Apollo 12 On the Ocean of Storms Author: David M Harland Publisher: SpringerPraxis ISBN: 978-1-4419-7606-2 Price: £40.99 (Pb), 530pp
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More than 40 years ago Apollo 12 made man’s second Moon-landing, and it could be as long again before humans return. But David Harland is keeping the memories fresh with a series of books covering each of the landings, this being the second. One can relive the whole mission in 500 dense pages from lift-off to analysing the 74lbs of moon rocks they brought back (“These rocks have been waiting four-and-a half billion years for us” said Alan Bean. “Let’s go grab a few”). Some of the early planning chapters are so detailed that it is hard going, but the actual flight includes every word that was said and reads as excitingly as a good novel.

This mission, commanded by the enthusiastic Pete Conrad, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1999, is the least remembered of the six landings between 1969–72. But it included what has always been for me NASA’s most astonishing achievement. After surviving a lightning strike during launch, orbiting the Earth, travelling a quarter of a million miles, then orbiting the Moon, Apollo 12’s lunar lander touched down, as planned, within easy walking distance of where the unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft soft-landed in the Ocean of Storms 31 months earlier. Conrad kangaroo-hopped across to it and recovered its camera so that scientists could study the effects of its long exposure to the harshly alternating hot and cold conditions on the lunar surface.

As a bonus, Alan Bean’s photograph of this event, with the lunar module visible in the background, has been colour-enhanced and makes a dramatic cover.

Reginald Turnill