The Moon: Toward the Ocean of Storms

EARLIER in the week, a liquid-hydrogen fuel tank had sprung a leak and threatened to delay the launch. Now, less than an hour before the late-morning blastoff, dark clouds rolled ominously across the last patches of blue in the Florida sky; a drizzling rain turned into a heavy downpour that virtually blotted pad 39A from view. But NASA officials, buoyed by a long string of space successes, were undaunted by the dangerous omens. The order was given to proceed. More reliable than any commuter train, the 11:22 moon rocket departed from Cape Kennedy. It was on schedule to the split second.

Roaring upward into a dense cloud bank, Apollo 12 disappeared from view almost immediately, its trail outlined by twin lightning flashes. As President Nixon watched open-mouthed among the drenched and awe-struck spectators. Astronaut Charles (“Pete”) Conrad radioed back reassuring words: “This baby is really going.”

Seconds later everyone wondered where. “I don’t know what happened here,” Conrad said excitedly. “We had everything in the world drop out.” Inside the spacecraft, as it passed through the dark clouds. Astronauts Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean had been bathed in a sudden, brilliant flash. Immediately, red and yellow warning lights began blinking on the command module’s instrument panels. All three fuel cells had stopped working; alternating-current circuits were dead, and the electrically operated gyroscopic platform that allows the astronauts to measure their attitude and velocity was tumbling out of control. There had been a massive power failure.

Mysterious Surge. The danger lasted for only a fraction of a second. As soon as the A.C. circuits failed, three batteries delivering direct current took over automatically, bringing the Apollo spacecraft’s vital systems back to life. Meanwhile, the mighty Saturn rocket was blasting away unaffected, lifting the astronauts toward orbit. After quickly resetting circuit breakers that had been sprung by a mysterious surge of current, the astronauts managed to restore A.C. power. “We’re weeding out our problems here,” Conrad reported calmly. “I’m not sure we didn’t get hit by lightning.” Neither were NASA scientists. But later, they suggested instead that Apollo had created its own lightning; static electricity built up by its passage through the rain clouds had suddenly discharged, knocking out the spacecraft power supply in the process. “I think we need to do a little more all-weather testing,” joked Conrad. Replied Mission Control: “We’ve had a couple of cardiac arrests down here too, Pete.”

Despite the brief blackout, the spacecraft hurtled into a nearly perfect 118-mile-high earth orbit. By testing the spacecraft’s navigational and guidance computers, the astronauts confirmed that the instruments had been left unscathed by the power surge. Halfway through the second revolution, after ground controllers were assured that Apollo was in perfect shape, Conrad fired the third stage S-4B rocket. The 51-minute burn increased the spacecraft’s speed to 24,100 m.p.h., lifted it from orbit and sent it on its way to the moon. Said Conrad: “Everything is tickety-boo.”

A short time later, the command ship Yankee Clipper separated faultlessly from the S-4B, turned to dock with the lunar module Intrepid and extract it from the rocket’s nose. Locked together, the two craft proceeded on a long coast to the moon. Before they bedded down for their first night in space, Conrad and Bean made an unscheduled inspection of Intrepid while Astronaut Gordon remained at the controls of the command module. To their relief, the LM’s electronic gear had also withstood the sudden pulse of current. By now the astronauts were in such high spirits that they asked Mission Control to replay the tense communications of the first few seconds. “We’re still laughing, trying to remember what we said and did,” said Conrad.

Additional Risks. If all continued to go well, the mission would take ten days —two days more than the voyage of Apollo 11. Conrad would attempt a pinpoint landing only a few hundred feet from the resting place of Surveyor 3, the unmanned moon probe that soft-landed on the lunar surface April 19. 1967. He and Bean would stroll for as long as 74 hours on the moon and collect up to 75 lbs. of lunar rock. Most important, Apollo 12 would leave behind a more sophisticated array of sensitive instruments than those left by Apollo 11. Powered by a nuclear generator, the Apollo 12 package would give scientists their first continuously operating observatory on another world. And there was an additional bonus: the first color telecasts from the surface of the moon.

There were also additional risks. Apollo 12, like Apollo 11 and 10, started its space voyage on a “free return” trajectory toward the moon. In the event of engine failure, such a path would allow the spacecraft to be whipped around the moon by lunar gravity and hurled back safely to the earth. Some 31 hours after liftoff, however, Apollo 12’s situation was changed drastically. Conrad fired the 20,500-lb.-thrust service propulsion engine and sent his ship into a “hybrid” trajectory. The new flight path was necessary to set the astronauts down at their landing site on the Ocean of Storms at the right time of lunar day. On this course, too, Apollo could loop the moon and head back if its big engine failed to fire again. But, even so, it might miss the earth by 56,000 miles, marooning the astronauts in eternal orbit around the sun.

As it approached the moon early this week, Apollo 12 was scheduled to insert itself into a nearly circular orbit about 69 miles above the lunar surface. Conrad and Bean would then crawl through the tunnel leading from Yankee Clipper into Intrepid and cast off in the landing craft, leaving Gordon to guide the command ship through 19 solo orbits of the moon. Early Wednesday the two men would begin the gentle, arcing descent to the lunar surface.

