LANDING:

**110:29:20** Conrad: (Very excited) Hey, there it is! There it is!
Son-of-a-Gun! Right down the middle of the road!!!

*\[It\'s taken a few seconds for Pete to recognize the Snowman.\]*

*\[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - \"For the first couple of
seconds, I had no recognition of where we were, although the visibility
was excellent. It was almost like a black-and-white painting. The
shadows were extremely black, illustrating the craters; and, all of a
sudden, when I oriented myself down about the 40-degree line in the
[LPD](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/apollo.glossary.html#LPD),
our five-crater chain and the Snowman stood out like a sore thumb.\"\]*

*\[The \'five-crater chain\' can be seen in the landing film as five
relatively large craters on the right that form an inverted \'J\'
pointing toward the Snowman.\]*

\--

*\[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - \"I had my head in the
cockpit when the Lunar Contact light came on and I instinctively hit the
Stop button and that\'s how we got shut off in the air. We were, I\'d
estimate, 2 or 3 feet in the air still when I shut down the engine and
it dropped right on in. We landed on a slight slope; therefore, the
right,
[plus-Y](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/alsj-LM-Coord.jpg)
(north) gear pad touched first and tipped the vehicle to my left. The
vehicle plopped on (to the surface) on all four gear at that point, with
no skid marks that we could determine (when examining the footpads
during the first EVA), other than the first pad touchdown. When we set
in for the landing and looked around, it turned out there were more
craters around there than we realized, either because we didn\'t look
before the dust started or because the dust obscured them. Now, the
landmark visibility (after pitchover) I have to class as excellent. It
was very easy from our model and the photographs we had. There was no
doubt in my mind when we finally zeroed in at about 6000 feet exactly
where I was, that I was in the right place. Had I been short or long, I
think it would have been very obvious to me. The lighting was excellent.
The surface had a white-gray appearance; the shadows completely black. I
was not aware of any washout and I was not aware of seeing
zero-phase.\"\]*

*\[The countless small rock particles that make up the lunar regolith
reflect a great deal of light back toward the sun because of a process
called [Coherent
Backscatter](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html).
If you look toward a point directly opposite the Sun - toward the
zero-phase point, you see an extremely bright surface. In addition, if
the Sun is low in the eastern sky and you are on the ground, then, in
looking toward the west, you can see little detail because rocks and
craters hide their own shadows. The result is that the scene looks
washed out, with little or no detail discernible. Pete is saying that,
at altitude, these effects are less noticeable.\]*

**SEEING THE LM FROM ORBIT**

**114:23:15** Gordon: (Garbled) west side. I have Intrepid. I have
Intrepid.

*\[As he approached the landing sight, Dick picked out Intrepid\'s long
shadow cast and now has seen the spacecraft itself. At 112:07, Houston
gave the crew an estimated shadow length of 230 feet, corresponding to a
5.7 degree Sun elevation. Now, 2 hours 15 minutes later, the Sun
elevation is about 6.9 degrees and the shadow length is about 190 feet.
Surveyor Crater has a diameter of about 650 feet or, in agreement with
Dick\'s observation, about 3 times the shadow length.\]*

**THE SUN IS LIKE A SPOTLIGHT; ESTIMATING DISTANCES**

**115:22:24** Conrad: (As his foot touches the surface; [TV
still](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/1152222.jpg))
Mark. Off the\...Oooh, is that soft and queasy. (Pause, holding on to
the ladder as he tests the footing) Hey, that\'s neat. (Pause) I don\'t
sink in too far. (Pause) I\'ll try a little\...(Letting go of the ladder
and stepping out of the LM shadow) Boy, that Sun is bright. That\'s just
like somebody shining a spotlight in your hand. (Pause) Well, I can walk
pretty well, Al, but I\'ve got to take it easy and watch what I\'m
doing.

*\[Pete walks off camera to the right [(TV
still)](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/1152224.jpg)
and then turns and comes back to the ladder[(TV
still)](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/1152330.jpg),
walking very slowly, putting one foot in front of the other. Back in the
shadow of the LM, he turns and looks to the east.\]*

**115:23:27** Conrad: (Gleeful) Boy, you\'ll never believe it. Guess
what I see sitting on the side of the crater!

**115:23:30** Bean: The old Surveyor, right?

**115:23:31** Conrad: The old Surveyor. Yes, sir. (Laughing) Does that
look neat! It can\'t be any further than 600 feet from here. How about
that?

