Pete Conrad the prime crew on the third following mission. If the swap of 8 and 9 had not occurred, Conrad might have commanded Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the Moon. On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 was launched with Conrad as Commander, Dick Gordon as Command Module Pilot, and Alan Bean as Lunar Module Pilot. The launch was the most harrowing of the Apollo program, as a series of lightning strikes just after liftoff temporarily knocked out power and guidance in the Command Module. Five days later, after stepping onto the lunar surface, Conrad joked about his own
John Hirasaki was the first Asian-American to attend Texas A&M University and, as a member of that school's football team, the first person of Japanese ancestry to play intercollegiate football in the history of the Southwest Conference. As of 2009, Hirasaki was living in Dickinson, Texas. John Hirasaki John Hirasaki (born 1941) is an American mechanical engineer who worked for the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Apollo 11 mission, the first manned mission to the Moon. In 1969 he – along with Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and William Carpentier – became one of the first