Happy Birthday Alan Bean!

A week ago today, on March 15th, Alan Bean celebrated his 80th birthday!  Who is Alan Bean, you ask?  I wondered that as well when the morning news mentioned him as one of the people celebrating a birthday last Thursday.  It turns out Alan Bean was an astronaut in the 60's, and was the fourth man to walk on the moon.  Kudos to him!


This revelation struck me as surprising that there are men still walking around our planet who have set foot on a completely separate celestial body, and I've never even heard of them!  I consider the whole travel-to-another-planetoid thing quite impressive, and I agree with the morning news that the uniqueness of such an accomplishment really does make the men who accomplished it stand out as noteworthy.

This train of thought led me to another: are there men who visited the moon, but never actually got to walk on it?  The whole Apollo 13 situation, in which they only got to circle the moon, was pretty unfortunate for those crew members.  I wondered if many other astronauts found themselves in a similar situation.  Google here I come!

A little reading on the Apollo program turned up these numbers:

• 32 astronauts were selected to form the Apollo crew pool
• Of those 32, 24 actually flew to the moon
• Of those 24, 12 actually set foot on the moon
• Of those 12, 6 drove lunar rovers

Talk about an elite group of people.  I respect those 12 who got to fly to the moon, even if they didn't land.  Wikipedia points out that they're among the only humans to have journeyed beyond low-earth orbit, or to see the far side of the moon with their own eyes.  Even so, were I in there shoes I think there would be some lifelong regret.  To come so close to another space-borne object, and not actually reach it.  Ouch.

On the other hand, just reading about the Apollo landings gives me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.  They traveled 238,855 miles from earth, through the vacuum of space, relying solely on 1960's technology?  Talk about crazy!  The accounts of the first landing (Apollo 11) include tales of computer malfunctions during the landing sequence, life support backpacks that didn't fit properly through the hatch, and the breaking of the main thruster switch almost stopping their return to Earth.  It's a wonder any of them made it back alive.

So, honestly, if someone showed up at my door today and offered me a chance to visit the moon would I jump at the chance?  Nope.  I'm to chicken to even orbit the moon, let alone land on it.  Good thing no one's relying on me to have the "right stuff".