Alan Bean had a lot to think about as he lay in his hammock inside the lunar module Intrepid. Earlier that day he and Pete Conrad had become the third and fourth human beings to set foot on the moon. For about four hours they had bounded about in the moon's one-sixth gravity -- a marvelous experience -- setting up scientific experiments and picking up rock samples. Everything had gone beautifully. The only bad moment, for Bean, came when he pointed the color TV camera too close to the sun. Within moments the camera had ceased transmitting live pictures from the Ocean of Storms. Even as he tried to rest inside the lunar module, he worried about that camera and whether anything could be done to fix it.

After emerging from Intrepid, the men loaded up a portable tool carrier with supplies and equipment for their moonwalk. They were a little tired from the previous day's moonwalk, but they were also full of excitement at the prospect of another day's work on the surface of the moon. Of course, "another day" had an interesting meaning on the moon, where a single day is the equivalent of 28 Earth days. In Houston, it was past 10 p.m. on November 19, 1969. But on the Ocean of Storms, it was about 7 in the morning -- a morning that lasts for two weeks. In Earth time, 13 hours had elapsed since the end of Apollo 12's first moonwalk; in moon time, only half an hour.

On this moonwalk, Conrad and Bean concentrated on exploration. They had trained with geologists to understand the moon's pockmarked landscape. They had practiced collecting rocks in their bulky spacesuits, and putting them in special storage bags for return to Earth. And they knew that as they worked, scientists at home were following their explorations, keeping track of each new rock sample and looking ahead to the next tasks. And for the two astronauts, there were a lot of tasks: not only rock collecting, but taking photographs, making observations of each place they visited, and reporting on their work over the radio. Conrad and Bean kept track of their work using little notebooks attached to the wrists of their spacesuits.

Finally, Conrad and Bean reached the crater where Surveyor 3 was perched, more than 600 feet (183 meters) from Intrepid. Carefully, they made their way along the crater's sloping wall. Their boots left deep prints in the dusty surface. At last, the men reached their target. They took pictures of the probe, and then, using a special pair of cutting shears, snipped off pieces of the craft, including its TV camera. Apollo 12's most important goal had been realized. There was only one thing Conrad and Bean didn't get to do. The men had hoped to take a picture of themselves standing in front of Surveyor 3. They'd even brought along a special timer to attach to their Hasselblad camera. But now, as they hunted for the timer, they couldn't find it. It was lost inside a bag of lunar samples, probably covered with lunar dust. They would return to Earth without that photo, but with memories that would last the rest of their lives.