**115:23:43** Gibson: Well planned, Pete.

*\[Generally, all the astronauts had a difficult time estimating sizes
and distances on the Moon. As an example, during the site description at
about 112:36, Pete and Al badly underestimated the distance to the large
crater on their western horizon. However, in the case of the Surveyor,
Pete is dealing with a familiar object. Knowing how big the Surveyor
really is, Pete\'s distance estimate of 600 feet is almost right on. The
accompanying
[photo](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/surveyor_calif.gif)
shows a full-sized Surveyor model, probably sitting on a beach in
California. In the site
[map](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/a12-7f.jpg),
the Surveyor is at about N-3,17.8. The grid spacing is 50 meters.\]*

**ESTIMATING THE SLOPE DOWN TO SURVEYOR**

*\[Bean - \"But there\'s one thing we don\'t say here but we do later. I
can remember the first time I looked at it and I thought it was on a
slope of about 40 degrees (instead of the actual slope of about 10
degrees). And I remember us talking about it in the cabin, about having
to use ropes. How are we going to get down there? How come they screwed
up so badly (on the slope estimate)? And I think I was fooled because,
on Earth, if something is sunny on one side and very dark on the other,
it has to be a tremendous slope. We weren\'t getting (scattered) light
in there like you do on Earth. So when light finally did strike, it was
real\...\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"It turned out it was real flat.\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"Yeah. But I can remember us talking about ropes and how were
we going to get there and what can we do. And there it was, sitting
there at 11 degrees like it should be.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"I guess it was still in the shadow (here at the start of
the first EVA). But, by the time we got to the going down into the
crater (toward the end of the second EVA), it was no longer in the
shadow. Almost 20 hours had gone by.\"\]*

*\[Jones - \"For Dick Gordon to have seen it, there had to have been sun
on the spacecraft, but not on the ground it was sitting on.\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"That\'s what it was. He saw it shining in there, I\'m
sure.\"\]*

*\[As estimated at 114:22, the top 3.5 feet of the Surveyor was in
sunlight when Gordon reported seeing it. Now, an hour later, the Sun
elevation is about 7.4 degrees and about half of the ten-foot tall
spacecraft is in sunlight. At this point in the review, we looked at
photo AS12-47-
[6993](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/20128910.jpg)
which was taken at the end of the EVA, after the ALSEP deployment at
about 118:30. At that time the Sun elevation was about 9 degrees and, if
the numbers we have been using for these estimates are correct, then at
least part of the body of the Surveyor was in sunlight. The ground
around the Surveyor, however, was still in shadow.\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Something is shining on it.\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"But you can see here how steep it looks like it could
be.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Yeah, that does look real steep. And it turned out we just
walked right straight down to it.\"\]*

\[Bean - \"Yeah, it was nothing. It was just like they said. Shows how
the lighting can screw you up, because of those shadows being much
darker because there isn\'t that light (scattered by) the atmosphere
filling in.\"\]

*\[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - \"I guess the biggest note
I\'d like to make - and I think Al and I agree on this - is that the
side visor, the side blinders, were excellent. But you also need a top
one. We had a low enough Sun angle that, anytime you put your hand up,
looked directly up-Sun, and just blocked the Sun out, you could see
perfectly up-Sun. It was only when the Sun was shining in the top of the
visor that we had difficulty. So, I think we need to modify the visor so
that you have a center-top shield that you can pull down and blink the
Sun out. If you have that, you can turn 360 degrees and see perfectly in
any direction. It will also allow you to look in shadows. The only other
time (than when you are looking directly up-Sun that) you have
difficulty seeing in a shadow is when some other object is reflecting
sunlight into your visor when you\'re trying to look in the shadow. Once
you\'re in the shadow, you can see well. This is nothing new; Neil
already pointed that out.\"\]*

*\[Pete may be learning how to run or, at least, to take advantage of
lunar gravity by using bouncing steps and hops as he moves. Houston\'s
estimate of a 45-foot shadow suggests a Sun elevation of 7.6 degrees.
Because the Sun moves about 0.52 degrees per hour in the lunar sky, this
estimate is consistent with our prior estimate of 5.7 degrees at
112:07.\]*

