Alan Bean

Astronaut Alan Bean was born in Texas, on March 15th, 1932. He received a bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Texas in 1955. After completing flight training, he was assigned to a jet attack squadron in Florida. After a four-year tour of duty, he attended the Navy Test Pilot School, then flew as a test pilot on several types of naval aircraft.

Bean was lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the second moon landing. In 1969, Captain Bean and commander Pete Conrad landed on the moon. They explored the lunar surface, deployed several lunar surface experiments, and installed the first nuclear power generator station on the moon.

Bean was spacecraft commander of Skylab Mission 2 and later became the backup spacecraft commander of the United States flight crew for the joint American-Russian Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.