Alan Bean

Alan LaVern Bean (born March 15, 1932), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is an American former naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3. He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second manned mission to land on the Moon, at the age of thirty-seven years in November 1969. He made his second and final flight into space on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, the second manned mission to the Skylab space station. After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981, he pursued his interest in painting, depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as that of his fellow Apollo program astronauts.

Biography

Early life and education

Bean was born March 15, 1932, in Wheeler, the seat of Wheeler County in the northeastern Texas Panhandle. He is of Scottish descent. As a boy, he lived in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, where his father worked for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. Bean graduated from R. L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1950. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1955. At UT he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Omega Chi chapter). After a four-year tour as a fighter pilot assigned to a jet attack squadron in Jacksonville, Florida, he attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, where his instructor was his future Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad. He then flew as a test pilot on several types of naval aircraft.

Alan Bean (song)

"Alan Bean" is a single by British indie rock band Hefner. It was released on three formats by Too Pure in 2001.

The title song is about astronaut Alan Bean, who was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. The band had the opportunity to speak to Bean as a surprise guest on Amsterdam's VPRO.

All the tracks from all three formats were later included in the 2011 re-issue of the Dead Media album.

Track listing

The single was released on three formats.

CD1

CD2

7"

External links

Alan Bean (activist)

Alan Bean a mild mannered white former minister working to uncover injustice and organize black opposition, in the racial controversies surrounding the Tulia 46 drug sting in Tulia, Texas and the Jena Six controversy in Jena, Louisiana. In 1999, Dr. Alan Bean founded the organization, Friends of Justice, an alliance of community members to advocate for criminal justice reform.

References

External links

Failure Is Not an Option

Failure Is Not an Option is a presentation on the History Channel documenting the United States' space program with insights from the flight engineers, project managers, flight controllers, astronauts, and others involved inside the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Speakers include Chris Kraft, Gene Kranz, Jim Lovell, Jerry Bostick, Ed Fendell, Gene Cernan, John Llewellen, John Aaron, Glynn Lunney, Wally Schirra, and Gerry Griffin. It takes the viewer from the Launch of Sputnik through the moon missions. It was produced in 2003.

From the History Channel website:

Failure Is Not An Option is also the title of an autobiographical book written by Gene Kranz and, although he is often attributed with having spoken those words during the Apollo 13 mission, he did not. As to the origin of the phrase, the following story was given, citing an email by Apollo 13 FDO Flight Controller Jerry Bostick:

Kranz chose it as the title of his 2000 autobiography because he liked the way the line reflected the attitude of mission control. In the book, he states, "a creed that we [NASA's Mission Control Center] all lived by: 'Failure is not an option'", though the book does not indicate that the phrase is apocryphal.