Portal:Spaceflight/Selected biography/January 2008

Alan LaVern Bean (born March 15, 1932) is a former NASA astronaut and became the fourth man to walk on the moon at the age of thirty-seven.

Bean was born in Wheeler in the northeastern Texas Panhandle. As a boy, he lived in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, where his father worked for the Soil Conservation Service. Bean graduated from R. L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, Fort Worth. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1955.

Bean was selected by NASA as part of group 3 in 1963. He was selected to be the backup Command Pilot for Gemini 10 but was unsuccessful in securing an early Apollo flight assignment. When fellow astronaut Clifton Williams was killed in an air crash, a space was opened for Bean on the back-up crew for Apollo 9. Apollo 12 Commander Conrad, who had instructed Bean at the Naval Flight Test School years before, personally requested Bean to replace Williams.

Bean was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the second lunar landing. In November 1969, Bean and Pete Conrad landed in the moon's Ocean of Storms. Bean was also the spacecraft commander of Skylab 3, the second manned mission to Skylab (July 29, 1973 to September 25, 1973). With him on the 59-day, 24,400,000 mile flight were Owen Garriott and Jack Lousma. During the mission Bean tested a prototype of the Manned Maneuvering Unit and performed a spacewalk. (more...)