Apollo 12

A hypergolic engine can sit dormant for years and then start reliably on command, and it can be started and stopped hundreds or thousands of times.

That combination of storability and dependable restart is why these propellants powered the Apollo service module and the lunar module ascent engine, why they ran the space shuttle's orbital maneuvering system and reaction control thrusters.

and why they still run station-keeping thrusters on satellites in orbit right now.

The disadvantages are equally serious.

Impinging injectors aim fine jets of fuel and oxidizer at each other so that they collide and atomize.

Coaxial injectors surround a central stream of one propellant with an annular flow of the other, often with the outer flow swirling to promote mixing, an approach favoured for hydrogen engines and used extensively in Russian designs.

Pintel injectors, where a single central postmeters both flows, offer wide throttling range and were used in the Apollo Lunar Module descent engine, which had to hover and choose a landing site, and in the Merlin engines that land Falcon 9 boosters today.

The injector is also where one of the most feared problems in rocketry begins.

That's the best they can do.

I had talked, personally, I talked to Alan Bean, astronaut Alan Bean from Apollo 12, and he told me about how when he went up to Skylab, how they had seen a red flashing light actually approach Skylab and then leave.

And they had photographs of that.

And those photographs can be found online.

Yes.

After Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility, what lunar region was the destination for the Apollo 12 landing?

The ocean of storms.

Oceanus Procalarum, yes.

You got used to it in three seconds.

Three months later on Apollo 12, astronaut Al Bean walked on the moon and he turned to his other fellow astronauts.

It was Pete Conrad.

And he said, it's kind of like the song.

The rest of the Apollo missions pale in comparison to the significance of Apollo 11, but we'll cover them anyway.

In November, Apollo 12 was launched.

and landed precisely near an unmanned spacecraft.

It recovered parts of the craft for study back on Earth, interestingly enough.

[marching band music]The grand marshals and the president of the Tournament of Roses are coming on also, and they'll be touring.

There they are, the president of the Tournament of Roses, C. Lewis Edwards in the front seat, and our three Apollo 12 astronauts, Charles Conrad Jr., Richard F. Gordon Jr., and Alan M. Bean in the Chrysler 300, honored as the grand marshals here at the Rose Bowl Parade this morning, and are here at the game this afternoon.

The queen of the Rose Bowl and her court in the Dodge Polara.

Pamela Tedesca is the Rose Bowl queen this year.