Before Pete Conrad Lands — A Note
Apollo 12 launches today with Pete Conrad, Al Bean, and Dick Gordon. We're going back to the Moon. That still sounds unbelievable.
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Lightning Hit the Rocket
Apollo 12 launched today into a stormy sky. Thirty-six seconds after liftoff, lightning struck the Saturn V. Twice. The spacecraft lost power to most of its systems. Mission Control nearly called an abort. One flight controller — twenty-six-year-old John Aaron — knew exactly which switch to throw. They continued to…
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After the Moon — Where Does the Program Go?
We've landed on the Moon. The program continues. But where does it go? What is the next goal that organizes the way Kennedy's speech organized this one?
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The Television Camera on the Moon
I've been thinking about the camera. The one that showed us Armstrong's first step. How did they get a picture from the Moon?
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The Pale Blue Dot — Before There Was a Name for It
The photographs of Earth from space — from Apollo 8, from the Moon's surface — are changing how people think about the planet. I've been sitting with this.
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What Does It Mean That We Went?
Two months since the landing and I'm still trying to figure out what it means. Not what happened — I know what happened. What it means.
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The Quarantine — What Was It Like
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins have been in quarantine since splashdown. They're in a trailer attached to the Manned Spacecraft Center. What is that actually like?
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The World Tour — Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins finished their 21-day quarantine and are now doing a world tour that's being called "Giant Step." I've been following it in the newspapers.
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The Lunar Rocks Arrive
The Apollo 11 moon rocks are in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Scientists are beginning to analyze them.
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I Looked Up Last Night
Apollo 11 splashed down safely on Thursday. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins are home. But last night I walked outside and looked up at the Moon, and it was different. It looked different. Not because anything had changed about the Moon. Because something had changed about me. About us. It's not…
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