Two Walks Planned for Apollo 12 Crew

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32050, 26 July 1969, Page 1

Two Walks Planned for Apollo 12 Crew

I , (N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) I HOUSTON, July 24. The Apollo 12 astronauts, Commander Charles Conrad and Commander Alan Bean, would take two walks on the Ocean of Storms in the western half of the moon in mid-November, the » Space Agency’s lunar landing programme director said today.

Lieutenant - General Samuel Phillips, of the United States Air Force, said that the mission, tentatively scheduled for launch on November 14, would seek information about the moon which would balance what is learnt from the Apollo 11 moon pioneers, who walked on the Sea of Tranquillity in the east.

The Apollo 12 flight’s prime 1 landing target is 23 degrees west of the moon’s centre and three degrees south of the lunar equator, near the 1 site of the unmanned Sur- ’ veyor soil sampling satellite i which settled softly on to the i moon in April, 1967. 1 Commander Conrad, who is 39, and Commander Bean, 37, !, who is of the United States ’ Navy, will spend between 28 apd 32 hours on the moon, ; venturing twice outside their ; lunar module landing ship for about three hours each ' time. 1 Orbiting overhead in the command ship will be 40year - old Commander, Richard Gordon, also of the Navy. Commanders Conrad and Gordon flew together in the Gemini 11 spacecraft in August, 1965. Commander Bean has not flown in space. General Phillips said that there were no plans to try to locate, examine or return the survey spacecraft, which scooped up soil samples for ■ chemical analysis and took I pictures of the terrain round . its landing area. But it would be an added 1 bonus of the mission if the 1 astronauts could land near Surveyor and walk up to it. , General Phillips said that ' Apollo flights 13, 14 and 15 i would be launched at intervals of about four months, beginning in March, 1970.

Apollo 12 from previous flights to the moon will be that the trip would not be one which uses the force of the moon’s gravity to swing the spacecraft back to earth should its engines fail to fire once it leaves earth orbit.

Missions from 16 onwards would follow at flve-month intervals. No crews beyond Apollo 12 have been named and no details of future missions have been precisely laid out A major difference of