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In November 1969, when I was six years old, my father pointed to the Moon and told me that a man was walking on it. I looked up at the silver sphere and wondered what he was doing up there in that remote, crater-riddled land. I later learned that his name was Alan Bean, and that he was the fourth of only 12 humans so far to walk on another world. Even in that select group, he was unique: he was the only one to record what he saw on canvas and in paint. In May, he died at the age of 86.<\/p>\n
As my interest in space travel grew, I read about the trajectory that led Bean to his Apollo 12 Moon landing. Earning an aeronautical-engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1955, he soon achieved his childhood dream of becoming a Navy test pilot. His instructor was Pete Conrad, later a fellow member of the Apollo 12 mission and Moon-walker, who became his closest friend. Inspired by the \u201csights, sounds and smells of high performance flying machines\u201d, as Bean put it, they hatched their plan to ride the biggest flying machine of them all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Astronauta Optimus Maximus<\/i>\u00a0(2006) depicts Bean\u2019s friend and Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad. There is Moon dust mixed into the paint.<\/span>Credit: Courtesy of the Alan Bean Gallery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n Standing 110 metres tall, the Saturn V remains the most powerful rocket ever flown. Four months before the Apollo 12 launch, one of these behemoths had carried Neil Armstrong and his crew to the first Moon landing. But whereas Armstrong took off on a sweltering summer\u2019s day, Bean, Conrad and fellow astronaut Richard Gordon sat on their rocket engulfed by a winter thunderstorm. Thirty-six seconds into their launch, the unthinkable happened. The Saturn V was struck by lightning \u2014 twice. \u201cI looked up at the display that had all of the caution lights and there were more on than I\u2019d ever seen in my life,\u201d Bean recalled. Seconds away from aborting the mission, he managed to reboot the affected systems. The astronauts\u2019 nervous laughter could be heard all the way to orbit.<\/p>\n Previous astronauts behaved with reserve. Bean gave the public a glimpse of the more human side of being a space explorer. Armstrong commenced his historic landing with a deadpan \u201cSee you later\u201d, descending to the Moon\u2019s surface in tension-building silence. Bean sounded like an excited tourist. His commentary seemed to touch on whatever popped into his mind: from the view outside his window (\u201cLooks good out there, babe, looks good\u201d) to the relief of seeing his landing spot in the Ocean of Storms (\u201cThere\u2019s that crater right where it\u2019s supposed to be\u201d), to complementing Conrad on his flying skills (\u201cYou\u2019re beautiful\u201d).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please Take Me Back Home, Guys<\/i>\u00a0(1995) imagines the point of view of lunar lander Surveyor III.<\/span>Credit: Courtesy of the Alan Bean Gallery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n Once Bean had ignited my six-year-old imagination, I was on my way into the life scientific. I drew make-believe planets, the real Solar System, spaceships and alien cityscapes \u2014 even how aliens might play cricket without gravity. By 1984, close to finishing my physics undergraduate degree, I was \u2014 like him \u2014 grappling with competing desires to pursue science and art.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the world was busy celebrating the 15th anniversary of the first Moon landing. Television screens were flooded with Apollo astronauts reminiscing about their epic journeys. Seeing the blue Earth hanging like an oasis in the inky darkness filled many of them with a deep spiritual connection to the Universe. Bean, more down-to-Earth, appreciated all that the Moon lacked. \u201cSince that time I have not complained about the weather a single time\u2009…\u2009I\u2019ve not complained about traffic,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I got back home, I\u2019d go down to shopping centres and\u2009…\u2009just watch the people go by and think, \u2018Boy, we\u2019re lucky to be here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Apollo 8 craft begins its return to Earth in\u00a0Homeward Bound<\/i>\u00a0(1994).<\/span>Credit: Courtesy of the Alan Bean Gallery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n Bean\u2019s scientific legacy is fascinating. He brought back a Moon rock known as KREEP (potassium, rare-earth elements, phosphorus). Its composition led to a new model of lunar formation: the giant-impact hypothesis. Still being refined by current research, this pictures the Moon forming during violent collisions between Earth and one or more planet-sized objects.<\/p>\n Bean flew once more for NASA, in 1973: he spent a record-breaking 59 days orbiting Earth as commander of the space-station mission Skylab 3. In 1981, he left the agency to work out how best to tell his story to the world. How could he describe what it was like to hurtle home at 40,000 kilometres per hour, or to place his thumb in front of Earth and block from view everything he knew? He found his answer in painting. He even mixed Moon dust into his acrylics, and used his Apollo hammer and boots to, in his words, \u201csculpt a textured surface unique in all of art history\u201d. (Many of Bean\u2019s works are reproduced in his 2009 book\u00a0Painting Apollo: First Artist on Another World<\/i>.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Apollo 15 astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin wrangle their Lunar Rover in\u00a0Slip Slidin\u2019 Away<\/i>\u00a0(2015). The paint was textured using Bean\u2019s Apollo boots.<\/span>Credit: Courtesy of the Alan Bean Gallery<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/media.nature.com\/w800\/magazine-assets\/d41586-018-05401-9\/d41586-018-05401-9_15830816.jpg\")
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