Polskie Forum Astronautyczne
Człowiek i Astronautyka => Osobistości => Wątek zaczęty przez: Orionid w Lipca 08, 2019, 06:08
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20 lat temu 8 lipca 1999 roku (W Polsce był wtedy już kolejny dzień), niemal 30 lat po powrocie z Księżyca i na parę dni przed 20. rocznicą deorbitacji jego kosmicznej placówki - stacji orbitalnej Skylab, zmarł Charles 'Pete' Conrad, Jr. (http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/21.htm).
Jest 33. zmarłym uczestnikiem lotów kosmicznych. Wtedy też wśród tych, którzy odeszli, był pierwszym o tak dużej ilości odbytych lotów kosmicznych, jak też pod względem nalotu, który stał się nowym rekordem w czasie trwania jego ostatniej misji kosmicznej. Z jego kosmicznych towarzyszy żyje już tylko Joseph Kerwin (http://lk.astronautilus.pl/astros/60.htm).
21 (20) człowiek w kosmosie.
Odbył 4 loty kosmiczne, które trwały łącznie 028d 00g 49m 48s.
Odbył 4 spacery kosmiczne, które trwały łącznie 12g 46m 18s.
https://www.nasa.gov/former-astronaut-charles-pete-conrad-jr/
http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/conrad_charles.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/c/conrad.html
https://www.worldspaceflight.com/bios/c/conrad-c.php
https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00020.htm
https://www.kozmo-data.sk/kozmonauti/conrad-jr-charles-peter.html
https://www.astronaut.ru/crossroad/020.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/conrad21ru.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Conrad
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1664663923436527616
https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1664757013945917451
(https://www.biography.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_700/MTU5ODk1MDk3OTA1Nzg0MTgz/charles-pete-conrad-1930-1999-pictured-being-assisted-in-to-his-gemini-space-suit-for-a-project-gemini-training-exercise-in-the-united-states-circa-1965-photo-by-rolls-presspopperfotogetty-images.webp)
Pete Conrad in to his Gemini space suit for a Project Gemini training exercise in 1965 Photo: Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images
(http://www.spacefacts.de/more/astronauts/photo/conrad_charles_1.jpg)(http://www.spacefacts.de/more/astronauts/photo/conrad_charles_4.jpg)
(http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/patches2/gemini-5.jpg)(http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/patches2/gemini-11.jpg)(http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/patches2/apollo-12.jpg)(http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/patches2/skylab-2.jpg)
(http://www.spacefacts.de/graph/in-flight/in-flight2/gemini-5_conrad.jpg)
(http://www.spacefacts.de/graph/sts/training2/gemini-11_1.jpg)
(https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo12/hires/as12-47-6921.jpg)
(https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/skylab/skylab2/lores/s73-27508.jpg)
https://paw.princeton.edu/article/pete-conrad-53-princetons-man-moon
http://everything.explained.today/Pete_Conrad/
https://www.ranker.com/list/astronaut-pete-conrad/erin-wisti
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/39rj0y/my_grandfather_pete_conrad_was_an_american/
O lotniczej anomalii samolotu T-38 w 1972 roku http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum38/HTML/001069.html
11:18 AM · Jul 8, 2024
8 juillet 1999
Il y a 25 ans, Charles ''Pete'' Conrad (4 missions spatiales, 49 jours dans l'espace, et 3ème homme à marcher sur la Lune avec Apollo 12) meurt des suites de ses blessures suite à un accident de la route avec sa moto. Il avait 69 ans.
https://x.com/spacemen1969/status/1810241957198717102
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Blask Historii: Charles “Pete” Conrad, żartowniś na Księżycu
24 lutego 2003, 0:00 by Michał Moroz
Charles Conrad Jr. urodził się 2 czerwca 1930 w Filadelfii w stanie Pensylwania. Czterokrotnie znalazł się w przestrzeni kosmicznej. Łącznie poza Ziemią spędził 49 dni, 3 godziny i 38 minut. To trzeci człowiek, który stanął na Księżycu.
W 1953 ukończył studia z inżynierii lotniczej na Uniwersytecie Princeton. W 1966 uzyskał licencjat z tych samych studiów na tym samym uniwersytecie. Po ukończeniu studiów wstąpił do Marynarki Wojennej Stanów Zjednoczonych, gdzie został pilotem doświadczalnym. We wrześniu 1962 roku został wybrany do drugiej grupy astronautów NASA.
(http://astronet.pl/wp-content/uploads/archive/02572.jpg)
Gordon Cooper i Pete Conrad odbyli 7-dniowy lot w kosmos podczas misji Gemini 5.
21 sierpnia 1965 Conrad odbył swój pierwszy lot w kosmos w kapsule Gemini V. Dowódcą był Gordon Cooper. Celem misji było spędzenie na orbicie 8 dni oraz przetestowanie systemów nawigacyjnych i manewrowych. Trzeciego dnia w Kosmosie przeprowadzono symulację cumowania do stopnia Agena. Astronauci wrócili po 7 dniach i 22 godzinach na Ziemię. W ten sposób pobili rekord pobytu człowieka w Kosmosie, wyprzedzając Rosjan oraz udowadniając, że lot na Księżyc jest możliwy. Jednakże sam Conrad stwierdził, że “Misja była niesamowicie nudna… Dryfowaliśmy cały czas, by oszczędzać paliwo“. Dublerami Gemini V byli: Neil Armstrong i Elliot See.
(http://astronet.pl/wp-content/uploads/archive/03197.jpg)
Zdjęcie przedstawia załogę lotu Gemini XI. Po prawej dowódca Charles “Pete” Conrad. Po lewej pilot Richard Gordon.
Podczas swojego drugiego lotu Conrad poleciał już jako dowódca kapsuły Gemini XI. Pilotem był Richard Gordon. Lot rozpoczął się 12 września 1966 i trwał 2 dni i 23 godziny. Podczas misji pięciokrotnie cumowano do stopnia rakietowego Agena. (GATV-11). Przy pomocy silników Ageny podniesiono orbitę statku Gemini do rekordowej wysokości 800 km. 13 września Gordon przeprowadził spacer kosmiczny, podczas którego zdjął pułapkę na mikrometeroidy z GATV-11 oraz połączył kapsułę Gemini 30 metrową liną z Ageną. Przy jej pomocy przeprowadzono pierwszy eksperyment wytworzenia sztucznej grawitacji na orbicie. Siła odśrodkowa wynosiła 0,0015 g. Dublerami byli Neil Armstrong i William Anders.
(http://astronet.pl/wp-content/uploads/archive/03198.jpg)
Zdjęcie przedstawia załogę Apolla 12. Po lewej dowódca Pete Conrad. W środku pilot Richard Gordon. Po prawej pilot Alan Bean.
Trzeci lot zaprowadził “Pete” Conrada na powierzchnię Księżyca. Misja Apollo 12 (AS-507) wystartowała 14 listopada 1969. Conrad był dowódcą, Richard Gordon pilotem modułu dowodzenia, a Alan Bean pilotem modułu księżycowego LM. Podczas startu w rakietę nośną Saturn V uderzył piorun, jednak nie wyrządził on żadnych szkód. 17 listopada CSM Yankee Clipper i LM Intrepid weszli na orbitę okołoksiężycową o parametrach 312,6 x 115,9 km. Potem orbita została ukołowiona na 122,5 x 100,6 km. 18 listopada Intrepid wylądował na Oceanie Burz, 163 metry od sondy Surveyor III, która na Księżycu wylądowała w 1967 roku. Conrad został trzecim człowiekiem, który postawił stopę na Księżycu. Przy zejściu na jego powierzchnię zażartował “Hop hop. Może to był mały krok dla Neila, ale dla mnie to naprawdę duży krok“. Pobyt na Księżycu trwał 31 godzin i 31 minut. Podczas dwóch spacerów kosmicznych zebrano 34,4 kg próbek księżycowych. Zabrano także próbki z sondy Surveyor III. 24 listopada załoga Apolla 12 wodowała na Pacyfiku. Dublerami byli: David Scott, Alfred Worden i James Irvin.
