Get closer than ever before with some of our science and space exploration learning center’s artifacts and exhibits in our video series, “History Up Close.” Today we are exploring a historic Apollo-era space suit.
This suit was worn by Apollo 12 commander, Charles “Pete” Conrad, when he became the third person to walk on the Moon during the second lunar landing mission.
NASA sent Apollo 12 to the Moon from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 14, 1969. Intrepid landed in the Ocean of Storms on Nov. 19, 1969 after a semi-manual precision landing. In their first lunar exploration, Conrad spent three hours, 39 minutes outside Intrepid on the lunar surface.
During this EVA, Conrad collected lunar samples and deployed both the S-band communication antenna and the solar wind experiment, which were some of the lunar exploration tasks assigned to the Apollo mission. They also recovered portions of a lander that had been on the moon for two years.
Apollo 12 was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon.
The spacesuit Conrad wore on the Moon is on display at Space Center Houston inside Astronaut Gallery. This is one of only two spacesuits worn on the Moon on display outside the Smithsonian Institution.
If you look closely in this video, you can see the Moon dust. Did you see it?
