Unlike the relatively taciturn astronauts of Apollo 11, the Apollo 12 crew members are lighthearted, talkative men, as willing to banter as debate trajectories. The all-Navy crew:
Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr., 39, commander U.S.N., Apollo 12's skipper, is the son of a Philadelphia investment banker and a graduate of Princeton University who displays no trace of Main Line reserve. He is an inveterate joke teller, likes to whistle through the gap between his front teeth and listens for hours to country-and-Western music. At 5 ft. 64 in. he is the second shortest of the astronauts. A pilot since the age of 14,...