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On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 launched with Pete Conrad as commander, Dick Gordon as Command Module Pilot and Alan Bean as Lunar Module Pilot. The launch was the most harrowing of the Apollo program, as a series of lightning strikes just after liftoff temporarily knocked out power and guidance in the command module. Five days later, after stepping onto the lunar surface, Conrad joked about his own small stature by remarking:
| “ | Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me. | ” |
He later revealed that he said this in order to win a bet he had made with the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci for $500 to prove that NASA did not script astronaut comments.
If Apollo 11 had not 'landed' on the moon, as some have blogged, then my nextdoor neighbor Pete Conrad would have gone down in history as the 'First Man On The Moon!' May he rest in peace.