**115:52:18** Bean: Okay. My, that Sun is bright.

**115:52:22** Conrad: Yeah. Take it easy.

**115:52:25** Bean: (Moving slowly off camera to the right) It feels
good.

**115:52:26** Conrad: Yeah, you really do begin to adapt.

**115:52:28** Bean: If you hop it a little bit\...

**115:52:29** Conrad: If you turn around and walk over to your right a
little bit and look over that crater, you\'re going to see our pal
(Surveyor III) sitting there. And that\'s one steep slope it\'s on.
(Pause) Okay; now what have you got all over your boot? Stop. You picked
up a piece of landing gear insulation.

**115:52:46** Bean: Okay. Here we go.

**115:52:49** Conrad: That a boy. Okay, I\'m going after (the S-band
antenna)\...

**115:52:52** Bean: Hey, you\'ve got to watch it in these shadows.

DEPLOYING THE TV CAMERA

**115:55:35** Bean: Okay; good idea. (Pause) You really got to be
careful when you go out of the light into the dark.

ALSEP DEPLOYMENT

**116:41:29** Conrad: Houston! You can log me for my first Boyd bolts on
the Moon. (Pause)

*\[Bean - \"A questionable honor.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Boyd bolts were a real pain in the ass.\"\]*

*\[The various experiment modules were attached to the two ALSEP
packages by Boyd bolts. In order to remove the Boyd bolts holding down
the SIDE, Pete inserted the head of the UHT into a guide sleeve that
covered a bolt, engaged the bolt, and turned the UHT about a half turn
to release the bolt. Despite having the little alignment tubes to help
guide them, the astronauts found that getting the UHTs properly
positioned could be a major problem. The bolts were often in deep shadow
and difficult to see. In addition, dust sometimes got into the sleeves
and added to the difficulty.\]*

LOOKING AT THE SOLAR WIND COLLECTOR

**130:10:10** Gibson: Intrepid, Houston. Go ahead.

**130:10:15** Bean: A real interesting thing has happened to that solar
wind collector. It\'s been sitting out there since yesterday, of course;
and, when I left if yesterday, it was just a flat sheet of foil - you
know - restrained at both ends; but as I look out there now, starting
maybe a foot from the top, it has sort of folded back around the pole
that\'s holding it. Looks almost like a sail in the wind around the
pole. It\'s sort of bulging in the front and being bent back on the
sides. It\'s real crazy. (Pause: Garbled under Gibson)

**130:10:50** Gibson: We\'ve got a fairly strong solar wind, I suspect,
Al.

**130:10:58** Bean: You may think you\'re kidding; I don\'t know.

**130:11:01** Gibson: No, Al. I won\'t think you\'d be kidding. It could
be, maybe, the front part of that is just thermally expanding a lot more
than the back. The back\'s probably radiating and the front\'s probably
very hot. And just a thermal difference across it could do it. I\'m
meeting with a lot of approval back here on that idea.

**130:11:22** Bean: Yeah, well, it looks like it\'s wrapped around the
pole\...That\'s the funny thing. It looks like the wind is blowing on
it.

**130:11:33** Gibson: Well, we\'ve got two good ideas, so far. Maybe we
can come up with a third.

*\[Very Long Comm Break. As Al will discover when he gets outside at
[132:07:59](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/a12.trvhead.html#1320759),
he is being fooled by the lighting. The solar wind panel is hanging
normally.\]*

LATER....

**132:07:59** Bean: Okay, I\'ll take some pictures here of the solar
wind for you. (Long Pause) It doesn\'t look as pronounced wrapped around
the pole now that I get out here, Houston. It looks pretty much like
yesterday. I guess it was sort of an optical illusion from inside the
spacecraft. (Pause) I took a couple of pictures of it, but I don\'t
think there\'s anything unusual going on there.

