Collection Item Summary:

This is the Apollo 12 Command Module, which took astronauts to land on the moon for the second time. It was launched aboard a Saturn V rocket on November 14, 1969, carrying Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad, Command Module Pilot Richard Gordon, and Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean. Conrad and Bean successfully landed the "Intrepid" just 600 feet from the Surveyor III spacecraft in the Ocean of Storms. During two lunar EVAs that lasted about 8 hours, Conrad and Bean deployed several scientific instruments and retrieved lunar samples and pieces of Surveyor III. Approximately 34 kg of lunar samples were returned to Earth when the "Yankee Clipper" splashed down in the Pacific Ocean of November 24, 1969.

NASA transferred the Apollo 12 capsule to the Smithsonian Institution in 1973.