Months after surveyors landing, men were leaving the earth to land on the ocean of storms. Charles pete conrad, richard crew ofalan dean, the apollo 12, the second manned landing on the face of the moon. Their target, the site of surveyor three. 4, 3, 2,1, 0. Apollo 12 lifted off in the driving rain. In. He program is clear. This babys really going. 36 seconds later, lightning struck the spacecraft. Dont know what happened here. Showing your hit by lightning. Disconnecting. A and b out. We had a couple cardiac arrest down here, too. Tell you one thing looking good. They space and on earth, checked systems to make sure the lightning caused no damage that would endanger the mission. The time for commitment neared, to send apollo 12 to the moon. Translator injection, trans lunar injection, tli. Apollo houston, the good word is you are ready for tli. We are ready. We didnt expect anything else. We didnt train for anything else. You Better Believe it. Burn looks good. Off, apollones cut 12 was on its way to the moon. Now they turned around to dock with the lunar module, and free of the nowuseless booster. Houston. A hard dock, looks good. The next burn would place apollo 12 on a new path to the moon. Previous missions followed a trajectory allowing them to loop around the moon and with no further burns return to earth, but apollo 12, to land at the proper site, would break out of the three return path. Should a failure occur, a burn would he needed to get them home. 4, 3, 2, 1, ignition. Ok. Very good. They settle down to the routine of the flight. Trying all these things we didnt have, like shaving. Were having a ball up here. Roger. All dressed up and no place to go. We are going someplace. We see it getting bigger and bigger all the time. On november 17, they prepared for orbit around the moon. Notur ocean to the left is towardarent as out motion the moon, so we have the decided impression we are going into the center of that baby there. We copy, at 12. Go into beginning to guidance. Were there. Houston, you are go. Burn checklist is complete. I. , lunar orbit insertion, placing apollo 12 into orbit around the moon. With the burn occurring behind the moon, there would be no communication with the spacecraft until it came over the horizon. Apollo 12 houston. Houston, Yankee Clipper with intrepid. Like everyone else who arrived, were plastered to the windows. Day, pete conrad and alan dean entered the lunar don in theaving gor command module. Now the intrepid and Yankee Clipper separated for descent and landing on the moon. Back off. Goes. He houston as with the orbit insertion burn, the burn to begin dissent was taken behind the moon e descent was taken behind the moon. Intrepid. Houston, how do you read . We ad a great watched the first earthrise, which was fantastic. The surveyor target three was located in the middle of five craters arranged like a snowman. The upper crater called head crater, the body called surveyor crater. The object, to land as close as possible to surveyor then began the landing sequence. Youre at 19,000 feet. Some kind of horizon there. Okay. There, i think i rater. Carat. There it is. There it is. Son of a gun. Right down the middle of the road. Outstanding. 42 degrees. 42. Look out there. It. Ant believe amazing. Fantastic. Degrees. Coming down at about 99 feet per second. Good. E looking go for landing. Roger. 40 degrees. I cant believe it. Youre at 2,000 feet. On the ground doing okay. 1,800 feet up. 39 degrees. Degrees. 36 degrees. Youre 1,200 feet. 30. N at looks good out there, dave. Looks good. 32 degrees. 33 degrees. 600 feet. Look at that crater, right where its supposed to be. Beautiful. Coming down at five. Youre really maneuvering around. Come on down. Okay. Fuel. 200 feet. Coming down at three. Come on down. 180 feet. 9 . Youre looking good. Get some coming down. Slow down the ascent rate. Down at four. Looking good. 50 feet. Coming down. Duck. For the looking good. Two. Ng down at got plenty of gas. Hang in there. 30 seconds. Coming down at two. Made. Ot it come on in there. 24 feet. Contact light. Roger. Copy contact. Pro. Okay. Okay. Youve got your command override off . Yes. A good thing we leveled off high. Yeah. And came down because i sure couldnt see what was underneath i get into the sun. A nice place to land. Look at those boulders out on the right. As conrad and bean can their first attempts at exploration, they began to fix their exact site. G they were aided by gordon in the clipper. Well done. Clipper. Clippe clipper [inaudible] roger. Dick gordon using the 28 sightings. On roger, clipper. Eyeball. Well done. A major goal of apollo 12 had accomplished. Before man can engage in meaningful lunar explanation be able to select a precise site and get there. It was time to exit the ntrepid and begin the exploration and experiments. Conrad climbed out first. I tell you what were parked next to. Back 25 feet further from where we wanted to be. I get down to the bottom of the ladder ill see surveyor. Okay. inaudible youll never believe it. Side ss what i see on the of the crater. Sir. Al surveyor, yes, [laughter] is that lucky . Than 600be any further feet from here. Thats not bad. Now, pete conrad collected a geological sample. To know what im moving rapidly. But i can walk quite well. Weird, i tell le you. One is going to steam out d here i could work day. All take your time. [light singing] now, al bean left intrepid to join conrad on the surface of the moon. Okay. Ch closed, it. t block if i had landed 20 feet behind where i landed, we would landed right smack in that crater. Inadvertently the Television Camera was pointed directly at the sun causing the tube to burn out. Aspect of successful the entire mission. Ahead. Okay. Hope everybody down there is proud of it. To put it up were proud of what youre doing. They prepared an experiments package to be left on the moon, automated scientific station that would send information to a th for a year powered by generator. Be able to move out. They moved to the site to set up the station. Thosere is another one of mounds over there. Hey, youre right. What do you suppose they are . Know. Dont it looks like a small volcano. They put together the station. Nt how far do you estimate were from the landing . 