APOLLO 12 mission
November 14, 1969

Unlike the first landing on Apollo 11, where the lunar module touched down away from its target, Pete Conrad and Alan Bean made a pinpoint landing at the site of Surveyor 3, the unmanned probe that had reached the Moon on April 20, 1967. They carried the first color television camera taken to the lunar surface on an Apollo flight, but the pictures stopped when Bean accidentally pointed it at the Sun and burned out its sensor. During one of their two moonwalks, the two astronauts walked to Surveyor 3 and removed parts of it to bring back to Earth for study. The mission ended with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on November 24, 1969.

Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight of the Apollo program and the second lunar landing. It followed Apollo 11 by four months, at a time when the space race was still driving American spaceflight. The three astronauts were Pete Conrad, Alan Bean and Richard Gordon. Space Collectibles, based in Paris since 2014, offers Apollo 12 memorabilia for collectors, such as NASA photographs and mission documents, and ships worldwide from Paris.

The Saturn V rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on November 14, 1969, in rain, with President Nixon watching from the stands. Less than a minute after liftoff, lightning struck the rocket and knocked out much of the spacecraft's electrical power. The crew and Mission Control in Houston found the fix within minutes, and the mission continued into Earth orbit and then toward the Moon.

Three days later, the crew was in lunar orbit. Conrad and Bean boarded the lunar module Intrepid and began the descent while Gordon remained in the command module, Yankee Clipper. The Apollo 12 landing on November 19 was a precision landing: Intrepid touched down in the Ocean of Storms, within walking distance of Surveyor 3, an unmanned probe that had reached the Moon in 1967.

Conrad climbed down the ladder first and became the third man to walk on the Moon. He joked that his step, shorter than Neil Armstrong's, was a long one for him. The two men raised the American flag, set up scientific instruments on the surface, and collected about 34 kilograms (75 pounds) of Moon rocks and soil. During their second moonwalk, they walked to Surveyor 3 and removed parts to bring back to Earth for study. The color television camera they had brought stopped working when it was pointed at the Sun, so Mission Control saw little of the moonwalks.

After about 31 hours on the surface, Conrad and Bean rejoined Gordon in orbit and the spacecraft headed home. Splashdown took place in the Pacific Ocean on November 24, 1969. The crew then went through a period of quarantine, as a precaution, before the world could greet them as heroes.

Apollo 12 is also the story of men who prepared the road for later missions. It proved that the Apollo program could aim for an exact point on the Moon, which later flights such as Apollo 13 and Apollo 17 relied on. Browse the Apollo 12 pieces below, then explore Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Apollo 17, our Apollo memorabilia page, our signed astronaut autographs and our flown to the Moon artifacts.

Alan Bean was the fourth person to walk on the Moon, on Apollo 12 in November 1969. After retiring from NASA, he became a painter whose subject was the Moon. This page covers his career, from naval aviator to moonwalker to artist, and points collectors to the Apollo 12 pieces we offer from Paris.

Alan LaVern Bean, known as Al Bean, was born on March 15, 1932, in Wheeler, Texas. He studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where he joined the Navy ROTC, and graduated in 1955. He became a naval aviator, flew jet attack aircraft, and then attended the Navy's test pilot school at Patuxent River, Maryland. NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1963, in the same group as Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

Bean was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 12, with commander Pete Conrad and command module pilot Richard Gordon. After Conrad, he stepped onto the Moon on November 19, 1969, becoming the fourth person to walk on its surface, after Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Conrad. The two astronauts carried out two moonwalks, collected Moon dust and rocks, and visited the Surveyor 3 probe. The color television camera stopped working after Bean accidentally pointed it at the Sun.

In 1973, Bean commanded Skylab 3, the second crewed mission to Skylab, the first American space station. He and his crew spent about 59 days in Earth orbit, a record at the time. He later served as backup commander for the Apollo-Soyuz mission with the Soviet Union in 1975.

Bean retired from NASA in 1981 to paint full time. His paintings show the Apollo astronauts at work on the Moon, as only someone who had been there could see it. He said he textured his canvases with the tools he used on the Moon, and mixed small amounts of Moon dust from his Apollo 12 mission into the paint. Limited-edition prints of his paintings were published by the Greenwich Workshop. Bean died on May 26, 2018, at age 86.

Only twelve men have walked on the Moon: Armstrong, Aldrin, Conrad, Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. Cernan, on Apollo 17, was the last man on the Moon.

Photographs, documents and prints signed by Alan Bean are sought by Apollo and space art collectors, and authenticity matters. Browse our Apollo 12 memorabilia, our Apollo 11 memorabilia and our signed astronaut autographs. For other missions, see our Apollo memorabilia page.

Charles "Pete" Conrad was the third person to walk on the Moon, as commander of Apollo 12 in November 1969. He flew in space four times, on Gemini, Apollo and Skylab, and he is remembered for his humor and his skill as a pilot. This page tells his story and points collectors to the Apollo 12 pieces we offer from Paris.

Conrad was born on June 2, 1930, in Philadelphia. He earned a degree in aeronautical engineering at Princeton University in 1953 on a Navy scholarship, became a naval aviator, and later worked as a Navy test pilot. NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1962, in the second group, alongside Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and John Young.

Conrad's first spaceflight was Gemini 5, in August 1965, an eight-day mission with Gordon Cooper. In September 1966, he commanded Gemini 11 with Richard Gordon. The crew rendezvoused and docked with an Agena target vehicle during their first orbit, and then used its engine to reach a record altitude of about 1,370 kilometers (850 miles), from where the Earth looked like a globe. Gordon also made a spacewalk during the mission.

