Fact Sheet
Surveying Surveyor
Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad stands beside the unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft on the Moon's Ocean of Storms in November 1969. Conrad and Alan Bean piloted their lunar module, Intrepid, to a pinpoint landing near Surveyor to demonstrate the precision needed for future missions to more scientifically interesting areas on the Moon. Surveyor 3 had landed two and a half years earlier. The astronauts brought a few pieces of the craft back to Earth, where scientists found that a few terrestrial bacteria might have survived inside the craft's television camera. [Credit: NASA]
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