Captain Alan Bean, Apollo 12 Commander holding a sample container, Ocean of Storms, November 1969 Photo Credit: NASA

 

Ten years ago today, Fox aired a program called “”Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” Bad Astronomy author (and astronomer) Phil Plait writes how this one program did more to advance his career than perhaps any other single thing.

The simple answer?  Yes, of course we went to the Moon. Six times, eighteen crew members, and twelve who actually walked on it’s surface.  The picture above is Apollo astronaut Alan Bean.  Phil says this of the photo:

This is a picture of Al Bean. It’s a man in a space suit. It’s a man in a spacesuit holding a sample container. It’s a man in a spacesuit holding a sample container on the Moon. Standing on the Moon. It’s a man standing on the freakin’ Moon!

And I watched every last one of them, live on TV! Or, as live as was possible back in the days of three networks and six channels, who didn’t always interrupt prime time for our “routine” lunar missions. Before NASA TV, the Internet, and hundreds of cable channels. But when it was on, I was there.