IN: Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, activist and filmmaker. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrete works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers.

Zappa and the Mothers of Invention returned to Los Angeles in mid-1968, and the Zappas moved into a house on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, only to move again to one on Woodrow Wilson Drive. This was Zappa's home for the rest of his life. Despite being a success with fans in Europe, the Mothers of Invention were not faring well financially. Their first records were vocally oriented, but Zappa wrote more instrumental jazz and classical oriented music for the band's concerts, which confused audiences. Zappa felt that audiences failed to appreciate his "electrical chamber music". In 1969 there were nine band members and Zappa was supporting the group himself from his publishing royalties whether they played or not. 1969 was also the year Zappa, fed up with MGM Records' interference, left them for Warner Bros. Records' Reprise subsidiary where Zappa/Mothers recordings would bear the Bizarre Records imprint. In late 1969, Zappa broke up the band. He often cited the financial strain as the main reason, but also commented on the band members' lack of sufficient effort. Many band members were bitter about Zappa's decision, and some took it as a sign of Zappa's concern for perfection at the expense of human feeling. Others were irritated by 'his autocratic ways', exemplified by Zappa's never staying at the same hotel as the band members. Several members played for Zappa in years to come. Remaining recordings with the band from this period were collected on Weasels Ripped My Flesh and Burnt Weeny Sandwich (both released in 1970). After he disbanded the Mothers of Invention, Zappa released the acclaimed solo album Hot Rats (1969). It features, for the first time on record, Zappa playing extended guitar solos and contains one of his most enduring compositions, "Peaches en Regalia", which reappeared several times on future recordings. He was backed by jazz, blues and R&B session players including violinist Don "Sugarcane" Harris, drummers John Guerin and Paul Humphrey, multi-instrumentalist and previous member of the Mothers of Invention Ian Underwood, and multi-instrumentalist Shuggie Otis on bass, along with a guest appearance by Captain Beefheart (providing vocals to the only non-instrumental track, "Willie the Pimp"). It became a popular album in England, and had a major influence on the development of the jazz-rock fusion genre.

Why did they break up?

OUT: He often cited the financial strain as the main reason, but also commented on the band members' lack of sufficient effort.

IN: Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. (June 2, 1930 - July 8, 1999), (Captain, USN), was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and during the Apollo 12 mission became the third man to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected in NASA's second astronaut class. He set an eight-day space endurance record along with his Command Pilot Gordon Cooper on his first spaceflight, the Gemini 5 mission. Conrad also commanded the Gemini 11 mission.

Conrad was assigned in December 1966 to command the backup crew for the first Earth orbital test flight of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the Lunar Module (LM) into low Earth orbit. Delays in the LM's development pushed this mission to December 1968 as Apollo 8. But when one more delay occurred in readying the first LM for crewed flight, NASA approved and scheduled a lunar orbit mission without the LM as Apollo 8, pushing Conrad's backup mission to Apollo 9 in March 1969. Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton's practice was to assign a backup crew as the prime crew on the third following mission. If the swap of 8 and 9 had not occurred, Conrad might have commanded Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the Moon. On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 was launched with Conrad as Commander, Dick Gordon as Command Module Pilot, and Alan Bean as Lunar Module Pilot. The launch was the most harrowing of the Apollo program, as a series of lightning strikes just after liftoff temporarily knocked out power and guidance in the Command Module. Five days later, after stepping onto the lunar surface, Conrad joked about his own small stature by remarking: Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me. He later revealed that he said this in order to win a bet he had made with the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci for $500 to prove that NASA did not script astronaut comments (Fallaci was convinced that Armstrong's "One small step for man" speech had been written for him and were not his own words). (In actuality, Conrad's "long one" and Armstrong's "small step" refer to two different actions: going from the ladder down to the landing pad, then stepping horizontally off the pad onto the lunar surface. Conrad's words for stepping onto the Moon were "Oooh, is that soft and queasy.") One of the photos that he took during the mission with his own image visible on the helmet visor of Al Bean was later listed on Popular Science's photo gallery of the best astronaut selfies.

When did he go into space?

OUT:
On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 was launched with Conrad as Commander,