OJAI, Calif. -- Former astronaut Charles P. "Pete" Conrad, who in 1969
became the third man to walk on the moon, uttering an exuberant "Whoopie!"
as he stepped on the lunar surface, died in a motorcycle accident. He was
69.
Conrad, who also flew two Gemini missions in the 1960s and commanded first
Skylab mission in 1973, crashed on a turn Thursday on Highway 150 near Ojai
and died five hours later at Ojai Valley Community Hospital.
Like Glenn, Conrad's passion for space exploration never diminished. In
1995, he formed several companies with the goal of commercializing space.
"He was going back to space as an entrepreneur, trying to create ways for
rockets to launch inexpensively and manage satellites," Mrs. Conrad said
Thursday evening.
NASA selected Conrad, an aeronautical engineer and Navy test pilot, as an
astronaut in 1962, three years after the first seven astronauts were
announced. He piloted the eight-day Gemini 5 mission in 1965, which set an
endurance record in orbiting the earth. A year later, Conrad commanded
Gemini 11, which docked with another craft during orbit and set a space
altitude record of 850 miles.
As commander of the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, Conrad earned the
distinction of being the third man to walk on the moon after bringing the
lunar module down in the moon's Ocean of Storms ...
When the 5-foot-6 Conrad stepped onto the surface four months later, he
exclaimed with his trademark sense of humour: "Whoopie! That may have been a
small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
Conrad and astronaut Alan Bean spent seven hours and 45 minutes on the lunar
surface. Among their tasks was installing a nuclear power generating station
to provide a power source for long-term experiments.
During the 28-day Skylab flight in May-June 1973, Conrad established a
personal endurance record for time in space by bringing his total flight
time to 1,179 hours and 38 minutes. He called his last mission in space the
most satisfying, working to repair the damage Skylab suffered during its
lift-off.
After retiring from NASA and the Navy in 1973, he worked as chief operating
officer of American Television and Communications Corp. in Denver and later
for McDonnell Douglas Corp., the aviation manufacturer.
The Philadelphia native is the third of the 12 original moon walkers to die.
James Irwin of Apollo 15 died in 1991 and Alan Shepard of Apollo 14 died a
year ago.
Conrad, who divorced his first wife, is survived by his second wife, three
sons and seven grandchildren. A son preceded him in death.

Eugene Cernan left the final bootprint that may ever appear on the surface
of our dusty satellite. Yet Cernan has been heralded for far more than this
milestone. He is not only one of the most accomplished of the astronauts—he
journeyed into space three times, on Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17—but
one of the most eloquent in describing his otherworldly experiences.

First Woman On The Moon, a project by Aleksandra Mir, will take place on 28
August 1999. For one day only, heavy machinery and manpower will transform
the flat beach at Wijk aan Zee into a moonscape with hills and craters. The
moon will extend across 300 m x 200 m of sand, beneath the smoke of the
IJmuiden steel industry. The First Woman On The Moon is a performance,
sculpture, environmental art, large-scale entertainment and a playground for
children. The project has been realized through help and sponsorship from
the local community: the local council provided the permits, and the machine
companies, the catering staff at the beach pavilion, hotel owners and the
tourist board all contributed. Locals and internationals, art and non-art
audiences, journalists, feminists and tourists are invited to come to Wijk
aan Zee to bear witness to this event. First Woman On The Moon is being
transmitted out into the world like an historic event, to post offices,
universities, ministries and anyone interested in space travel. The
preparations for the project may be closely followed on Casco's web site in
English, French and Spanish. A map and other tourist information is also
available. For those who will not be able to attend on 28 August, First
Woman On The Moon is above all a media event; just as with the first landing
of a man on the moon, people will ask themselves whether the images they are
seeing and the messages they are hearing are actually real. And as with the
studio-like, flash photography that remained after that event, the
photographic 'remains' of the First Woman On The Moon will have to be tested
on the accuracy of their depiction of the facts.

In her projects Aleksandra Mir investigates the relationship our generation
has with the values and norms of the 'radical' years of the 1960s. Cinema
for the Unemployed from 1997 was a project in which a film programme of both
old and new disaster movies was played at a theatre during office hours
(entrance was free to the unemployed). This was an investigation into the
way unemployment was understood in the 1990s: an unwanted tragedy, or a
conscious choice for freedom. The moon landing of 1969, together with the
Vietnam War, Kennedy's assassination, the Prague Spring and the student
riots, is one of the historic events that shaped this era. Extensive
reporting in the media has led to these public events being engraved on our
collective memory. In a similar way, First Woman On The Moon refers to the
power of the media in the construction of our history.

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