Apollo 12: Lightning Twice
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1. The rain
November 14, 1969. Apollo 12 was going to the Moon, in the rain.
2. Three men on top
Three astronauts sat on top of 363 feet of rocket.
3. Liftoff
At 11:22 a.m., it lifted off into the clouds.
4. Lightning
Thirty-six seconds in, lightning hit the rocket.
5. Lost the platform
Pete Conrad: We just lost the platform, gang.
Then it struck again.
6. Nonsense
In Houston, the screens turned to nonsense.
7. Abort
The rules said abort: blow the capsule off the rocket and drop into the ocean.
8. Seen it before
John Aaron was 26. He had seen this exact mess once before.
9. A year earlier
A year earlier, in a late-night test, a power drop had scrambled the data just like this. He'd tracked down why.
10. SCE to Aux
John Aaron: Flight, EECOM. Try SCE to Aux.
11. Houston calls
Gerry Carr: Apollo 12, Houston. Try SCE to Auxiliary.
12. What is that?
Pete Conrad: Try FCE to Auxiliary. What the hell is that?
13. One switch
Alan Bean knew. One small switch, among hundreds.
14. The data came back
The data came back. The crew reset the power, and Apollo 12 flew on to orbit.
15. Lightning?
Pete Conrad: I'm not sure we didn't get hit by lightning.
16. One worry
Houston kept one worry to itself. Had the lightning damaged the parachutes?
17. Parachutes
Ten days later, after landing on the Moon, they found out. The parachutes opened.
18. He remembered
The rocket had made its own lightning. One engineer remembered.