Alan Bean, the fourth person to walk on the moon, was born 91 years ago today.
Bean was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963. He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second manned mission to land on the Moon, at the age of 37 in November, 1969.
During this mission, Bean became the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He made his second and final flight into space on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, the second manned mission to the Skylab space station.
Bean and Pete Conrad landed in the Moon's Ocean of Storms — after a flight of 250,000 miles and a launch that included a harrowing lightning strike.
Bean was the astronaut who executed John Aaron's famous "Flight, try SCE to 'Aux'" instruction to restore telemetry after the spacecraft was struck by lightning 36 seconds after launch, thus salvaging the mission.
Bean and Conrad explored the lunar surface, deployed several lunar surface experiments and installed the first nuclear power generator station on the moon to provide the power source.
Bean had planned on using a self-timer for his Hasselblad camera in order to take a photograph of both himself and Pete Conrad while on the lunar surface near the Surveyor III spacecraft.
Bean was hoping not only to record a wonderful photo, but also to confuse the scientists back home on how the photo could have been taken.
However, neither he nor Conrad could locate the timer in the tool carrier tote bag while at the Surveyor III site and thus lost the opportunity. Bean did not locate the self-timer until the very end of the EVA when it was too late to use — at which point Bean threw it as hard as he could.
Bean’s paintings of what this photo would have looked like (titled "The Fabulous Photo We Never Took") and one of his fruitless search for the timer ("Our Little Secret") are included in his collection of Apollo paintings.
Bean's Moon suit is on display in the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Fort Worth, Texas.
After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981, Bean pursued his interest in painting, depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as that of his fellow Apollo Program astronauts.
Many of Bean’s paintings hang on the walls of space enthusiasts. He said his decision was based on the fact that, in his 18 years as an astronaut, he was fortunate enough to visit worlds and see sights no artist's eye, past or present, has ever viewed firsthand and he hoped to express these experiences through the medium of art. He pursued this dream at his home and studio in Houston.
As a painter, Bean wanted to add color to the Moon. "I had to figure out a way to add color to the Moon without ruining it," he remarked. In his paintings, the lunar landscape is not a monotonous gray, but shades of various colors. "If I were a scientist painting the Moon, I would paint it gray. I'm an artist, so I can add colors to the Moon," said Bean.
Alan Bean's paintings include Lunar Grand Prix and Rock and Roll on the Ocean of Storms. He is the only artist to use real moon dust in his paintings. When he began painting, he realized that keepsake patches from his space suit were dirty with moon dust.
He added tiny pieces of the patches to his paintings, which made them unique. He also used the hammer that pounded the flagpole into the lunar surface, and a bronzed moon boot to texture his paintings.
Bean died on May 26, 2018, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 86. His death followed the sudden onset of illness two weeks before while he was in Fort Wayne, Indiana. At the time of his death, Bean was married to his second wife, Leslie.
Bean was interred in Arlington National Cemetery on November 8, 2018 with a service which included a flyover, military band, carriage procession and gun salute.
In this painting by Alan Bean, Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke have just arrived on the rim of North Ray Crater.
Young reported, "As we climbed the rim to North Ray, it was really a steep slope going right up to the edge of the rim. Of course, the old rover didn't notice — it just went right up."
Duke continued, "The slope must be on the order of 20 degrees. You don't realize it 'til you get off and turn around."
As they looked around they could see that the rim was populated with rocks in all sizes and shapes. These rocks had been thrown up and out when a large object impacted the Moon's surface over three billion years ago. The resulting hole is North Ray Crater.
Said Bean: “I have painted John on the left selecting tools for the traverse while Charlie is removing the Hasselblad camera with the 500-millimeter telephoto lens from beneath the seat. Charlie would later report, ‘we did take the 500-mm photos of the interior of the crater. I couldn't see the bottom and I wasn't going to get close enough to see in because there was no way I could have gotten out if I had fallen in.’"
Young agreed, "now I tell you, I can't see the bottom of it, and I'm just as close to the edge as I'm going to get." He laughed, "that's the truth."
North Ray was the largest crater, 300 feet in diameter, and deepest crater, who knows how deep, directly explored in the Apollo Program.