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An astronaut at 80
Alan Bean on his Apollo mission, and what he did next
Mark Mason

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3 March 2012
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In a couple of weeks, Alan Bean will turn 80. Hes not planning any special
celebration. If he does go out, it will probably be to a local restaurant in Houston,
Texas. Ive eaten barbecue at this restaurant once a week, have done for 15 years,
he tells me. Nobody there has any idea that Im anyone other than this old guy
who likes barbecue.

Few people even recognise his name. This is probably because Alan Bean was the
fourth man to do something. His late colleague Pete Conrad was the third man to
do the same thing and no one used to recognise him either. The first two were
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Apollo 12, sandwiched between the epic first of Apollo 11 and the famous disaster
of Apollo 13, has been largely forgotten. Which is a great injustice, because of all
the moonwalkers Bean and Conrad are the most interesting, the men who
concentrated more on the emotional impact of their experience than the whizz-bang
technicality of it all. Their story literally isnt rocket science. For Bean, the quarter-
million-mile journey to the moon turned out to be more about the Earth. Standing
on a lump of rock, looking back at his fragile planet, he realised how much he
valued it.

Since then I have not complained about the weather one single time, he says. Im
glad there is weather. Ive not complained about traffic Im glad there are people
around. On his return, he used to visit shopping malls just to watch the people go
by. Id think, boy, why do people complain about the Earth? We are living in the

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Garden of Eden.
3 March 2012
Instead of regretting the things he cant change, Bean finds satisfaction in what gifts
2:00 PM
he does possess. When you see other people achieving success and youre not, you
say, what is it? Is it talent or is it something else? You dont want it to be talent,
because then youre stuck. You say, Im 6ft 4in but Ive always wanted to be Twitter 6ft 8in
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well, then youre screwed. I wanted always to be something you can accomplish
with determination and persistence.

Bean was rejected in an early astronaut selection round, and only got a crack at the
moon because someone else died in a plane crash. So hard did he train that for the
final few months he deliberately forgot peoples names as soon as he was
introduced to them at parties, lest the information crowd out something he needed
for the mission. When he got to the moon he deliberately left his silver Nasa badge
there, safe in the knowledge that the mission had earned him a gold one.

These attitudes have carried through into Beans second career, as an artist
specialising in paintings of the lunar landscape. Mostly you dont go up in a
straight line. Ive noticed in art its more like steps. One day you can do something,
then the next day you cant, then all of a sudden three weeks later you do it again
and you make the next step.

Again, its about the desire to do his best rather than obsess about achieving
perfection. Id like to be the greatest artist in the world its not like I imagine
Ill ever be that, or even close but its a dream. I think the difference between
those who have achieved quite a bit and those who havent is that theyre willing to
do it again and again and again. Beans paintings now fetch hundreds of thousands
of dollars. But all the time hes trying to force the change, try new things to see
where they lead. Its an approach, he says,that wouldnt have gone down well at
Nasa. One innovationis applying texture to his pictures with tools he used on the
moon. I think thats one of the best things Ive ever done for my art. But if Id
gone to my boss Deke Slayton with that idea, he wouldnt have let me do it.
Nobodyelse ever did that, hed have said. Monet didnt do that, Rembrandt sure
wouldnt have done it. Whats wrong with you, Al?

This habit of confounding expectations is what makes Bean so fascinating. He

maintains, for instance, that his proudest achievement as an astronaut wasnt going

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to the moon, but the two months he spent working on the Skylab space station. It
was harder. Its harder to work in a coal mine day after day after day and do3your
March 2012
best than it is to go on a trip to Paris and do your best. 2:00 PM

Bean also accepts that people will inevitably be more interested in those two days
he spent on our nearest celestial neighbour back in November 1969. Unlike on Twitter
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other Apollo missions, he and Conrad were the best of friends, doing a job as well
as they could while never taking it over-seriously. On the way to the moon they
danced weightlessly to Sugar Sugar by the Archies. The pasta-loving Bean
requested that Nasa pack him freeze-dried spaghetti. I did that so I could be the
first person to eat spaghetti on the moon. And I was, thank God I watched
Apollo 11 hoping that Neil or Buzz wouldnt do it. Conrad, famous for always
wearing a baseball cap, had a giant one made to fit over his space helmet. In the end
he was unable to smuggle it on board, scuppering his plan to surprise Nasa officials
during the moonwalk by appearing in shot with it on.

Bean plans to do a painting of how it would have looked. I talked to Petes wife
the other day she thinks she has the cap in storage somewhere. As ever he is
looking forward rather than back, treating life as a continuing adventure, rather
than just needing its ends tied up. Each journey takes up 98 per cent of your time,
the destination only 2 per cent. It feels good at the destination, but then
immediately you set out on a new journey. You do think back about the previous
accomplishment: it feels good to think about being the fourth man on the moon.
But mostly Im wishing I could paint better.

Throughout our conversation, Bean shows himself to be a man attuned to lifes

contradictions, rejecting certainties, aware that the grey areas are where things get
interesting. I have learnt in life, he says at one point, that almost anything you
say is just your opinion. Its not a fact.

Theres something very appealing about a man less sure of things at 80 than he was
at 20. Alan Bean is an anti-Buzz Lightyear, a rejection of fictional ideas of a space
hero. The reality is far more impressive.

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