HOUSTON, May 26, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- Apollo and Skylab astronaut Alan
Bean, the fourth human to walk on the moon and an
accomplished artist, has died.
Bean, 86, died on Saturday, May
26, at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. His death followed his
suddenly falling ill while on travel in Fort Wayne, Indiana two weeks before.
"Alan was the strongest and kindest man I ever knew. He was the
love of my life and I miss him dearly," said Leslie Bean, Alan
Bean's wife of 40 years. "A native Texan, Alan died
peacefully in Houston surrounded
by those who loved him."
A test pilot in the U.S. Navy, Bean was one of 14 trainees
selected by NASA for its third group of astronauts in October 1963. He flew twice into space, first as
the lunar module pilot on Apollo
12, the second moon landing mission, in November 1969, and then as commander of the
second crewed flight to the United
States' first space station, Skylab, in July 1973.
"Alan and I have been best friends for 55 years — ever since the
day we became astronauts," said Walt
Cunningham, who flew on Apollo 7. "When I became head of the Skylab
Branch of the Astronaut Office, we worked together and Alan
eventually commanded the second Skylab mission."
"We have never lived more than a couple of miles apart, even
after we left NASA. And for years, Alan and I never missed a month
where we did not have a cheeseburger together at Miller's Café in
Houston. We are accustomed to
losing friends in our business but this is a tough one," said
Cunningham.
On Nov. 19, 1969, Bean, together
with Apollo 12 commander Charles
"Pete" Conrad, landed on the Ocean of Storms and became the fourth
human to walk on the moon. During two moonwalks Bean helped deploy
several surface experiments and installed the first nuclear-powered
generator station on the moon to provide the power source. He and
Conrad inspected a robotic Surveyor spacecraft and collected 75
pounds (34 kilograms) of rocks and lunar soil for study back on
Earth.
"Alan and Pete were extremely engaged in the planning for their
exploration of the Surveyor III landing site in the Ocean of Storms
and, particularly, in the enhanced field training activity that
came with the success of Apollo
11. This commitment paid off with Alan's and Pete's collection of a
fantastic suite of lunar samples, a scientific gift that keeps on
giving today and in the future," said Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 lunar module pilot and the only
geologist to walk on the moon. "Their description of bright green
concentrations of olivine (peridot) as 'ginger ale bottle glass,'
however, gave geologists in Mission Control all a big laugh, as we
knew exactly what they had discovered."
"When Alan's third career as the artist of Apollo moved forward, he would call me to ask
about some detail about lunar soil, color or equipment he wanted to
have represented exactly in a painting. Other times, he wanted to
discuss items in the description he was writing to go with a
painting. His enthusiasm about space and art never waned.
Alan Bean is one of the great
renaissance men of his generation — engineer, fighter pilot,
astronaut and artist," said Schmitt.
Four years after Apollo 12,
Bean commanded the second crew to live and work on board the Skylab
orbital workshop. During the then-record-setting 59-day, 24.4
million-mile flight, Bean and his two crewmates generated 18 miles
of computer tape during surveys of Earth's resources and 76,000
photographs of the Sun to help scientists better understand its
effects on the solar system.
In total, Bean logged 69 days, 15 hours and 45 minutes in space,
including 31 hours and 31 minutes on the moon's surface.
Bean retired from the Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981. In the four
decades since, he devoted his time to creating an artistic record
of humanity's first exploration of another world. His Apollo-themed paintings featured canvases
textured with lunar boot prints and were made using acrylics
embedded with small pieces of his moon dust-stained mission
patches.
"Alan Bean was the most
extraordinary person I ever met," said astronaut Mike Massimino, who flew on two space shuttle
missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope. "He was a one of a
kind combination of technical achievement as an astronaut and
artistic achievement as a painter."
"But what was truly extraordinary was his deep caring for others
and his willingness to inspire and teach by sharing his personal
journey so openly. Anyone who had the opportunity to know
Alan was a better person for it, and we were better astronauts by
following his example. I am so grateful he was my mentor and
friend, and I will miss him terribly. He was a great man and
this is a great loss," Massimino said.
Born March 15, 1932, in
Wheeler, Texas, Bean received a
Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the
University of Texas in 1955. He
attended the Navy Test Pilot School and accumulated more than 5,500
hours of flying time in 27 different types of aircraft.
He is survived by his wife Leslie, a sister Paula Stott, and two children from a prior
marriage, a daughter Amy Sue and son
Clay.
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SOURCE NASA