NASA Space Lessons

This week in Geography and History Abigail is learning about the NASA space program. We downloaded several lessons from the NASA web site to supplement. We watched Apollo 13 today, just to give her an idea of what those astronauts experienced. She was pleased to find out that my Nana (Eunice (Bean) Pratt) was a cousin of Alan Bean.

Navy veteran Alan Bean was a Group 3 1963 astronaut selection. In 1969 he was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 12. This was the second successful lunar landing of the Apollo program. The crew consisted of Commander Pete Conrad (deceased), Command Module Pilot Dick Gordon, and Bean. Conrad and Bean became the third and fourth men to walk on the moon, an elite fraternity that would eventually include 12 men. Conrad and Bean conducted two successful lunar EVA's and greatly contributed to the knowledge of the moon's geologic history. Bean would also serve as commander of Skylab 3, the second manned mission to the space station and spent 59 days in space with astronauts Jack Lousma and Owen Garriott. Today he is a successful artist in Houston

The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has an Alan Bean Gallery where they display many of his NASA artifacts and his artwork. There is even a DVD entitled Alan Bean Artist ~ Astronaut.