50 Years Ago: Apollo 12 Rolls Out to Launch PadSept. 13, 2019

Left: The Apollo 12 Saturn V rolling up the incline as it approaches Launch Pad 39A.
Right: Apollo 12 astronauts (left to right) Bean, Gordon, and Conrad pose in front of their Saturn V during the rollout to the pad.(...) On Sep. 8, the Saturn V rocket with the Apollo 12 spacecraft on top rolled out from Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to Launch Pad 39A. Riding atop the Mobile Launch Platform and the Crawler Transporter, the rocket made the 3.5-mile trip to the pad in about 6 hours. Conrad, Gordon, and Bean were on hand to observe the rollout. Workers at the pad spent the next two months thoroughly checking out the rocket and spacecraft to prepare it for its mission to the Moon. The two-day Flight Readiness Test at the end of September ensured that the launch vehicle and spacecraft systems were in a state of flight readiness. Ground systems provided power to the launch vehicle during the test, but all electrical connections on the rocket itself were as if during flight.
In preparation for their mission, the Apollo 12 astronauts spent many hours in the Command Module (CM) and Lunar Module (LM) simulators at both KSC and the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In addition, Conrad and Bean as well as their backups Scott and Irwin rehearsed their lunar surface EVAs including the visit to Surveyor 3. Workers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shipped an engineering model of the robotic spacecraft to KSC. For added realism, engineers there mounted the model on a slope to match its relative position on the interior of the crater in which it stood on the Moon.

Left: Apollo 12 astronauts Bean (left) and Conrad rehearse their EVAs at KSC.
Right: Apollo 12 Commander Conrad trains in the use of the Hasselblad camera they will use on the Moon.With regard to lunar geology training, one advantage the Apollo 12 astronauts had over their predecessors was the ability to actually inspect Moon rocks and soil returned by the Apollo 11 crew. On Sep. 19, Conrad and Bean arrived at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at MSC, where Lunar Sample Curator Daniel H. Anderson met them. Anderson brought a few lunar rocks and some lunar soil that scientists had already tested and didn’t require to be stored under vacuum or other special conditions, allowing Conrad and Bean to examine them closely and compare them with terrestrial rocks and soil they had seen during geology training field trips. This first hand exposure to actual lunar samples significantly augmented Conrad and Bean’s geology training. To highlight the greater emphasis being given to lunar surface science, the Apollo 12 crews (prime and backup) went on six geology field trips compared to just one for the Apollo 11 crews. (...)
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/50-years-ago-apollo-12-rolls-out-to-launch-pad