Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. was an American astronaut and naval officer who flew on four space missions, including the Gemini 5 and Apollo 12 missions. He was the third person to walk on the Moon, and is best known for his quote “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.” He made this remark after landing the lunar module on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission, in reference to the first Moon landing by Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission.
Conrad was born on June 2, 1930, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Princeton University in 1953, and was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy. He served as a naval aviator, and later as a test pilot at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland. In 1962, he was selected as one of the nine original astronauts for the NASA’s Project Gemini, and flew as the pilot of the Gemini 5 mission in 1965.
In 1969, Conrad was the commander of the Apollo 12 mission, which was the second manned mission to land on the Moon. He and his crewmates, Alan Bean and Richard F. Gordon Jr., successfully landed the lunar module on the Moon’s surface, and Conrad became the third person to walk on the Moon. During the mission, he and Bean conducted several scientific experiments and collected lunar samples.