(http://astronet.pl/wp-content/uploads/archive/03199.jpg)
Zdjęcie przedstawia pierwsza amerykańską załogę stacji kosmicznej Skylab. W środku dowódca Charles “Pete” Conrad. Po lewej Joseph Kerwin a po prawej Paul Weitz.
Celem czwartego i ostatniego zarazem lotu Conrada była pierwsza amerykańska stacja kosmiczna – Skylab. Wystartował 25 maja 1973 roku. W skład załogi, którą dowodził Conrad, poleciało dwóch innych astronautów: Jospeh Kerwin i Paul Weitz. Dla obu był to pierwszy i jedyny lot w kosmos. Misja trwała 28 dni i 49 minut. Podczas wystrzelenia stacji odłamała się jedna z baterii słonecznych, zaś na orbicie druga nie mogła się rozwinąć, ponieważ była zablokowana przez tarczę mikrometeoroidową. Załoga stacji musiała wyjść na spacer kosmiczny, aby odblokować baterię. Na Skylabie przeprowadzono wiele eksperymentów z różnych dziedzin naukowych. Dublerami byli: Russell Schweickart, Story Musgrave i Bruce McCandless II.
9 czerwca 1999 roku Pete Conrad zginął tragicznie w wypadku, jadąc na motocyklu.
https://news.astronet.pl/index.php/2003/02/24/n2960/
https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1797274476410732603
"If you can't be good, be colorful"
On his birthday, we remember astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad. Known as an excellent pilot and for his vibrant personality, Conrad brought playfulness to NASA's space program. He was the 3rd man to step foot on the Moon. https://go.nasa.gov/3V1wknQ
https://x.com/NASAhistory/status/1797274476410732603
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THIRD MAN TO WALK ON MOON DIES IN MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT
Updated: 04/07/2002
(https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/apollo/images/apollo12_peteconrad2.jpg)
"Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me..."
Charles P. (Pete) Conrad (Capt., USN, Ret.), the third human to walk on the moon, died late Thursday night in a hospital in Ojai, CA of injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. He was 69.
Conrad was on a trip to Monterey, CA with his wife, Nancy, and friends when his motorcycle crashed on a turn, according to the California Highway Patrol. Conrad, who lived in Huntington Beach, CA, near Los Angeles, died later at the hospital of internal injuries.
Conrad made history on November 19, 1969, when, as Commander of the Apollo 12 mission, he and Astronaut Alan Bean set their lunar module "Intrepid" down on the moon's Ocean of Storms to achieve the second of six landings in the Apollo program.
Some five hours later, parodying the historic words of Neil Armstrong four months earlier when Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon, Conrad said, "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me". Conrad and Bean conducted two excursions on the moon totaling almost eight hours, in which they set up various experiment packages and retrieved more than 75 pounds of lunar rocks and soil samples. They also recovered a camera and other gear from the nearby Surveyor 3 probe, which had landed on the moon in April 1967.
"Pete was an explorer and a hero of the space frontier," said George W.S. Abbey, Director of the Johnson Space Center.
"From Gemini to Apollo, to his command of the first crew to live aboard an American space station, Pete was a true professional. He combined skill and ability with wit and humor to become one of the courageous pioneers who took humankind beyond the bounds of our planet. We will miss him greatly. Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to his wife, Nancy and their family," Abbey said.
Conrad was selected in the second class of NASA astronauts in 1962 following a distinguished career as a Navy test pilot and instructor. Following his graduation from Princeton University in 1953, Conrad entered the Navy and attended test pilot school at Patuxent River, MD, where he was assigned as a Project Test Pilot.
After being selected as an astronaut, Conrad was assigned to fly on the Gemini 5 mission as the co-pilot to Gordon Cooper. In August, 1965, Cooper and Conrad spent what was then a record eight days in orbit, perfecting techniques for use in later lunar missions and proving the capability of astronauts to spend more than a week in space.
Conrad then commanded the Gemini 11 mission in September 1966, in which he and co-pilot Richard Gordon established the fastest rendezvous and docking in history, linking their Gemini spacecraft with an Agena target vehicle before establishing a new altitude record of almost 850 miles above the Earth.
Conrad was joined by Bean and Gordon on the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, forming an all-Navy crew for their Command Module "Yankee Clipper" and their Lunar Module "Intrepid". Conrad and Bean proved that pinpoint landings could be made on the lunar surface and conducted the first significant science operations during their 31 hours on the Ocean of Storms.
Conrad's fourth and final space flight occurred in 1973 as the Commander of the first crew to live and work on America's first space station, Skylab. Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin were launched on a modified Saturn rocket on May 25, 1973, 11 days after the station itself was launched. During Skylab's climb to orbit, one of its solar arrays was torn off and the other was stuck in a closed position by debris.
Once on orbit, Conrad and his crew mates freed the remaining solar array on Skylab and set up a sunshade to help cool the station for the remainder of its lifetime on orbit. He also conducted a space walk with Weitz late in the mission to retrieve film packages and perform other maintenance work. In all, Conrad and his crew spent 28 days in space, establishing another endurance record at the time.
Conrad left NASA and the Navy in l974 to pursue a career in private industry. Conrad first served as Vice President of American Television and Communications Corporation, responsible for the operation and development of cable television systems. In 1976, Conrad became Vice President of McDonnell Douglas Corporation and later took on the responsibility for all commercial and military sales for the Douglas Aircraft Company.
With an eye toward the commercialization of space and the exploration of Mars, Conrad worked on the development of new spacecraft and space transporation systems with McDonnell Douglas and a California research firm called Universal Space Lines.
Among Conrad's numerous awards are the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, two NASA Exceptional Service medals, two Navy Distinguished Service Medals and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. He was enshrined in the Aviation Hall of Fame in 1980.
Conrad is survived by his wife, three sons and seven grandchildren. A son preceded him in death.
https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo12/conrad/pete_conrad_obit.html
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Pete Conrad, 69, the Third Man to Walk on the Moon, Dies After a Motorcycle Crash
By CHRISTOPHER S. WRENJULY 10, 1999
Pete Conrad, who flew to the Moon nearly 30 years ago and became the third man to walk upon it, died Thursday evening after crashing his motorcycle near Ojai, Calif.
The former astronaut and Navy captain, who had survived more than 1,100 hours of often perilous space exploration, was 69.
Mr. Conrad was traveling from his home in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles, to Monterey along with his wife, Nancy, and several friends. About 80 miles into the journey, he apparently lost control on a bend of Highway 150 and was flung from his Harley-Davidson.
Mr. Conrad, who was wearing a helmet and obeying the 55 mile-an-hour speed limit, did not look badly hurt, but he complained of chest pains and difficulty breathing. Though doctors at Ojai Valley Community Hospital worked to save him, he died more than five hours later.
James Baroni, the deputy coroner of Ventura County, told The Associated Press that Mr. Conrad had suffered massive internal bleeding.
During his four space missions, Mr. Conrad logged 49 days, 3 hours and 37 minutes in space, a record at the time. He not only walked on the Moon but also set what was then a space endurance record of 28 days on the Skylab. And his associates say he did it without ever losing his sense of humor or his enthusiasm.
Three weeks ago, Mr. Conrad flew his private plane east to the Berkshires to be honored as an outstanding alumnus of Darrow School, a small preparatory school in New Lebanon, N.Y.
''He was incredibly energetic, not a man of 69 in his attitude about life or the space industry,'' Darrow's headmaster, Laurence R. Van Meter, recalled. ''There was nothing cynical about him at all.''
Charles Conrad Jr. was born on June 2, 1930, in the affluent Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia. His father, who served as a balloonist in World War I, was an investment broker. The future astronaut, who was always called Pete because his mother liked the name, was intrigued by flying and engines. As a child, he built model airplanes. As a teen-ager, he hung around local garages and airfields, neglecting his schoolwork. He swept up in a machine shop to finance flying lessons, and flew solo when he was 16.
