Created by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Office of Manned Spaceflight in 1970, this color film, “The Apollo 12 Mission,” touts the preparation and success of the second lunar mission. Apollo 12 was the sixth manned flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, four months after Apollo 11. Among those who gathered to watch the launch was President Richard M. Nixon, who’s shown at mark 04:30. It was the first time a sitting chief executive witnessed a launch.
Mission commander Charles “Pete” Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity as Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit. (Although it was the second lunar mission, it was the first all-Navy astronaut crew). Following glimpses of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and Rocco Petrone, the director of launch operations at the Kennedy Space Center, we see the countdown and eventual launch starting at mark 05:30. Footage from inside the spacecraft are shown at mark 08:00, interspersed with scenes at ground control. The lunar landing maneuver begins at mark 10:30, with an excited Conrad and Bean landing on the surface of the moon at mark 13:25. At mark 14:20, the first color image from the moon was broadcast, as Conrad steps from the lunar module onto the surface. As they conducted a number of experiments on the moon, the narrator explains at mark 17:53 that Gordon was busy in the command module also conducted a series of experiments and photographing the surface while in orbit. Several components of the Surveyor 3 lander, an unmanned probe sent to the moon in 1967, were collected (as shown starting at mark 18:42) and returned to the Earth for study of the long-term exposure effects of the harsh lunar environment on man-made objects and materials. Following a lift-off from the moon at mark 20:12, the lunar module and command module dock and prepare for their trip home.
