Apollo 12
One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 6th of 11 Apollo flights and the 22nd of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.
The Apollo 12 spaceflight 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. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit. The landing site for the mission was located in the southeastern portion of the Ocean of Storms.
Unlike the first landing on Apollo 11, Conrad and Bean achieved a precise landing at their expected location, the site of the Surveyor 3 unmanned probe, which had landed on April 20, 1967. They carried the first color television camera to the lunar surface on an Apollo flight, but transmission was lost after Bean accidentally destroyed the camera by pointing it at the Sun. On one of two moonwalks, they visited the Surveyor and removed some parts for return to Earth. The lunar module lifted off from the Moon and docked with the command module which then, after completing its 45th lunar orbit,[2] traveled back to Earth. The Apollo 12 mission ended on November 24 with a successful splashdown.
Apollo 12 Patch and Conrad, Gordon, & Bean
WHY HERE?
The center point of all the US Spaceflight caches is located in the middle of the intersection where John Glenn Drive changes into Galaxy Way in Concord, CA.
Or as we geocachers would specify it: N 37° 58.700 W 122° 03.259
The distance ranges from this point to the various caches representing the spaceflights are:
- about ¼ mile - Mercury sub-orbital missions
- about 2 miles - Mercury orbital missions
- about 5 miles - Gemini missions
- about 5 miles - Apollo Earth orbital missions
- about 25 miles - Apollo moon missions
FLIGHT SUMMARY:
| Commander:_ |
_Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. |
| Command Module Pilot:_ |
_Richard F. Gordon Jr. |
| Lunar Module Pilot:_ |
_Alan L. Bean |
| Launch Vehicle:_ |
_Saturn V |
| Height:_ |
_363.0 feet |
| Stages:_ |
_3 |
| Stage 1 Diameter:_ |
_33.0 feet |
| Stage 1 Thrust:_ |
_7,891,000 lbf |
| Stage 2 Diameter:_ |
_33.0 feet |
| Stage 2 Thrust:_ |
_1,155,800 lbf |
| Stage 3 Diameter:_ |
_21.7 feet |
| Stage 3 Thrust:_ |
_232,250 lbf |
| Launch Date & Time:_ |
_November 14, 1969, 16:22:00 UTC |
| Landing Date & Time:_ |
_November 24, 1969, 20:58:24 UTC |
| Duration:_ |
_10 days, 4 hours, 36 minutes, 24 seconds |
FTF Prize:
This is 1 of 27 caches in KCSearcher's US Spaceflight series that were given away as FTF prizes at his “Man on the Moon, July 20, 1969 - 50 years later” event. For those attendees that received this as a prize, they had an 88 hour head start on those that didn’t attend the event. The prize winners were instructed to sign the log in the “Pre-Publication FTFer(s)” space.
However, for the FTF Hounds that were not able to attend, they too had the opportunity to be FTF on this cache after publication that was targeted for 7/24/2019 @ or around 9:50 AM Pacific Time (splashdown of Apollo 11 + 50 years). All they had to do is find the cache and be first to sign in the “Post-Publication FTFer(s)” space on the log.
BONUS:
Don’t forget to record and save the Code Letter and its associated Number that is on the log sheet and inside the container lid. It will be needed to find a bonus cache on the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing, July 20, 2020.
Please DO NOT post or include an image of the Code Letter and Number in any of your online logs for this cache
TO LEARN MORE:
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Apollo 12.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Apollo.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.