To buck up his academic performance, Mr. Conrad was sent to Darrow School, where he became an excellent student, graduating with honors in 1949. Though he weighed barely 135 pounds and stood 5 feet 6 inches tall, Pete Conrad also played center on the football team so feistily that he was voted its captain. ''He was a very tough boy, and we won our share of games,'' said Charles Broadhead, the school's assistant headmaster at the time.
At Princeton, Mr. Conrad studied aeronautical engineering. Upon graduation in 1953 he joined the Navy, where he became an aviator, test pilot and flight instructor. In September 1962, he was selected as an astronaut.
In August 1965, he was a pilot on the Gemini 5 mission, which circled the Earth for eight days, a record at the time. In September 1966, he commanded the Gemini 11 mission, which set an altitude record of 850 miles and docked with another orbiting spacecraft.
In November 1969, Mr. Conrad commanded the Apollo 12 mission to the Moon, and repeated the lunar walk of Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr. Mr. Conrad spent seven hours and 45 minutes on the Moon's surface with Alan L. Bean, setting up a nuclear generator to power later experiments.
''Pete squeezed the most out of every opportunity to expand our knowledge and operating skills,'' Mr. Aldrin said yesterday.
Mr. Conrad went on, in May 1973, to set a record at the time of 28 days in space as commander of Skylab 2, the first manned space station. He considered that accomplishment as significant as his Moon landing.
After one solar-power wing blew off the orbiting Skylab and the other jammed, threatening to cut short the mission, Mr. Conrad and his crewmate Joseph P. Kerwin crawled out of the space station and for four hours floated on loose tethers, trying to pry the retracted panel free with a 25-foot pole. Even under such stress, Mr. Conrad's heart measured a relatively cool 100 beats a minute.
Mr. Conrad became as familiar to Americans for his gap-toothed grin and puckish sense of humor as for his courage in space. ''If you can't be good,'' he said, ''be colorful.''
When Mr. Armstrong first stepped on the lunar Ocean of Tranquility on July 20, 1969, he delivered his now-famous remark, ''That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.''
Four months later, Mr. Conrad, the shortest man in the corps of astronauts, made his walk on the Moon's cratered Ocean of Storms. ''Whoopee!'' he exclaimed when his foot touched the dry lunar dust. ''That may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.''
When Mr. Conrad returned from Skylab with Mr. Kerwin and Comdr. Paul J. Weitz, President Richard M. Nixon presented the trio to the visiting Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev. The astronauts went without the face masks they were supposed to wear to protect them from germs.
''If we catch a cold,'' Mr. Conrad told Nixon and Brezhnev, ''it will be an honor to catch a cold from you two gentlemen.''
After 20 years in the Navy, Mr. Conrad retired as a captain in 1973 to begin a business career, first as vice president for operations of the American Televison and Communications Corporation, a cable television company based in Denver. He moved to the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1978 as vice president for international sales and, later, marketing. When Douglas merged with McDonnell in 1986, he was named a vice president of the new McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, where he worked on a reusable launching vehicle, called the Delta Clipper, that NASA later turned down.
Though Mr. Conrad appeared in a tongue-in-cheek commercial for American Express credit cards, he was not caught up in his celebrity. ''My name may get me through some doors,'' The Orange County (Calif.) Register quoted him as saying. ''But I'd better know what I'm talking about in order to stay in the room.''
Mr. Conrad's fascination with space never waned. He started one aerospace company, Rocket Development, to build reusable spaceships, another, Universal Space Lines, to launch them, and a third, Universal Spacenet, to track them.
When a letter writer asked whether there was life in space, Mr. Conrad told The Los Angeles Times, he called it a definite possibility. ''After all, there's plenty of unearthly looking things moving around in my refrigerator,'' Mr. Conrad said, ''so there's always a chance of life springing up almost anywhere.''
He also talked about starting a space airline. ''I predict that people will be flying to space routinely for vacation,'' he told an audience in Washington two years ago.
Mr. Conrad's awards included the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, two Distinguished Service Medals from NASA, two Distinguished Service Medals from the Navy and two Distinguished Flying Crosses.
Mr. Conrad's first marriage, to Jane DuBose, ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Fortner Conrad, of Huntington Beach, and three sons, Peter, Thomas and Andrew. A fourth son, Christopher, died of bone cancer in 1990.
When Mr. Conrad returned to Darrow for his 50th class reunion last month, he wrote in its yearbook, ''I would not have gone to the Moon if I had not gone to Darrow.''
While at the reunion, he talked not only about his life in space but also about a vintage motorcycle he was restoring.
''It was clear,'' said Mr. Van Meter, the headmaster, ''that flying and motorcycles were, as they always had be for him, two major loves in his life.''
CLOSE-UP: Walkers on the Moon
By The Associated Press
Following is a list of the 12 men who walked on the Moon, their missions and their later lives:
Neil A. Armstrong. Apollo 11 (1969). Now 68, a businessman in Lebanon, Ohio.
Edwin E. Aldrin. Apollo 11 (1969). Now 69, president of three companies in Los Angeles and board chairman of National Space Society.
Pete Conrad. Apollo 12 (1969). Killed on Thursday in a motorcycle accident in California at 69. Founded and headed Universal Space Lines Inc. of Newport Beach, Calif.
Alan L. Bean. Apollo 12 (1969). Now 67, an artist in Houston who paints only space scenes.
Alan B. Shepard Jr. Apollo 14 (1971). The first American in space, he died in 1998 at 74.
Edgar D. Mitchell. Apollo 14 (1971). Now 68, founder and board member of an institute that researches the mind and nature of consciousness. Lives in Boca Raton, Fla.
David R. Scott. Apollo 15 (1971). Now 67, an aerospace consultant in Manhattan Beach, Calif.
James B. Irwin. Apollo 15 (1971). Died of a heart attack in 1991 at 61. Founded High Flight Foundation, evangelistic organization in Colorado Springs. Led six expeditions to Mount Ararat in Turkey in search of Noah's Ark.
John W. Young, Apollo 16 (1972). Now 68, the associate director for technical matters at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Charles M. Duke. Apollo 16 (1972). Now 63, a businessman in New Braunfels, Tex., and a self-described ''committed Christian'' who gives motivational talks.
Eugene A. Cernan. Apollo 17 (1972). Now 65, chairman and chief executive of the Johnson Engineering Corporation in Houston.
Harrison Schmitt. Apollo 17 (1972). Now 64, former United States senator and geologist living in Albuquerque, N.M. Teaches part time at the University of Wisconsin.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/10/us/pete-conrad-69-the-third-man-to-walk-on-the-moon-dies-after-a-motorcycle-crash.html
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Astronaut Charles P. `Pete' Conrad Jr. Dies
By J.Y. Smith July 10, 1999
THE OBITUARY JULY 10 OF FORMER ASTRONAUT CHARLES P. CONRAD JR. MISSTATED HIS RANK AT THE TIME HE RETIRED FROM THE NAVY. HE WAS A CAPTAIN. (PUBLISHED 07/12/99)
Charles P. "Pete" Conrad Jr., 69, a former Navy test pilot and astronaut who in 1969 became the third man to walk on the moon, died July 8 at a hospital in Ojai, Calif., of injuries he suffered in a motorcycle accident.
A highly competent engineer who also was a cheerful and exuberant extrovert who shouted "Whoopee!" when he first set foot on the surface of the moon, Cmdr. Conrad embodied qualities that have been valued by NASA since the first astronauts were chosen in 1959.
A wiry figure of 5 foot 6 with thinning hair, he had the appearance and the style of an aviator who was prepared to test the limits of flight. He was not a member of the original Mercury manned space-flight program -- he did not become an astronaut until 1962, but he was regarded by colleagues as a prime example of "the right stuff" celebrated by Tom Wolfe in his classic account of the first Americans to go into orbit.
In addition to commanding the Apollo 12 mission to the moon, Cmdr. Conrad was the co-pilot of the Gemini 5 space capsule during a record eight-day flight in 1965. A year later, he commanded Gemini 11 on a flight that set a space altitude record of 850 miles and demonstrated the feasibility of docking with another capsule during orbit. In 1973, he commanded the first mission of Skylab, a permanent space station.
