Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr., third man to walk on the moon, was born 92 years ago today.
A U.S. Navy officer and NASA astronaut who flew the Apollo 12 mission, Conrad set an eight-day space endurance record along with his command pilot, Gordon Cooper, on the Gemini 5 mission. He also commanded the Gemini 11 mission.
After Apollo, he commanded the Skylab 2 mission (the first manned one), on which he and his crew-mates repaired significant launch damage to the Skylab space station. For this, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978.
Conrad was always the “fun” astronaut — a man with great sense of humor. He was often seen around the bars and other nightlife spots in Cocoa Beach, Florida during the space flight era.
As a pilot, Conrad was invited to take part in the selection process for the first group of astronauts for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (the "Mercury Seven").
Conrad, like his fellow candidates, underwent several days of what they considered to be invasive, demeaning and unnecessary medical and psychological testing at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico.
Unlike his fellow candidates, Conrad rebelled against the regimen. During a Rorschach inkblot test, he told the psychiatrist that one blot card revealed a sexual encounter complete with lurid detail. When shown a blank card, he turned it around, pushed it back and replied "It's upside down.”
Then when he was asked to deliver a stool sample to the onsite lab, he placed it in a gift box and tied a red ribbon around it. Eventually, he decided he had enough.
After dropping his full enema bag on the desk of the clinic’s commanding officer, he walked out. His initial application to NASA was denied with the notation not suitable for long-duration flight.
Thereafter, when NASA announced its search for a second group of astronauts, Mercury veteran Alan Shepard, who knew Conrad from their time as naval aviators and test pilots, approached Conrad and persuaded him to reapply. This time, the medical tests were less offensive and Conrad was selected to join NASA.
Conrad joined NASA as part of the second group of astronauts, known as the New Nine, on September 17, 1962. Regarded as one of the best pilots in the group, he was among the first of his group to be assigned a Gemini mission. As pilot of Gemini 5 he, along with his commander Gordon Cooper, set a new space endurance record of eight days.
The duration of the Gemini 5 flight was actually seven days, 22 hours and 55 minutes, surpassing the then-current Russian record of five days. Eight days was the time required for the first manned lunar landing missions. Conrad facetiously referred to the Gemini 5 capsule as a flying garbage can.
Conrad tested many spacecraft systems essential to the Apollo program. He was also one of the smallest of the astronauts in height — 5 feet, 6½ inches — so he found the confinement of the Gemini capsule less onerous than did his commander, Gordon Cooper, who had played American football.
On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 launched with 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.
Conrad died on July 8, 1999, less than three weeks before the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing. While motorcycling in Ojai, California, with his wife and friends, he ran off the road and crashed.
His injuries were first thought to be minor, but he died from internal bleeding about six hours later. He was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery, with many Apollo-era astronauts in attendance.
Here is the liftoff of Apollo 12, the second mission to the moon
Pete Conrad being interviewed by Frank Beacham, late 1960s