Sandwiched between the first landing and the Apollo 13 rescue, Apollo 12 is the unsung middle child of the lunar program. Its mandate was no longer survival but pinpoint precision: land within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 probe in the Ocean of Storms. This episode follows the all-Navy crew of Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon, formed after the death of Clifton Williams and honored with a fourth star on the mission patch.

On November 14, 1969, with President Nixon watching, the Saturn V triggered two lightning strikes that knocked the fuel cells offline and garbled telemetry, until controller John Aaron's call to switch SCE to AUX saved the flight. We cover the hybrid non-free-return trajectory chosen for landing lighting, the Snowman crater landing 535 feet from Surveyor 3, Conrad's $500 bet with Oriana Fallaci over his first ...