On Apollo 12, Conrad commanded the second Moon landing, with Alan Bean and Richard Gordon. The lunar module Intrepid touched down on November 19, 1969, in the Ocean of Storms, within walking distance of the unmanned probe Surveyor 3. Stepping onto the surface, Conrad, who was shorter than Armstrong, joked that it might have been a small step for Neil, but a long one for him. The two moonwalkers spent about 31 hours on the surface and carried out two moonwalks.

Conrad's last spaceflight was Skylab 2 in 1973, the first crewed mission to the American space station Skylab, the forerunner of the International Space Station. Skylab had been damaged during launch, and its power and temperature were in danger. Conrad and his crew, Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz, repaired it during a spacewalk, and the station was able to host later crews. The mission lasted about 28 days.

Conrad left NASA and the Navy in 1973 and worked in business, including for the aerospace company McDonnell Douglas. He died on July 8, 1999, in a motorcycle accident in California, at age 69.

Photographs, documents and prints signed by Pete Conrad are sought by Apollo collectors, and authenticity matters. Browse our Apollo 12 memorabilia, our signed astronaut autographs and our flown to the Moon artifacts. For other missions, see Apollo 11 and our Apollo memorabilia page.

Richard "Dick" Gordon was the command module pilot of Apollo 12. While Pete Conrad and Alan Bean walked on the Moon in November 1969, Gordon orbited above them in the command module Yankee Clipper. This page tells the story of this American astronaut and points collectors to the Apollo 12 pieces we offer from Paris.

Richard Francis Gordon Jr. was born on October 5, 1929, in Seattle. He studied chemistry at the University of Washington, joined the Navy and became a naval aviator and a test pilot. In 1961, he flew a jet fighter across the United States in under three hours and set a speed record. NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1963.

Gordon's first spaceflight was Gemini 11, in September 1966, with Pete Conrad. The crew docked with an Agena target vehicle on their first orbit and then used its engine to reach a record altitude of about 1,370 kilometers (850 miles). Gordon carried out a spacewalk, during which he attached a tether between the Gemini space capsule and the Agena. He tired quickly outside, so the spacewalk was cut short.

On Apollo 12, Gordon stayed in lunar orbit for about a day and a half, photographing possible landing sites for future missions and keeping the command module ready for the return of his crewmates. The Apollo 12 landing on November 19, 1969, was the second Moon landing, and Gordon helped to ensure the crew's safe return by rendezvousing with the lunar module in orbit. The spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on November 24.

Gordon never walked on the Moon. He was named backup commander of Apollo 15, which put him in line to command a later mission, but NASA cancelled Apollo 18, 19 and 20. He left NASA in 1972 and worked in business. He died on November 6, 2017, at age 88.

Photographs, documents and prints signed by Richard Gordon are sought by Apollo collectors, and authenticity matters. Browse our Apollo 12 memorabilia, our signed astronaut autographs and our flown to the Moon artifacts. For other missions, see Apollo 11 and our Apollo memorabilia page.

Surveyor 3 was an unmanned NASA lunar lander that touched down on the surface of the Moon on April 20, 1967. It is the only spacecraft that astronauts have walked to and visited on another world, when the crew of Apollo 12 reached it in November 1969. This page tells its story, from the Surveyor program to the pieces brought back to Earth.

The Surveyor program was a series of seven unmanned lunar landers launched between 1966 and 1968. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed it, and its aim was to prepare the Apollo program by answering a basic question: could a lunar lander and its crew land safely on the Moon without sinking into the ground? Five of the seven missions reached the surface. Surveyor 1 made the first American soft landing in June 1966.

Surveyor 3 was launched on April 17, 1967, on an Atlas-Centaur rocket, and landed three days later inside a crater in the Ocean of Storms. The landing did not go perfectly: its descent engines kept running after the first touchdown, and the lander bounced twice before it settled on the slope of the crater.

Surveyor 3 carried a television camera and a small scoop at the end of an arm. The scoop dug trenches in the lunar regolith, the layer of dust and broken rock that covers the surface, to measure how strong it was. The camera sent about 6,300 pictures to Earth, including views of the lander's own footpads in the soil. The results showed that the regolith was firm enough to support a spacecraft and astronauts, which was good news for Apollo. Surveyor 3 also photographed the Earth passing in front of the Sun, a solar eclipse seen from the Moon. Later Surveyors, such as Surveyor 5, analyzed the soil and found it to be basaltic, similar to volcanic rock on Earth.

Surveyor 3 worked for about two weeks, through the lunar day. After the cold lunar night, it did not wake up again, and the last contact was in early May 1967.

In November 1969, Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad and lunar module pilot Alan Bean landed within walking distance of the probe. This was no accident: the landing had been planned as a precision landing to test whether future missions could aim for a chosen site. On their second moonwalk, the two men walked down into the crater to reach it. They found it dusty, with a darker color than when it was launched, and removed its television camera, the scoop and other parts to bring back to Earth, so that engineers could study how two and a half years on the Moon had affected the materials. Some of these parts are now in museums. The astronauts' own lunar module, Intrepid, was left on the Moon, about 180 meters (600 feet) from Surveyor 3.

Surveyor 3 is a reminder that the Apollo landings relied on unmanned robotic missions. You can read the story of the astronauts who visited it on our Apollo 12 page, learn about the men themselves on the pages of Pete Conrad and Alan Bean, and explore our Apollo memorabilia and flown to the Moon artifacts.