Cmdr. Conrad's decorations included the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, two NASA Exceptional Service Medals, two Navy Distinguished Service Medals and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. In 1980, he was made a member of the Aviation Hall of Fame.
At his death, flags at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and the Johnson Space Center in Houston were flown at half-staff.
A statement from the California Highway Patrol said Cmdr. Conrad, a resident of Huntington Beach, Calif., was thrown to the pavement when his 1996 Harley-Davidson ran off the road and into a drainage ditch on a curve on Highway 150. He was taken to Ojai Valley Community Hospital and underwent surgery for internal injuries. He died about five hours later.
Cmdr. Conrad and a group of friends were on a trip to Monterey, Calif., to attend a motorcycle event. He was the only person involved in the accident.
A native of Philadelphia, Cmdr. Conrad grew up in Pennsylvania. He became interested in flying as a child and told interviewers he spent hours pretending to fly the Spirit of St. Louis, the plane Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic. He received a private pilot's license at age 17.
In 1953, he graduated from Princeton University, where he majored in aeronautical engineering, and then went into the Navy to become a pilot. He was sent to the Navy's test pilot school at Patuxent Naval Air Station. When he graduated, he was assigned to Patuxent as a test pilot and later as a flight instructor and performance engineer.
He applied for the Mercury space program in 1959. Although he passed all the physical and mental tests, he was not one of the seven who were chosen. He later made the (possibly facetious) claim that he had been turned down because he had not taken the psychological tests seriously enough -- when shown a blank white card and asked for comment, he replied that it was "upside down."
Three years later, while serving with a fighter squadron in California, he was chosen as one of the nine members of the second group of astronauts.
The nation's manned space program at the time was the Gemini Project, a series of two-man space flights designed to pave the way for a moon landing. Scientific considerations aside, the political imperative in the Cold War was to reach that goal before the Russians.
The Gemini 5 mission, which Cmdr. Conrad flew with Navy Cmdr. L. Gordon Cooper Jr., was designed to last eight days, the time it would take to fly to the moon and back. Its purpose was to see whether men could exist and function in space for that length of time. In doing so, it set a record, but the crew had to overcome problems with the power system that almost caused officials to order it back to Earth after only two days.
The Gemini 11 mission, which Cmdr. Conrad flew with Navy Cmdr. Richard F. Gordon Jr., tested space docking capabilities and also was part of the moon program.
In November 1969, Cmdr. Conrad and Gordon teamed up again for the Apollo 12 moon landing. The third member of their crew was Navy Cmdr. Alan L. Bean. Cmdr. Conrad was in overall command. Gordon flew the Apollo capsule and Bean was the pilot of the lunar landing module, which was called Intrepid.
The only previous moonwalkers were Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, who landed July 20, 1969. Armstrong's famous first words have been transcribed as follows: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
When Cmdr. Conrad stepped on the dusty landscape of the moon's Ocean of Storms, he shouted, "Whoopee! That may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
One of the assigned tasks of the mission was to inspect Surveyor 3, a research vehicle that was landed on the moon by remote control, and to return with its television camera. When the time came, Cmdr. Conrad brought the landing module to within 600 feet of Surveyor, an extraordinary feat of navigation for that time.
Over the next 30 hours, Cmdr. Conrad and Bean spent seven hours and 45 minutes on the moon's surface. In addition to visiting Surveyor, they set up a nuclear generating station to power experiments that they put in place.
Cmdr. Conrad's last space flight was in command of Skylab, which spent 28 days in orbit in May and June of 1973. He made several spacewalks to repair damage to the space station that had occurred during its launching. The mission brought his total time in space to 1,179 hours and 38 minutes.
In 1973, Cmdr. Conrad retired from NASA and the Navy. He worked for the American Television and Communications Corp. in Denver and then for McDonnell Douglas Corp., the airplane manufacturer, where he retired in 1996 after 20 years of service. More recently, he founded a company that focused on commercial aspects of space.
Cmdr. Conrad's marriage to the former Jane DuBose ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife, Nancy Conrad, of Huntington Beach; three sons from his first marriage, Peter, Thomas and Andrew; and seven grandchildren.
Christopher Conrad, another son from his first marriage, died of bone cancer in 1990.
CAPTION: Charles P. "Pete" Conrad Jr., who commanded the Apollo 12 mission to the moon, stands with a mock-up of a lunar landing module. He was the third person to walk on the moon and spent more than 1,179 hours in space.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1999/07/10/astronaut-charles-p-pete-conrad-jr-dies/75691893-35a0-4dc1-a0ee-a67142686e92/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3ac897b16ac9
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Conrad Jr., Charles “Pete”
Astronaut
Enshrined 1980
1930-1999
The intense training and pressure-filled working conditions of an astronaut are tough, tedious, and extremely stressful. Charles Conrad, Jr. used his sense of humor to help him endure these obstacles and achieve success. Four months after Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon and uttered his famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Conrad, armed with his own commentary, walked on the moon himself. Seconds after his boot imprinted the barren lunar dust, Conrad, who was the shortest astronaut at the time, said, “That may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”
Pilot of Gemini 5 in 1965, which made 120 orbits around the earth and set an endurance record of 191 hours in space, ultimately proving humans could stay in space long enough to make it to the moon.
Commanded Gemini 11 in 1966 Conrad caught and linked up with an Agena satellite, using the Agena engine to rocket to a then-record altitude of 850 miles.
Commanded Apollo 12 in November 1969 and was the third person to walk on the moon.
May 1973, Conrad and crew aboard Skylab II, the orbiting workshop, rendezvous with Skylab I, administering repairs to the damaged craft and conducting experiments in space.
Served as consultant for the Hubble Space Telescope.
Biography
Charles Conrad, Jr.’s career in space began when he was among the hundreds of disappointed applicants after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration selected seven test pilots in 1958 for astronaut training for its “Project Mercury” manned space program. Success in Project Mercury arrived quickly. It included Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight as the first American in space, and Glenn’s orbiting of the Earth in his Friendship 7 spacecraft.
When NASA announced “Project Gemini” in 1962, using a two-man spacecraft, Conrad was among the selectees. Before long he began an intense training program, including jungle survival courses in Panama, trips to geological areas similar to the moon, training in water egress from spacecraft, countless hours in flight simulators, and endless physicals. No room for error exists in space. Conrad encountered his first challenge as pilot of Gemini-5, accompanied by astronaut L. Gordon Cooper. During this mission, man’s first extended space flight, everything went according to plan as the astronauts were launched into orbit.
Once aloft, they used the first fuel cells to generate electric power in space, test the radar guidance systems, and take remarkable photographs of areas such as the Salton Sea. After orbiting the Earth for eight days, they splashed down in the Atlantic and rejoiced in their accomplishment of having demonstrated human beings’ ability to stay in space long enough to fly to the moon and back. For his next mission, Conrad served as backup commander of Gemini-8, during which Armstrong and Scott achieved the first docking of two spacecraft.
As the successful missions continued, Conrad served as commander of Gemini-11, launched into earth orbit with astronaut Richard Gordon in 1966. After they docked with an Agena target vehicle, Gordon spent two periods outside the spacecraft. During one, he sat astride the nose of Gemini-11 and connected it to the Agena with a rope, while Pete shouted: “Ride ’em cowboy!” in encouragement. Later, the spacecraft flew in tethered arrangement, while Conrad used thruster rockets to slowly rotate them and produce the first artificial gravity in space. On this mission, the astronauts obtained spectacular photos of Arabia and India and beyond, before splashing down in the Atlantic. After President Kennedy declared that the nation should commit itself to landing a man on the moon before the decade finished, NASA announced its Apollo lunar landing project.
