Apollo 11 Was Breathtaking, But Apollo 12 Was the Real Deal

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Being first is often best. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 and “One small step for man…” are each deservedly seared into our collective consciousness. The first time that human beings landed on the moon is beyond any comparison; we are right to celebrate its anniversary each year on July 20.

Anyone alive today who remembers those times was certainly awed by the early Apollo missions. Accomplishing President John F. Kennedy’s ambitious goal of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to the Earth before the end of the 1960s validated America’s unprecedented technical dominance. That accomplishment alone will resonate for many centuries to come.

However, something of almost equal importance happened on the second moon landing, Apollo 12, though it receives little attention today.

A Forgotten Encore

Apollo 12 launched in November 1969. Just after liftoff in rainy, heavy cloud cover at Kennedy Space center, the 36-story Saturn V rocket was struck twice by lightning. Quick-thinking flight engineers on the ground had the astronauts switch to auxiliary power, which allowed the Saturn V to continue its normal, pre-programmed trajectory. The remaining five-day journey to the Moon was as uneventful as space travel ever could be.

What is not often recalled is that the purpose of Apollo 12 was not merely to land two more human beings on the moon. There was a far greater focus on science than there was with the Apollo 11 mission. Astronauts Alan Bean and Pete Conrad spent several days training on how to deploy the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). During their first four hours on the moon, Bean and Conrad successfully did their job and set up the ALSEP.

Much more important to NASA and the U.S., however, was the astronauts’ next assignment. After a designated rest period following their first moon walk, Bean and Conrad stepped out once again, this time to retrieve parts from the nearby Surveyor 3. In April 1967, 2 ½ years before Apollo 12, NASA launched Surveyor 3 to the moon for the purpose of conducting soil samples. The probe had a scoop arm that dug up small trenches in the lunar soil. Via its TV camera, Surveyor 3 transmitted images of the trenches back to Earth so that scientists could determine the properties of the lunar surface.

After Apollo 11’s success, it was decided that Apollo 12 would target the location of Surveyor 3 for its lunar landing. Assuming they could land close enough, the astronauts were to exit their lunar module and walk over to Surveyor 3, where they were to harvest several components.

On that day in November 1969, Bean and Conrad journeyed the 600 feet from the lunar module to bring back with them the scoop arm and the TV camera from Surveyor 3. This remains the only occasion on which humans have visited a man-made object that had been sent off-world before them. You can see Surveyor 3’s TV camera on display today at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

An Unconsidered Implication of the Surveyor 3 Retrieval

When Apollo 12 landed safely in the Pacific Ocean on November 24, public attention focused squarely on the crew and another successful lunar mission. Behind the scenes, however, nations around the world were scrambling to understand the broader implications. Imagine if you were in the Politburo of the USSR, or a member of the Chinese Communist Party, in July 1969: The Americans, your sworn enemy, have just landed men on the moon and returned them safely home for the first time. Clearly, now, the Americans possess the technological capability to successfully fire a missile from the Earth, which moves at 67,000 miles per hour, and spins once roughly every 24 hours, towards a target—the moon—nearly 239,000 miles away, which is also moving rapidly and spinning though space.

While other nations, too, possess some degree of intercontinental missile capability, they surely are lacking compared to what the Americans can do. Still, they take some comfort that simply aiming and hitting at a large spot on the moon—Apollo 11—is not the same thing as putting a missile precisely where one wants it. In the evolving realm of ballistic missile technology, they’re reassured that accuracy always carries the day.

Then, a few months later, along comes Apollo 12. And now, the world is rocked. The stated mission was the retrieval of parts from Surveyor 3. That meant the U.S. was already so confident in its long-range targeting capabilities that it could announce to the world that Apollo 12 would land within moonwalking distance of Surveyor 3: again, some 239,000 miles away.

You start thinking: if the Americans can target a missile that accurately and at that distance, what could they do if they wanted to take me out during a lunch meeting in Moscow or Peking? Or, at my office? Or my morning constitution?

It makes one wonder if the mindnumbing precision displayed by Apollo 12 was the beginning of the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and that it prodded the Soviets—and later the Chinese—to start on the path of integration with the American-led international system. We may never know. Yet it makes for a cool bar debate.

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the Core Faculty at the International School of Management in Paris. He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include: American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

Also by Andrew R. Thomas: The Moon Landing: Supply Chain Management at Its Finest

Main photo: Astronauts Astronauts Charles Conrad Jr. (left), Apollo 12 commander, and Alan L. Bean prepare for the Apollo 12 mission.