To hit Apollo 12’s target, Intrepid must set down just east of the Surveyor Crater’s edge. Conrad will probably not be able to see the Surveyor as he swoops down, for the craft will be in the deep shadow of early lunar morning. But he should have little difficulty spotting the Surveyor Crater. It forms the torso of what astronauts call the “Snowman,” a distinctive cluster of five adjacent craters.

Exquisite Precision. More than pride is involved in the accomplishment of a pinpoint landing. If Intrepid touches down too far from its target crater, Conrad and Bean may not have enough oxygen in their back-up life-support packs for the planned walk to the Surveyor spacecraft. An inaccurate landing would also affect plans for next spring’s scheduled Apollo 13 visit to a highlands area near Crater Fra Mauro. Before as tronauts risk landing in such a rugged area, NASA officials must be convinced that a lunar module can be set down on a selected segment of the lunar surface with exquisite precision.

Four hours after Wednesday’s early-morning touchdown, Conrad will swing open Intrepid’s small hatch. Backing out on his hands and knees, he will tug a small ring to open an equipment bay on the LM and expose a 12-lb. color-TV camera aimed at the spacecraft ladder. While a TV audience of millions watches. Conrad will descend to become the third mortal to step onto another world.

Bean will emerge about 35 minutes later to join his skipper in preliminary chores. Together they will set up a large, umbrella-shaped S-band antenna (for better TV transmissions), place the TV camera on a tripod about 20 ft. from the LM, unfurl a solar wind experiment to trap high-speed particles from the sun on aluminum foil, and —in the only ceremony planned for the mission—plant a U.S. flag.

Bean will lug Apollo 12’s Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) to a site up to 1,000 ft. from Intrepid. There the two astronauts will spend an hour setting up five elaborate devices that will test the moon’s tenuous atmosphere, measure magnetic fields and also study particles from the sun.

The ALSEP package, as well as the nononsense, efficient schedule planned for

Conrad and Bean on the surface of the moon, should help appease some scientists who have become increasingly critical of NASA’s space program. Several scientists have recently quit the space agency, charging that it is emphasizing technology at the expense of scientific investigation. Only last week, in fact, a presidential panel complained that NASA has not yet done enough research on man’s capability to operate for long periods of time in space. Bean seemed anxious to stress that NASA was aware of the gathering criticism. On the Apollo 12 mission, he said, “the name of the game is exploration.”

In the final hours of their first EVA (extravehicular activity), the astronauts will collect rocks and try to obtain a 15-in. core of the lunar soil. One prize that geologists hope they will bring home: some of the debris showered on the landing site billions of years ago when a huge meteor gouged out the crater Copernicus, 230 miles to the north. That may well be possible. A three-mile-wide “ray” of material apparently ejected from Copernicus cuts directly through Apollo 12’s base at the Ocean of Storms.

Back inside Intrepid, Conrad and Bean will sleep up to nine hours, stretched on hammocks in their cramped cabin. Early Thursday morning they will begin their second lunar stroll. Toting a large collection bag and a handful of rock-collecting tools, Conrad and Bean will take a zigzagging geological tour. They will photograph and pick up more rocks, take another core sample, scoop up several inches of dirt to expose the lunar subsurface, and try to collect any gases that might be trapped there. Throughout the walk, the astronauts will be watched carefully via TV and coached by geologists in Mission Control’s science support room. Two hours later, Conrad and Bean should be ready for the climax of their adventure.

Using a skier’s toes-out herringbone stride. Bean will venture down a 14° incline into the crater to examine Surveyor. If Bean has no difficulties, Conrad will join him in inspecting and photographing the craft. The astronauts will try to remove several Surveyor parts, including its 17-lb. TV camera. Studying the wear on those samples from solar wind or micrometeorite bombardment would help NASA design future lunar equipment.

Chance of Life. At the end of a 3 H hr. stay on the moon, Conrad and Bean will blast off in Intrepid’s ascent stage to rejoin Gordon in the orbiting Yankee Clipper. Back aboard the mother ship, they will undock Intrepid and send it crashing into the moon about five miles from the Ocean of Storms base. Not only will that maneuver eliminate a navigation hazard for future flights (Eagle is still in lunar orbit), but it will also make enough of an impact to let earthbound scientists calibrate the seismometer that Intrepid left behind. The Yankee Clipper will remain in lunar orbit until Friday afternoon, allowing the astronauts time to photograph the craters Fra Mauro, Lalande and Descartes—all possible landing sites for the eight future Apollo missions.

After a three-day return trip, Yankee Clipper will splash down on Monday afternoon, Nov. 24, in the South Pacific, 525 miles east of Samoa. But like the Apollo 11 astronauts before them, Conrad, Bean and Gordon will have to delay celebrating their homecoming. Still not certain that the moon is lifeless, NASA scientists will keep the astronauts in quarantine for 17 days after their return.