In 1968, the first 3-man Apollo crew reached and orbited the moon in Apollo-8 and see the Earth as a “big blue marble.” Then, Conrad served as backup commander of the Apollo-9 mission during which separation and redocking of the lunar module is achieved. Finally, a historic moment followed after Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were launched in Apollo-11, and Neil guided its lunar module to a safe landing. As he first stepped upon the moon, Armstrong uttered his famous line: “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind!”
Following this success, Conrad received a promotion to commander of Apollo-12 to make the second moon landing, along with astronauts Bean and Gordon, an all-Navy crew. He worked diligently in the lunar module mission simulator and became proficient with the lunar landing trainer. This training left few precious moments to spend with his family. He practiced water egress in the Gulf of Mexico, the use of lunar equipment in Arizona, simulated extravehicular activities at the Kennedy Space Center, and exiting from the lunar module until he was prepared to try for the moon. During its spectacular launch through a rain squall in November 1969, the Apollo-12 was struck twice by lightning. Fortunately, it continued its ascent and assumed proper orbit.
After being inserted into a trajectory to assure a moon landing under good visibility conditions, the gravity of the moon captured the craft. Then Conrad separated the lunar module Intrepid from the command module Yankee Clipper on the tenth orbit and brought it to a precise landing on the “Ocean of Storms”. When Conrad descended the ladder, he became the third man on the moon, and Bean soon joined him there.
After collecting a contingency sample of rocks, they positioned the radio antenna, set up the solar wind experiment, and erected an American flag. Then they deployed instruments for recording moon quakes, measuring solar radiation and detecting lunar atmosphere and dust. Later, they inspected the unmanned surveyor-3 spacecraft, which had previously landed on the moon, and removed its television camera and other parts for scientific study on earth.
Meanwhile, Conrad received the dubious honor of being the first man to fall upon the moon. But when Bean helped him up, he assured mission control: “It’s no big deal.” After 31 hours 31 minutes on the lunar surface, Conrad and Bean blasted off and caught Gordon orbiting overhead. After they transferred to the command module, the lunar module was jettisoned back on to the moon.
On the long journey home, the astronauts held the first space news conference, responding to questions from listeners on earth. Then Conrad brought the mission to a successful conclusion with the splashdown in the Pacific near Samoa. After being picked up by helicopter, the astronauts entered the quarantine facility aboard the carrier Hornet, where they received a congratulatory call from President Nixon.
During the final Apollo-17 mission, astronauts left a plaque on the moon reading: “Here man completed his first exploration of the moon, December 1972. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind.” After the mission NASA moved to launch an orbiting workshop called Skylab, to study the sun and earth from space. The laboratory was to be visited by three separate crews.
In 1972, NASA announced the Skylab 2 crew would be astronauts Kerwin and Weitz, with “Pete” Conrad as commander. Their specialized training includes operation of the Apollo telescope, and how to perform experiments in space. Unfortunately, after the fully provisioned Skylab launched into Earth orbit, in May 1973, its orbital workshop thermal shield was discovered to have broken loose and ripped away one of its electric power generating solar panels and jammed another partly open. When the workshop’s temperature soared, NASA postponed Conrad’s mission until his crew could be equipped to carry out repairs in space. When Skylab 2 was finally launched, it overtook the crippled Skylab 1. After visually assessing the damage, Conrad moved in close, while Weitz unsuccessfully attempted to release the jammed panel. A major crisis arose when Conrad attempted unsuccessfully six times to dock with Skylab 1. In desperation, the astronauts donned their space suits and checked the docking probe. Suddenly the culprit, a loose nut, flew off into space and Conrad finally docked at the last possible moment. When Conrad and Weitz entered the hot workshop, they forced a makeshift sun shield through an airlock and released it to open against the exterior of the spacecraft. Almost immediately, the temperature dropped.
At this point Conrad and his crew activated the workshop and used the array of telescopes to observe solar flares and the earth and transmit their pictures to earth, marking a new era in astronomy. When NASA became very concerned about Skylab’s electric power, Conrad and Kerwin again endeavoured to release the jammed panel. First, Pete tried to cut away the remains of the heat shield. When this failed, he fastened a rope to the panel and used his body to exert force. Suddenly the panel swung out and snapped in place. Within minutes, ample electric power began to flow. Now Conrad and his crew focused on their space assignments, working with molten metals and conducting medical experiments. But there were also lighter moments, such as eating meals, taking refreshing showers, and even cutting each other’s hair. When their 28-day mission came to an end, Conrad and his crew separated their command module from Skylab 1 and made a safe return to earth. In their prolonged stay in space, the astronauts suffered no lasting ill effects, as they also successfully demonstrated man’s remarkable ingenuity in overcoming difficulties. After their return, the astronauts presented President Nixon and Russia’s Premier Brezhnev with plaques commemorating the Skylab mission, which had proven that man can now reach the planets.
As Conrad’s twenty year career with the United States Navy came to an end, it also brought to a close his fabulous eleven year career as an astronaut. During man’s first venture into space, Charles Conrad, Jr., made four flights, and spent nearly 1200 hours in space, of which almost 32 were on the moon. His, indeed, has been a career full of outstanding contributions to aviation and space technology, a career that earns him his special place in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.
Charles Conrad, Jr. died July 8th, 1999.
https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/conrad-jr-charles/
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Charles Conrad
As a US astronaut, he won space endurance records and was only the third man to walk on the moon
Pearce Wright Sat 10 Jul 1999 18.44 BST
Charles "Pete" Conrad, who has died in a motorcycle accident aged 69, was commander of the Apollo 12 space mission that touched down in the ocean of storms on November 19, 1969, in the second lunar landing. He was the third American astronaut to walk on the moon.
Conrad recorded the most detailed commentary of working conditions on the moon; he and Alan Bean were there for 32 hours. They twice left the safety of their landing craft, Intrepid, in explorations totalling seven and a half hours. Conrad collected 34 kilograms of rock samples either extracted with a manual drill or picked up as loose lumps on the surface.
He also retrieved parts of the unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft that had landed 31 months earlier, so that scientists could find out the effects of long term exposure of materials to the solar wind and extreme variations of temperature in space. He and Bean then installed the first Alsep (Apollo lunar surface experiment package), which monitored the moon by remote control for geological disturbances and other conditions long after the Apollo project ended.
Charles Conrad grew up in Philadelphia and studied aeronautical engineering at Princeton. On graduating, he went straight into the US navy and became a naval aviator. He was recruited to the navy test pilot school at Patuxent river, Maryland.
Selected for Nasa's elite astronaut corps in September 1962, he became, in August 1965, the pilot on the eight-day Gemini 5 mission, which set an endurance record in orbiting the earth. A year later, he commanded Gemini 11, which docked with another craft and included space walks by his colleague, Richard Gordon. Other highlights of the flight included a new space altitude record of 850 miles and the completion of the first fully automatic controlled re-entry.
The 12 Gemini flights were designed to test long duration flight, rendezvous docking between space capsules and the complicated manoeuvres that would be needed for a moon landing. Their successful execution was an immense physical achievement and a huge psychological boost to American space ambitions.
Conrad and Gordon were in the same crew again for Apollo 12, from November 14 to 24, 1969. That crew executed the first precision lunar landing, bringing their module Intrepid to a safe touchdown in the ocean of storms.
His fourth space mission was on the first manned Skylab mission, launched on May 25 and completed on June 22, 1973, in which he was joined by Joseph Kerwin, science-pilot, and Paul Weitz. They had 28 days to set up and get the Skylab orbital workshop into operation for regular visits. Their first important task was to erect a thermal shade to protect the workshop from overheating, because it had lost a micro-meteoroid shield during the launch of the Skylab. Another critical part of the mission was a 3hrs 23mins walk by Conrad and Kerwin to repair and deploy a jammed solar wing. Their success in extending the only remaining solar array system wing provided sufficient power for the full 28-day mission, and the energy to power the subsequent Skylab 2 and Skylab 3 manned missions.
In logging 672hrs 49mins aboard the workshop, the crew established a new world record for a single mission, and Conrad captured the individual endurance record for time in space by bringing this total space flight time to 1,179hrs 38mins.
