Pete Conrad stepped onto the Moon today and said “Whoopee.”
I mean that with complete admiration.
Let me explain. Months ago, an Italian journalist named Oriana Fallaci bet Conrad fifty dollars that he would have to say whatever scripted line NASA gave him when he stepped onto the surface. Conrad, who has never been confused for a man who follows scripts, made a counter-bet: he would say exactly whatever line he chose, and NASA couldn’t stop him. He told Fallaci what he planned to say. She didn’t believe he’d actually say it.
When Conrad stepped off the lunar module ladder and put his boots in the regolith of the Ocean of Storms today, he said: “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it’s a long one for me!”
Conrad is five foot six. Armstrong is five foot eleven. The ladder rungs are spaced the same distance apart regardless of height.
I laughed out loud when the radio relayed this. Betty looked at me and I told her what he’d said and she smiled in a way that said she found this both charming and slightly ridiculous. She’s right on both counts. It’s charming. It’s slightly ridiculous. It’s exactly Pete Conrad.
But here is the serious part: before Conrad stepped out, he and Alan Bean had landed the Lunar Module within 200 meters of Surveyor 3. This is a spacecraft that has been sitting in the Ocean of Storms since April 1967 — over two and a half years. It’s a specific small object on a large planetary surface 240,000 miles away. And Conrad navigated to within 200 meters of it. For reference: during Apollo 11, Armstrong flew past his intended landing spot and landed some miles away because the computer was aimed at a boulder field. That was fine — it was a successful landing. But this is different. This is precision.
The plan is to walk to Surveyor 3 and retrieve pieces of it to bring back to Earth — specifically to see what three years in the lunar environment did to the metal, the glass, the foam. This will tell engineers things about how spacecraft materials survive long-term exposure to the Moon, which matters if we ever plan to stay longer.
There’s also just something wonderful about visiting a spacecraft that was there before them. Surveyor 3 took photographs in 1967. It sat there while Mercury flew, while Gemini flew, while Apollo 1 burned on the pad, while we rebuilt and came back. It waited in the dust of the Ocean of Storms, and now Pete Conrad and Alan Bean are going to walk over to it and say hello.
That’s two Moon landings in four months. Twelve men are on the Moon — wait, no. Four men have walked on the Moon. Armstrong and Aldrin. Now Conrad, and Bean is out there with him right now. Four men on the Moon so far. I’m keeping a list.
Conrad reportedly will pay Fallaci the fifty dollars he owes her. He didn’t win the bet. He’s going to the Moon.He can afford to lose a bet.