700 feet. For apollo Acronym Lunar experiments package. Thee by piece they assemble station. Okay. Deployed. Solar wind to measure atomic particles hrown off by the sun as they strike the moon. A device to measure the moons atmosphere. A magnetometer to measure the lunar Magnetic Field which would be found to be 10 to 20 imes stronger than many scientists had expected. A size meter, to measure properties of the crust and interior and the data station to collect the and imental measurements transmit them to earth. Deployed conrad and bean began collecting geological samples. That. Ok at got to have it. They drove a core tube into surface to collect soil from depths. We show youre 3 07 into it, into the eva, and we would like landing to close it out. 17. Ts three plus there. Ope to get back were a long way. Houston, were approaching the alcep and heading back. Pete, were picking your going by the ts seisnometer. Coming up the lander. Yankee clipper, houston. Clipper, you were sort of a forgotten man for a little while. All eyes are on you now. Were with you. As nick gordon circled the pete conrad and al bean rested for their next expedition. Lunar otal time on the surface had been just under four hours. 12 1 2 hours later they went out again. Okay. Houston. Before they began their eological expedition of the surrounding craters, they worked round the lunar module getting ready the tools and container they would need. Putting the parts back on pete right now. Roger, we copy that. Whatever happened since yesterday . I dont know. As bean readied the out to t, conrad went the station to check on instruments about which the scientists had shown some concern. Out and checked the side. Crater. Houston after conrad checked the experiments they began the traverse during which they would cover about a mile and take samples from six craters. Its a bit surprising when you look at this head crater. Deeper thanof a lot it looks like. There you go. It, too. The pits in this will be a good rock, houston. Okay. Houston, im coming up on vince trader right now. Fragment. What a fantastic site. The bottom of that crater. There are some good rocks, come on. E, why dont we stop here and chart a little bit. Man, does that look small there. We show you youre 1,200 feet from the limb. Okay. You know what i feel like, al, did you ever see those giraffe running in slow motion. What i feel like. [laughter] ill sleep good tonight. Then they arrived at surveyor, their target. While the surveyor activities bonus, they were symbolic. Of olic of the success apollo 12. Look, seeust going to how this came in. Up dirt. Still set. Okay. Jiggling it. The surveyor is family planted no problem. Okay, al. Getting theto start tv camera. Did you see that material disintegrate. Okay. Two more tubes and a tv camera and that baby is ours. Done. In the bag. In the bag. Ive got to zip it up. Off. T me cut the scoop sure. You didnt want to leave did you . Scoop, so they left surveyor and after a stop at the crater block, they were back at the unar module collecting solar wind experiment, stowing boxes. Ck its ridiculous. Im got a rock box and trying to blow it off. Bean reentered the lunar first. Conrad using a transfer a clothe similar to line reel sent the samples up to him. The conrad, too, left surface. Okay. You can mark me off the lunar surface. At oger, we got that pete, into the eva. There was no time to rest. The lunar module had to be liftoff from the moon and rendezvous with Yankee Clipper. Good, pete. 321. Liftoff away we go. One minute twenty. So they rose to their endezvous and from dick gordon and Yankee Clipper. Sand dunes. Mile, 19 feet a second. Looking better all the time. Yankee. Per second. T intrepid now keeping with the clipper. Moved two vehicles together for docking. After. Okay. Arrived. Now conrad and bean rejoin module n the command bringing with them the samples, experiments, and photographs to returned to earth. The next step, jettison the then send it crashing into the moon to help seismometer left on the surface. Instrument was designed to easure meteorites, moon quakes and similar phenomena. Guidance control, its two spacecrafthe have separated. The lunar lander is on its down. The men on earth monitored seismometer f the waiting for impact. Countdown, 321. Impact. As for the meaning of it i an d rather not make interpretation right now, but it though one had struck a bell of the the church, a single blow, and found that the reverberation from it for 30 minutes. After 55 minutes, the not berations still had faded completely. Continued its orbit of the moon gathering studyraphy for scientific including the landing site for pollo 13 and then it was time to head back to earth. Roger. Roger. Byebye. On the other side. Have fun. Home burn to send them would take place behind the moon. On earth we waited. Apollo 12 once more. Houston. 12, hello, houston. Apollo 12. Home. Te shortly before reentry, crew watch the earth move to blot out the sun. Getting a spectacular view. Its unbelievable. The en apollo 12 hit 25,000 ere of earth at miles per hour. Its like it has crystals it in. An experimental station sends back its data. Each experiment representing a in our knowledge of the moon. The lunar atmosphere has been on, and im very happy to perfectly. Nctioning the seismometer has been and turned on. Functioning in all respects properly. I think it will represent a completely ery of unanticipated information about the moon. Were going to have to throw book and begin over again, which seems to be the general. The moon in in pollo 12 was a milestone anned extraterrestrial exploration that seeked its target as close as possible surveyor. The it set a pace and pattern for that is c exploration future missions will not only follow but go beyond. You can watch archival films on Public Affairs in their youre weekly series reel america, saturday at 0 00 p. M. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern. Here on American History tv. Q a, the , on Washington Post bureau chief, am ma la constable talks about her experiences covering the region. Sometimes will say things of the very critical of ed states or, you know, the west. That is more common than somebody saying something ffensively about being a woman or causing problems. People tend to be generally thinking, very broadly now, more helpful to a woman than to a man. Try to take advantage of you in various generally, my experience has been that if they are not going to like something you, or are going to mistrust something about you, its not going to be because a woman. It will be because youre an american. Watch tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the western History Association hosts a panel called does the west matter. Five scholars ponder the definition of the american west. Directly, culturally and politically. They discussed the broader role of regions in understanding the past and present of the united states. 2019 annualt of the meeting. Good afternoon. I am the president of the wha. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to this afternoon session. Idential does the west matter . The future of regionalism in American History. There is some 150 sessions taking place at the wha. This is the one session that brings all of us togetin