After retiring from Nasa and the US navy, Conrad worked as chief operating officer of the American Television and Communications Corporation in Denver, Colorado, and later for McDonnell Douglas Corporation, the aerospace manufacturer. In 1995, he formed several private companies with the goal of commercialising space.
Conrad was awarded many special honours for his achievements in space. Of the 12 original moonwalkers, he is the third to die - after James Irwin, of Apollo 15, and Alan Shepard, of Apollo 14. He is survived by his wife Jane, and four sons.
Charles Peter Conrad, astronaut, born June 2, 1930; died July 8, 1999
https://www.theguardian.com/science/1999/jul/10/spaceexploration.guardianobituaries
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Ceremonia pogrzebowa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATH1kNFKXgE
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cpconrad.htm
https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/Goldin/1999/DGConradRmks.pdf
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Nagranie z wodowania po księżycowej wyprawie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAvUZ2O73vw
Wywiad z astronautą przed rozpoczęciem misji Skylab 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULwzZtTsyQA
Nagranie o przebiegu różnych etapów związanych z misją Skylab 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcXB-eJzTFM
Powrót z misji Skylab 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ddiiRn0E1U
Wywiad udzielony w późniejszym czasie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV3QSpXkDUM
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Chronograf, Conrad, Apollo 12
(https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_xlg/public/images/collection-objects/record-images/A19771152000CP01.JPG?itok=mfjiwXEG)
Display Status: This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.
NASA issued this Omega Speedmaster chronograph to astronaut Pete Conrad for use during the Apollo 12 mission of November 1969.
Selected after a series of rigorous tests demonstrated its high level of precision and reliability, the Speedmaster chronograph was chosen by NASA for the U.S. space program in 1964. Program requirements called for a manual-winding wrist chronograph that was water-proof, shock-proof, anti-magnetic, able to withstand temperatures ranging from 0 to 200 degrees Farenheit, and accelerations of up to 12 g's. NASA first certified the Omega Speedmaster as the chronograph for the Gemini program and made successive purchases for both the Apollo and the Skylab/ASTP missions.
NASA transferred Conrad's chronograph to the Museum in 1977.
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/chronograph-conrad-apollo-12
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Astronauts Pay a Visit to Surveyor 3
April 17, 2014
(https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/as12-48-7134_0.jpg)
Image Credit: NASA
On April 17, 1967, NASA's Surveyor 3 spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a mission to the lunar surface. A little more than two years after it landed on the moon with the goal of paving the way for a future human mission, the Surveyor 3 spacecraft got a visit from Apollo 12 Commander Charles Conrad Jr. and astronaut Alan L. Bean, who snapped this photo on November 20, 1969.
After Surveyor 1's initial studies of the lunar surface in 1966, Surveyor 3 made further inroads into preparations for human missions to the moon. Using a surface sampler to study the lunar soil, Surveyor 3 conducted experiments to see how the lunar surface would fare against the weight of an Apollo lunar module. The moon lander, which was the second of the Surveyor series to make a soft landing on the moon, also gathered information on the lunar soil's radar reflectivity and thermal properties in addition to transmitting more than 6,000 photographs of its surroundings.
The Apollo 12 Lunar Module, visible in the background at right, landed about 600 feet from Surveyor 3 in the Ocean of Storms. The television camera and several other pieces were taken from Surveyor 3 and brought back to Earth for scientific examination. Here, Conrad examines the Surveyor's TV camera prior to detaching it. Astronaut Richard F. Gordon Jr. remained with the Apollo 12 Command and Service Modules (CSM) in lunar orbit while Conrad and Bean descended in the LM to explore the moon.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/astronauts-pay-a-visit-to-surveyor-3
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How NASA Censored Dirty-Mouthed Astronauts
By Colin Schultz SMITHSONIAN.COM NOVEMBER 26, 2014
NASA really didn’t want astronauts swearing on air
(https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/g7QCxvO1mZ5Pv-sfvKxXbvgrX24=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/40/35/40353297-7a49-4f58-92ab-302480f978b4/26_11_2014_pete_conrad.jpg)
Astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad sets up the American flag on the Moon during Apollo 12 on November 19, 1969. (NASA)
During the early days of the space race the public relations handlers at NASA had an image to uphold. America's astronauts were the new face of a nation: they were the bold, brave explorers of the beyond. But this image didn't always align with the more rough-and-tumble types who got the job.
Barring a couple of scientists, almost all of Americas early astronauts had moved over from the military. Many having been experimental aircraft test pilots (https://www.amazon.com/The-Right-Stuff-Tom-Wolfe/dp/0312427565)—a job not exactly known for its dependence on decorum. As space history writer Amy Shira Teitel notes, some astronauts had trouble maintaining family-friendly language, and NASA went to sometimes great lengths to keep that fact under wraps.
In some cases, as Teitel covers in her Vintage Space video series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DG8EtrUQLs), sometimes this censorship amounted to little more than scrubbing down transcripts—replacing “farts” with “gas” and cutting a few f-bombs. (Caution: the video contains cussing.)
In other cases, however, NASA took great pains to clean up astronauts' language. A few years ago Teitel wrote about the space agency's trick (https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-nasa-kept-astronauts-from-swearing-on-the-moon-5873762) to harness one unnamed astronaut's filthy mouth:
One [astronaut] in particular had the unfortunate habit of filling space when his mind wandered with profanities. This posed a problem for NASA - with the world watching astronauts walking around the lunar surface, how could the organization be sure the his transmissions from the Moon would be family-friendly?
In preparing for his mission, NASA had the astronaut hypnotized. Rather than curse, a psychiatrist put the idea in his head that he would rather hum when his mind wandered. The hypnotized astronaut is rarely named, but only one man can be heard humming as he skipps across the lunar surface. Transmissions from Commander Pete Conrad are punctuated with "dum de dum dum dum" and "dum do do do, do do" making him the likliest candidate.
Even today astronauts maintain a largely squeaky clean image (best personified, perhaps, by former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's endearingly non-threatening mustache). But just as before, what we see on the surface isn't all there is—the inner lives of astronauts in orbit are filled with frustrations and annoyances (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25200-space-diaries-reveal-6-things-on-an-astronauts-mind/#.VHX11DHF-Sp), and, probably, a few interlaced swears.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-nasa-censored-dirty-mouthed-astronauts-180953470/
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The Astronaut Whose First Words on the Moon Were a Joke
BY NICK GREENE JULY 30, 2014
If Apollo 12's crew were nervous, they certainly didn't let it show. Commander Pete Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean spent a pretty good chunk of their seven and a half cumulative hours on the lunar surface cracking jokes and having a good time. Here's a typical excerpt from their mission transcript:
Conrad: Okay, very good. "(Photograph) contingency sample area" I got. "Deploy the color chart (on an undisturbed surface)" Ho ho. Take your time, Al. (Pause) Hey, I'm learning to do it. (Pause)
Bean: (Pete belches) Houston, how does the LM look? I'm getting ready to go out the front door.
Conrad: Dum dee dum dum. (Pause) Whoops. No way I'm gonna...I wonder if I can get in the bottom of this crater hole?
...
Conrad: Dee dum dee dum. I feel like Bugs Bunny. (Pause; Giggles) (Pause)
Perhaps this is because they knew they wouldn't sink into the moon's unknown, powdery surface like quicksand, which was a real concern (https://books.google.pl/books?id=QPMD0_GhVHkC&pg=PP9&dq=Astronaut+Observations+apollo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jLHXU7OtL9XNsQSDpoLYCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=in%20our%20mouths&f=false) raised by astrophysicist and NASA consultant Dr. Tommy Gold leading up to the Apollo 11 mission. He based this theory on radio observations of the moon and passed it along to anyone who would listen, including Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Gold was widely mocked, but this thought was no doubt lingering in the back of the astronauts' minds as their lunar module touched down. The craft didn't disappear into the moon's surface, of course, and Armstrong was able to take his famous first step and utter those immortal words, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." (Armstrong insists he included "a," although it was dropped from recordings (https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.html) in transmission.) This downright profound statement—which he says was not planned—put the entire enterprise into focus. It also worked as a setup for Pete Conrad's first words on the moon, which, naturally, were a joke.
