On Nov. 14, 1969, the Apollo 12 mission launched to the moon. This was the second moon landing of the Apollo program.

The two astronauts on board were Pete Conrad , commander, and Alan Bean , the lunar module pilot. Astronaut Richard Gordon , the command module pilot, stayed in the command module and orbited the moon while his crewmates went to the surface. The astronauts made a pinpoint landing in a lunar mare called the Ocean of Storms.

The previous moon mission, Apollo 11 , drifted far from the planned landing zone. But Apollo 12 landed close to a scientific target. That target was a robotic lander called Surveyor 3 . Scientists wanted to look at Surveyor 3 to see how well the spacecraft lasted on the moon since it landed there more than two years earlier.

The Apollo 12 moonwalkers also performed a lot of moon science. The astronauts picked up 75 pounds of moon rocks. Most of the rocks were basalts that formed from molten lava.…