*\[Al\'s solar wind pictures are AS12-48-
[7041](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/20153700.jpg)
and
[7042](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/images12.html#7042h).\]*

*\[Bean - \"The thing that fools you is the relative lightness and
darkness of shadows on the object. You get this intense Sun and dark
shadows; and it\'s like the Surveyor Crater. We thought it was real
steep and it wasn\'t. So I looked out there - or both of us - looked at
the solar wind; and its light and dark and we think \'Man, that thing is
really bent around the pole.\' But we go out there and we see its not
bent around the pole. On Earth, to get the same dark shadow, it would
have to really be bent. I think we just weren\'t used to (the high level
of contrast) yet. But we get used to it after a while.\"\]*

**TV CABLE...**

**131:41:43** Conrad: Boy, I\'ll tell you, two things I\'m going to
learn to dislike: and one of them\'s the TV cable and the other one\'s
the S-band antenna cable.

**131:41:52** Gibson: Roger, Pete. We copy that.

**131:41:58** Conrad: And they are constantly underfoot. (See AS12-46-
[6867](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/20129091.jpg))
(Pause) All right. Al, let me take it (the LEC) across to the other side
(possibly to outside the south porch rail) so it\'s out of your way.

**LEAVING TIME FOR DISCOVERY**

**132:27:49** Conrad: Houston. You\'re going to have to budget our time.
Now, how long do you want us to spend at Head Crater?

**132:27:55** Bean: Because it looks like we could just spend all our
time here if we wanted to\...

**132:27:57** Conrad: That\'s what\'s bothering me; we could do that any
place here on the Moon.

*\[Conrad, from the 1969 Technical Debrief - \"I knew this was going to
happen. They wanted (a significant total traverse) distance and
documented samples on five specific points. Only on occasion between
those points did we stop when we saw something that was different and
sample it, because we had to hustle all the way to cover all that ground
and to make those five points. We really had to move out (and),
therefore, there was a certain amount of compromise between the amount
of sampling we did at each point and in between those (sampling) points.
There was no point to which they sent us where we couldn\'t have spent
at least an hour very easily.\"\]*

THE COMEDY OF SAMPLE COLLECTING

**132:45:00** Bean: (Laughing) You\'ve got to get some control there,
babe. You\'re overpowering it. This one-sixth g up here, Houston\...You
lift something up in your scoop; and, when you stop the scoop, it (the
sample) just keeps going up in the air.

*\[Bean - \"We could never get the dirt up to the bag and then, if we
did, I would hit the shovel with the bag and that would knock the dirt
out of the shovel.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"It was a real comedy.\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"Yes it was. That\'s why we\'re both laughing. If one could
get it up there, the other one would knock it out.\"\]*

*\[Jones - \"I\'ve seen some other people have a little bit of trouble
maneuvering the scoop handle, getting it up high enough that you could
actually pour the dirt out of the scoop into the bag.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Yeah, it\'s not easy to do in the suit. And the handle\'s
long enough to get it down here, and then you can\'t bend the wrist real
good.\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"Did we ever get it in there?\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Probably, but we slopped it around.\"\]*

*\[The two keys to success are (1) the person holding the sample bag
getting it as low to the ground as possible, for example, by bending a
knee; and (2) the person holding the scoop holding it as close to the
head as possible. In the suits, the normal motions one would use in
collecting a soil sample are fairly difficult. However, with practice
and a little forethought, soil sampling can be done with relative
efficiency. Interested readers should examine the techniques used by the
J-mission crews, using both long-handled scoops and tools called rakes,
which resemble clam rakes. Apollo 12 was a learning experience. And, as
well, the J-mission crews had the considerable advantage of having
trained as backups to earlier landing missions. Having had a chance to
learn the LM and Command Module while they were backups, they could
devote a considerable amount of their prime-crew training to geology and
sampling techniques.\]*

**133:44:20** Conrad: Let me roll a little bit over. That a boy. (Pull
me) back up!

*\[Al is grabbing a strap on the Surveyor parts bag that Pete is wearing
on the back of the PLSS and is using it to help Pete get low enough to
grab the sample 12051 in his hand. This way they avoid the juggling act
that has often been part of picking rocks up with the scoop. Although
the technique seems to have worked fairly well, no one else ever used
it, probably because they had bigger tongs and, if necessary could kneel
or, at least, lean on rocks or tools while they grabbed rocks off of the
surface.\]*

**LOOKING FOR SHARP CRATER**

**132:51:11** Conrad: Sharp Crater, where are you?

**132:51:15** Bean: Got it pinpointed, Pete?

**132:51:16** Conrad: No. I can\'t find it. (Pause) Well, we\'re going
in about the right direction.

**132:51:20** Bean: There\'s one right over here, kind of more to your
right.

**132:51:23** Conrad: Trouble is, I\'m looking down zero phase, you
know, and that\'s\...(Pause) There it is. That\'s got to be it right
there. I see it.