Pete Conrad was a Princeton educated aeronautical engineer, Navy test pilot, and all-around character. Leading up to the mission, Oriana Fallaci, an Italian journalist, said she thought the government told the astronauts what to say while on the moon. To prove this wasn't the case, Conrad told her exactly what he was going to say—and bet her five hundred bucks to prove that he was going to say it.
So when Conrad stepped from the lunar module and onto the pad to become the third man ever to walk on the moon, he made good on his promise and said those first words: "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
Conrad was only 5'6", so his wager-winning statement also proved to be the first bit of extraterrestrial self-deprecation in human history. (A detailed account of the bet is featured in Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon.)
According to Conrad, he never got paid that $500. Something tells us the story's worth far more than that.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/58058/astronaut-whose-first-words-moon-were-joke
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Astronaut Pete Conrad was the real deal
By ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER November 5, 2005
Some people cackle when they laugh. Cackle like barnyard hens. Pete Conrad was that way. And boy, was he loud. I once heard his cackle echo down a hallway at Boeing-Huntington Beach, back when the plant was McDonnell Douglas and the former Apollo 12 astronaut was trying to develop a new rocket.
The sound cracked me up. Conrad had that effect on people. The bawdy, test pilot-turned-space cowboy-turned-aerospace exec found humor everywhere. He’d cackle and you couldn’t help but join in. Infectious. That’s what it was.
The humor-challenged desk jockeys at NASA mostly ignore this in their official biographies of Conrad, a gap-toothed, cuss-a-minute runt who joked about his height (5 feet 6 inches – and a half). NASA focused on his aerospace achievements, which were many. He flew two Gemini missions, walked on the moon during Apollo 12, and was commander of the first crew to Skylab, the space station that “MacDac” built in Huntington Beach. Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. also was one of the best pilots the Navy ever produced.
Fortunately, there’s a charming new book – “Rocketman” – that conveys the funny, live-wire side of Conrad, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1999. And it is easily the best of the many Project Apollo-era books that have been released this year.
Conrad’s story is told by his second wife, Nancy, and the gifted author and screenwriter Howard Klausner. They avoid the embarrassing hero worship of books like “First Man,” the new tome about Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong, and elegantly tell how Conrad overcame hardship and personal flaws to live a life that was mostly filled with joy and achievement.
In case you’ve forgotten, the first words Conrad spoke when he stepped on the moon’s Ocean of Storms 36 years ago this month were, “Whoopie! That may have been one small step for Neil, but it’s a long one for me!”
The remark is one of the few things that cheered me up when I learned that Conrad, who lived in Huntington Beach, died from injuries suffered in the motorcycle accident up in Ojai. I’d gotten to know him a bit through news interviews, and the quote summed up the soul I knew.
“This is a book about a person who should have had nothing; everything worked against him,” says Nancy Conrad, who still lives in Huntington Beach. “He was dyslexic. His father was an alcoholic. He was small. And he was a real rabble-rouser as a kid.
“He didn’t begin to turn it around until he got into a school (for troubled children) in New Lebanon, New York, and came to understand that he could do well academically and learn to fly, which was his love.”
Pete Conrad ended up in New York after getting bounced from the Haverford School in Pennsylvania, a prestigious all-boys academy where his fierce personality was a liability – albeit a funny one.
When he was in fourth grade, Conrad was chosen to portray the Virgin Mary in Haverford’s Christmas pageant. He hated the role; students tormented him about playing a woman. And the kid cast to play Joseph was someone Conrad just plain hated.
On the final night of the pageant, Joseph became ill and vomited on Conrad in a big and bold way.
“Rocketman” tells what happened next: “The Virgin Mary quickly extricated himself from his itchy, puke-soaked bathrobe and, in his underwear, cussed and punched the lights out of (Joseph) before the horrified audience below.”
Conrad was rowdy much of his life, especially in his astronaut days. Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickhart told me a story this week in which Conrad challenged him to a fight at a reception. The reason: Conrad had misunderstood something innocent Schweickhart had said. They made up and laughed about it later.
Conrad could be as candid as he was combustible. The public affairs staff at NASA cringed when Conrad publicly described his journey in Gemini 5 as “eight days floating in a garbage can.” But he got away with stuff like that because he was a phenomenal pilot, an inspiring leader, a courageous explorer, and someone you simply couldn’t dislike when you heard that cackle.
As my dad would say, Pete Conrad was the real deal.
https://www.ocregister.com/2005/11/05/astronaut-pete-conrad-was-the-real-deal/
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NASA Honors Apollo 12 Commander Charles Conrad
11.15.06
(https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/162679main_conrad_flag_hires.jpg)
Apollo 12 commander Charles "Pete" Conrad unfurls the United States flag on the lunar surface during the first extravehicular activity on Nov. 19, 1969. Click to view for high resolution image. Image credit: NASA.
Charles "Pete" Conrad was a Navy test pilot, performance engineer and flight instructor.
He also commanded Gemini XI, Apollo 12 and the first manned Skylab mission.
This week, NASA honors his memory and his contributions to America's space program with the presentation of the Ambassador of Exploration Award at 2 p.m. EST, Saturday, Nov. 18, at The Museum of Flight in Seattle.
Conrad will be remembered as an exceptional pilot and as someone who was "always pushing the boundaries, always coming into my office with a new idea and, at 69, he had the spirit of a 13- year-old," former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin told CNN in July 1999 upon learning of Conrad's death.
As commander of Apollo 12, the second successful lunar landing, Conrad stepped onto the lunar surface and shouted, "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" He later stated that he did this to win a bet he made with a friend to prove that NASA did not script astronaut comments.
Conrad's widow Nancy will accept the award on his behalf. She will present it for display to The Museum of Flight President Bonnie Dunbar. Dunbar is also a former NASA astronaut.
(https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/162680main_conrad_gemini5.jpg)
Astronauts L. Gordon Cooper Jr. (left) and Charles Conrad Jr. are seen in the Gemini 5 spacecraft in white room at Pad 19 just after insertion. Image credit: NASA.
The award ceremony coincides with the 37th anniversary of the Apollo 12 mission of Nov. 14-19, 1969, and culminates a day of museum space-related activities and workshops.
Conrad was the recipient of numerous awards during his lifetime, among them the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, two NASA Exceptional Service Medals, the Navy Astronaut Wings, two Navy Distinguished Service Medals, two Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Harmon Trophy.
Conrad began his career as a Navy test pilot after obtaining a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University. He served two decades in the Navy, 11 of which were as an astronaut.
After leaving the Navy in 1973, Conrad been a successful career in business and served as a vice president and consultant for McDonell Douglas, among others.
NASA is presenting the Ambassador of Exploration Award to the astronauts and other key individuals who participated in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs that realized America's vision of space exploration from 1961 to 1972.
(https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/162684main_conrad_skylab.jpg)
Astronaut Charles Conrad Jr., commander of the first manned Skylab mission, goes through a checklist of experiment activity during Skylab training at JSC. Conrad is standing in the Multiple Docking Adapter (MDA) in the Mission Simulation and Training Facility At JSC. Image credit: NASA.
The award is a sample of lunar material mounted for public display. The material is part of the 842 pounds of samples brought back to Earth during the six Apollo lunar expeditions from 1969 to 1972.
Conrad's award will be displayed at The Museum of Flight, one of the largest air and space museums in the world. Conrad was the third man to walk on the moon as commander of Apollo 12, the second lunar landing mission. He and lunar module pilot Alan L. Bean spent 31.5 hours on the moon. Conrad also served as pilot of the Gemini V mission; commander of Gemini XI; and commander of the first mission launched to the Skylab space station in 1973. He retired from the U.S. Navy and NASA as a captain in 1974.
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/conrad_ambassador_of_exploration.html
https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/nov/HQ_M06174_Conrad_ambassador_award.html
https://twitter.com/ron_eisele/status/1810008674632454355
8 July 1999. Death of Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., American naval officer, test pilot, astronaut, engineer and the third man to walk on the Moon.
