day orbit. Experts say it is probably a piece of an Apollo-era Moon mission. We'll get a closer look on Oct. 29th when it zips past Earth about 82,000 km (0.2 lunar distances) away. Advanced amateur astronomers can find it using this ephemeris [see link].

(NOT: errors are by the creator; I cut and pasted) Flag on the Moon Written by Fraser Cain When the NASA astronauts first landed on the Moon, they left a few items on the surface to commemorate their visit. These items included a plaque, mission badges and an American flag. If you've ever seen images or video of the flag on the Moon, you might have a few questions. Why does the flag stand straight out and not just slump down? Here on Earth, flags are pushed out by the wind. Obviously, there's no wind on the Moon, so what's...

(LRO slewed 19° down-Sun allowing the illuminated side of the still standing American flag to be captured at the Apollo 17 site.) An enduring question ever since the manned moon landings of the 1960s has been: Are the flags planted by the astronauts still standing? Now, lunar scientists say the verdict is in from the latest photos of the moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC): Most do, in fact, still stand. "From the LROC images it is now certain that the American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11,"...

There has been a long-lived bit of Apollo moon landing folklore that now appears to be a dead-end affair: microbes on the moon. The lunar mystery swirls around the Apollo 12 moon landing and the return to Earth by moonwalkers of a camera that was part of an early NASA robotic lander – the Surveyor 3 probe. On Nov. 19, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean made a precision landing on the lunar surface in Oceanus Procellarum, Latin for the Ocean of Storms. Their touchdown point was a mere 535 feet (163 meters) from the Surveyor 3...

Legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite allegedly collaborated with anti-Vietnam War activists in the 1960s, going so far as to offer advice on how to raise the public profile of protests and even pledging CBS News resources to help pull off events, according to FBI documents obtained by Yahoo! News. The documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, say that in November 1969, Cronkite encouraged students at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., to invite Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie to address a protest they were planning near Cape Kennedy (now known as Cape Canaveral). Cronkite told the group’s...

Newly Discovered Object Could be a Leftover Apollo Rocket Stage An analysis of the orbital motion of the newly discovered object J002E3 indicates that it could be a leftover Saturn V third stage from one of the Apollo missions, most likely the Apollo 12 mission, launched on November 14, 1969. The new object was discovered on September 3 by Bill Yeung, who noted that it was moving quite rapidly. Initial orbit computations by the Minor Planet Center indicated that the object was only about twice as far away as the Moon, and was actually in orbit about our planet....