*\[The \'zero-phase\' direction is directly down-Sun and, in that
direction, not only is the reflected sunlight at its brightest but there
are very few visible shadows to give definition to the scene. As with
their problem recognizing Head Crater in the immediate post-landing
period, they are having trouble seeing Sharp. Now, of course, they have
the twin advantages of knowing more or less where they are, and of being
able to move around.\]*

*\[The brightness of zero phase is due to a process called [Coherent
Backscatter](http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/coherentbcksctr.html).\]*

**THROWING SOMETHING AT SHARP CRATER**

**132:55:10** Bean: (Throwing something) Look at that skip. (Note,
earlier he threw a camera filter, too)

**HAMMERING A CORE SAMPLE AT SHARP CRATER**

**133:03:30** Bean: All right. (The sound of hammering is audible) It\'s
driving in real easy, Houston.

*\[Bean - \"I didn\'t know that (they could hear the hammering in
Houston)!\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"That\'s neat!\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"Coming through my hand, I guess\...\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Yeah, it\'s coming through your hand and getting into the
air in the suit and it\'s transmitting all the way (to the
microphones).\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"Isn\'t that something.\"\]*

*\[Jones - \"Now, you had the Snoopy helmets on over your ears.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"Yeah, but the microphones are out here (in front of their
lips). I never heard that before, either. You can hear you hammering
just loud and clear.\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"I would have said it wasn\'t possible.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"The other guy can\'t hear it. Did you hear yourself
hammering?\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"I don\'t remember. I was so concentrated\...The problem with
hammering is that\...Well, I\'m a good carpenter, but you can\'t come
straight down (with your arm in the suit). That\'s why they made the
hammer bigger and everybody used the side. You can\'t do a nice smooth
swing. You get it going (straight down) and then the cable cuts in and
moves it over. So you try to adjust your swing and then you miss. Lot of
missing.\"\]*

*\[Jones - \"From watching the TV of the J-missions, what was possible
was kind of a diagonal stroke across the front of your suit. But if
you\'re driving a core tube vertically, I can\'t imagine that\'s very
efficient.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"It\'s the same thing as with the shovel. As soon as you
raise your hand above the horizontal - or your arm or the hand - above
the horizontal - you run into the cable and you\'ve got to go
over-center. As a matter of fact, remember guys used to have to put
their arm out and go up and come back. That\'s how you got over the
cable, which ran like a U over the top of the shoulder. (There is a good
example of this motion in the Apollo 15 TV when Dave Scott goes through
the motions Pete describes to reach his cooling control.) And if you
want to get your arm up over your head, you didn\'t go straight up in
front, because you\'d run right smack into the cable. You went out to
the side, got it over the cable, then twisted it\...\"\]*

*\[Bean - \"You could feel the cable snap up. It was like going into an
\'up\' mode, and then you could lift it.\"\]*

*\[Conrad - \"It had a definite over-center.\"\]*

**RUNNING ON THE MOON**

Al and Pete did some serious running between Sharp and Halo craters.
This run includes the mysterious "suit cough."

**LUNAR RAINDROPS**

**133:19:02** Bean: It\'s funny though. If you saw this on Earth, you
would think it was a real soft dirt that it had just been rained on
recently. Not hard rain, but just a sprinkle, so that the droplets
(garbled under Pete)

*\[Other crews found the raindrop pattern almost everywhere they went.
It is probably the result of micrometeorite bombardment and/or ejecta
spray.\]*

**WHILE SEARCHING FOR HALO CRATER**

**133:22:02** Conrad: Hey, look at this little neat-o crater right here.
(Pause) It\'s a good place to sample. (Pause) Oh, look at all the glass
in the bottom of that baby.

**133:22:19** Bean: Got a lot of that (in sample bags), though.

**133:22:20** Conrad: Huh?

**133:22:21** Bean: Got a lot of glass. Now, there\...