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NASA, X Prize Foundation Recognize 2007 Pete Conrad Award Winners
New Traveling Exhibit Unveiled With Spirit Of Innovation Trophy At NASA HQ
(http://www.aero-news.net/images/content/aerospace/2006/XPrize-logo-0206a.jpg)
The winners of a national space-oriented high school competition, the Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award, were recognized Friday in a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.
To highlight the efforts of the students, the X Prize Foundation and NASA unveiled a new exhibit which will travel around the country called Spirit of Innovation. In addition, the X Prize Foundation announced that the Conrad Award Scroll, inscribed with the names of the winning team, will be carried to the International Space Station in the fall of 2008 by Richard Garriott.
NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale and NASA Innovative Partnerships Program Director Doug Comstock were on hand to honor the winning teams of young people. The Innovative Partnerships Program, a mission support office at NASA Headquarters that promotes technology partnerships with industry and academia, provided $10,000 in support of the Award, including grant money to the top three teams’ schools. Comstock said, "These students represent the future of space exploration and NASA is proud to recognize and encourage their innovative ideas. We congratulate all the winners of the Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award."
First-place team "Michael and Talia" from Los Angeles helped unveil the traveling exhibit that features their winning entry. The exhibit also showcases the 2007 competition, which was held at the X Prize Cup at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, NM. Michael Hakimi and Talia Nour-Omid developed an idea for a device that would effectively monitor all of a human being’s vital signs while in space. The winning team received a $5,000 grant for their school and a trophy presented by Nancy Conrad, wife of the late Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad and creator of the Prize, and Erik Lindbergh, X Prize Foundation Trustee, great-grandson of Charles Lindbergh and designer and sculptor of the First Prize trophy.
Bretton Alexander, X Prize Foundation Executive Director of Space Prizes, and Nancy Conrad announced that the Conrad Award Scroll that lists the names of the winning team members will be carried to space by Richard Garriott on his Fall 2008 trip to the International Space Station. Said Conrad, "Pete’s goal was to open space to all travelers. Through the Spirit of Innovation Award, we are bringing space to people before we can bring people to space. We are passing the torch to the next generation of space travelers. Nothing shows that better than Richard carrying the scroll to the Space Station. Richard’s father Owen was an astronaut on Skylab, and now Richard is going up. And we are all connected, because it was Pete’s mission that rescued Skylab and made it possible for Owen to fly."
Students from the other top two teams also attended the event. Samantha Hopkins represented Team Gad Astro from Northbrook, IL, who won the second place award with their concept of a self-healing material that would rapidly fix any punctures, maintaining safety in space. Christo Magri represented Team Penguin Education from Friendswood, TX, who won third place with their idea for a company that works with private and public schools to provide a high level of space education.
The Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award is a competition for teams of high school students to create a concept to benefit the personal spaceflight industry. Teams submitted graphical representations, technical documents and business plans of concepts. The 10 finalist teams traveled to Alamogordo, NM, to present their business plans to a panel of judges and to the public, who voted on their favorite team.
Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. was the third man to walk on the moon and served on Gemini 5 and 11, Apollo 12, and Skylab 2 missions. Conrad was the recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor awarded for his rescue of Skylab. He was posthumously awarded the Ambassador of Exploration Award by NASA in 2006.
FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.xprize.org
http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=c8a0d40b-5081-43b6-afcd-f2b876e7408b
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/conrad_foundation.html
https://twitter.com/ron_eisele/status/1796994252121006148
Born 2 June 1930. Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. American naval officer, test pilot, astronaut, engineer and third man to set foot on the Moon.
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Opis lotów, w których brał udział astronauta:
Gemini V
'Eight Days in a Garbage Can': 50 Years Since Gemini V (Part 1)
By Ben Evans, on August 22nd, 2015
https://www.americaspace.com/2015/08/22/eight-days-in-a-garbage-can-the-mission-of-gemini-v-part-1/
'Eight Days in a Garbage Can': 50 Years Since Gemini V (Part 2)
By Ben Evans, on August 23rd, 2015
https://www.americaspace.com/2015/08/23/eight-days-in-a-garbage-can-50-years-since-gemini-v-part-2/
Gemini XI
'Would You Believe M=1?' 50 Years Since the High-Flight of Gemini XI (Part 1)
By Ben Evans, on September 10th, 2016
https://www.americaspace.com/2016/09/10/would-you-believe-m1-50-years-since-the-high-flight-of-gemini-xi-part-1/
'Send Up a Tanker': 50 Years Since the High-Flight of Gemini XI (Part 2)
By Ben Evans, on September 11th, 2016
https://www.americaspace.com/2016/09/11/send-up-a-tanker-50-years-since-the-high-flight-of-gemini-xi-part-2/
Apollo 12
45 Years Since Apollo 12: The $500 Bet and the Lightning Strike (Part 1)
By Ben Evans, on November 11th, 2014
https://www.americaspace.com/2014/11/11/remembering-apollo-12-the-500-bet-and-the-lightning-strike-part-1/
45 Years Since Apollo 12: The Surveyor Crater and the Belly of the Snowman (Part 2)
By Ben Evans, on November 12th, 2014
https://www.americaspace.com/2014/11/12/remembering-apollo-12-the-surveyor-crater-and-the-belly-of-the-snowman-part-2/
45 Years Since Apollo 12: The Hammer and the Protuberances (Part 3)
By Ben Evans, on November 13th, 2014
https://www.americaspace.com/2014/11/13/remembering-apollo-12-the-camera-the-hammer-and-the-protuberances-part-3/
45 Years Since Apollo 12: The Surveyor and the Lonely Man (Part 4)
By Ben Evans, on November 14th, 2014
https://www.americaspace.com/2014/11/14/remembering-apollo-12-the-dust-the-surveyor-and-the-lonely-man-part-4/
Skylab 2
'Get Me Up There': The Plan to Save Skylab
By Ben Evans, on May 12th, 2013
https://www.americaspace.com/2013/05/12/get-me-up-there-the-plan-to-save-skylab/
'With Flying Colours': The Revival of Skylab
By Ben Evans, on May 18th, 2013
https://www.americaspace.com/2013/05/18/with-flying-colours-the-revival-of-skylab/
'Tally-Ho the Skylab': The Mission to Save America's Space Station, 45 Years On
By Ben Evans, on May 27th, 2018
https://www.americaspace.com/2018/05/27/tally-ho-the-skylab-the-mission-to-save-americas-space-station-45-years-on/
Wątek poświęcony Apollo 12: http://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=414.msg7887#msg7887
2 09.07.23)
Pete Conrad (2 June 1930 - 8 July 1999), family man, naval aviator, [1962-74] NASA astronaut (Gemini 5, Gemini 11, Apollo 12, Skylab 2), moonwalker, company executive & COLOURFUL. According to Mike Collins, he should have played 'Pete Conrad' in a Pete Conrad movie. SKYLAB@50
https://twitter.com/aisoffice/status/1677576488126672896
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NASA History Office @NASAhistory 4:15 PM · Jun 2, 2016
#Remembering Astronaut Pete Conrad, commander of Apollo 12 & the 3rd person to walk on the Moon, on his #birthday
https://twitter.com/nasahistory/status/738373358555910144
Association of Space Explorers @ASE_Astronauts
#ASEspotlight: Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. 🌠
In October 1969, ASE member Conrad piloted a Lunar Landing Training Vehicle during a lunar simulation flight.
Fun fact: His motto was "If you can't be good, be colorful"!
Today, we remember Pete on his 95th birthday. ✨
https://twitter.com/ASE_Astronauts/status/1929674487928099195
CONTACT LIGHT @contactlight.de 1 Jun 2025 22:43
#happybirthday #otd june 2, 1930
The one and only astronaut Pete Conrad (during desert survival training in 1963)
„When you can't be good, be colorful“
https://bsky.app/profile/contactlight.de/post/3lql4t6twcs2k