EARTH TO THE MOON?

One of the first things was I was told we get to ride the vomit

comet! (laughs) Turteltaub and Hanks, they said, Do you

have a problem with that? And I said, "Oh, no! I don't have a

problem with that!" Then I thought it would be fun to play an

astronaut. Getting to meet Dave Scott, and hang out with

him, I thought that would be exciting. Also, I really wanted to

work with Jon Turteltaub, who's a friend of mine.

What was it like for you to recreate history? What kind

of research did you do to prepare for your role?

This is the first time I've ever played anybody who really

existed. I haven't talked to Al Bean yet. I want to, I'm thinking

about it, but the trouble is, I don't really have any questions I

want to ask him! (laughs) I really just want to call him so I

can talk to Al Bean! (laughs) I have a tape of

two-hour-and-eighteen-minute phone interview with Al, and

I've been going to sleep to that every night. I'm trying to get

his cadence, and his attitude toward things. And talking to

Dave Scott, you know, he's the commander of Apollo 15. He

knows all these guys. That helped a lot. And they've provided

us with thousands and thousands of pages of research

material. In fact, we've got so much research material that no

one ever bothered to look at the script (laughs) It's like we all

showed up on set the first day and said, Oh, God! I forgot to

read the script. (laughs) Yeah, we know everything! Hell, we

can probably land the LEM at this point, but we don't know

the story! (laughs)

Could you give a brief description of this mission?

I guess it's kind of the forgotten mission because it was the

second mission to the moon. It happened shortly after the

first landing, so I think people hardly even noticed they went

up. When they did get up there, the camera got pointed at

the sun and was burned out, so there was no television

coverage of the landing, so the public never really knew what

went on in this landing. It's sort of been skipped over. It's

nice that we'll be able to make people more aware of what

they did. They, in a large way, made it possible for all the

other missions to happen because they proved you could

pick a landing site and hit it. That was the first mission to do that.

This episode focuses on what it was really like to be on the

moon. And these guys were kind of a unique crew in that

they were really aware of how much fun it was. They had no

reservations about enjoying it. They got the job done, but

they were open to just having fun and fooling around on the moon!

The Apollo 12 crew seemed to have a relationship that

was a bit different than many other crews. Could you

describe the relationship Bean had with Pete Conrad

and Dick Gordon?

Al Bean and Dick Gordon had known Pete Conrad in the

past. They had both trained with him in Navy fliers. But Bean

and Gordon didn't know each other until they both got into

the space program. They were both close to Pete Conrad,

who was the commander. They had a real affinity for one

another. Pretty much everyone acknowledges that they were

the tightest of all the Apollo crews. The closest, the most

friendly. They've stayed the most friendly. They still talk to

each other all the time, and have remained best friends. A lot

of astronauts are kind of loners. They don't really stay in touch.

What kind of guy is Al Bean? What makes him tick?

What is it about him that makes him so different from

all the other astronauts?

He's kind of an introvert, which is unusual for an astronaut.

He's kind of odd. He talks a lot about not being able to relate

to most people, and when he likes somebody he talks about

it in terms of being able to relate to them. He doesn't really

connect with most people, but he has a good sense of

humor, and is very creative. Now he's a professional artist.

He left NASA to become a painter and he does paintings of

the Apollo missions. I think he's an extremely unpretentious

man. I think there's sort of a humanizing effect, hearing Al

Bean talk about the missions, because he talks about it in

terms of things being neat and things being cool and things

being fun. When he was being interviewed for this he was

always talking about, "You know what i think people would

like to see?" And he's trying to come up with angles. He

says, "I don't think people want to hear about all that

science!" He really understands people, and he's a regular guy.

What is it like being on the set?

This could be the most fun I've ever had! You can't call this

acting. This is just pretending! You've been given all these

great toys, and, cool glasses. You can act like an astronaut

and no one's gonna get mad at you. Driving around in the

Corvettes, you know. I was saying to Paul that it's a little

dangerous, 'cause we start to forget that we're not fighter

pilots. (laughs) We're just three dumb actors. We start

thinking we can drive around like guys who are used to flying

around in T-38s! We have to keep reminding ourselves that

we don't have the skills we're pretending we have!

Could you describe what the launch was like for the

Apollo 12 crew? What were some of the concerns of

the crew after the launch?

I wasn't there, but from what I hear it was a pretty miserable

day, with thunderstorms. It was marginal whether or not

they'd take off. But, you know, no one likes to scrub a

mission, so they took off! (laughs) And about thirty seconds

into it they got hit by lightening twice, and every single light

on their instrument panel lit up, and they lost the telemetry,

which is all their information returning to NASA. So it was

very dramatic right off the top, but they stayed cool and didn't

abort the mission. But it started off pretty badly. I understand

that they weren't sure if anything was damaged that they

might need for reentry. The logic was that if something was

going to go wrong on reentry or in splashdown, it was going

to go wrong anyway, so they might as well go to the moon!

That's the way those guys lived. They were all test pilots.

They didn't worry about getting killed. They just worried about

whether or not they could do the job. So if NASA called and

said, "Well, we think the chutes might not open when you

come back," they'd say, "Well, let's go to the moon, and

we'll see when we get back." They wouldn't have worried about it.

Do you think Canada was as caught up in this as the US?

I don't think I had any concept that this wasn't my country

doing this. It was just: that's a human being on the moon!

We're all involved in this! I think Canada was just as caught

up in it as the United States. I imagine it was probably like

that around most of the world. I'm guessing the cosmonauts,

although they might have been a little disappointed, were

probably just as excited. You know, because somebody had done it.

What did you think of astronauts or space travel when

you were a kid?

When I was a kid, in the space section of the science

museum they had a mockup of the LEM. You would have to

line up, sometimes for like half an hour. It was the most

popular thing in the entire science center, 'cause everybody

wanted to get in there. Everybody wanted to pretend they

were bringing the lunar module down onto the surface. I

would go out there as often as I could. It would be the first

thing, as soon as you got out of the car in the parking lot you

would race there, hoping there wouldn't be a line. Always

there would be a line. You'd get in line and you'd wait. When

you got your turn you'd take it down and you'd go back to the

end of the line, and you'd just want to stay there all day. And

now I'm very excited. My son's coming down to visit, and I

was talking to him on the phone, telling him that he was

going to get to meet a real astronaut. (big smile) He was very

excited about that. I'm hoping he'll get to see a shuttle

launch while he's here.

How does the title of this episode--"That's All There

Is"--relate to Bean's experience on the moon?

Al and Pete were talking right after they splashed down, and

one of them said, "You know what I'm thinking right now? I'm

thinking of that song 'Is that all there is?' That's kind of how I

feel right now." And the other one said, "You know what? I

was thinking about the exact same song!" They said that

sort of thing happened a lot with them. All three of them

would be thinking the same thing at the same time. And that

was it. They were just thinking, Well, now they're back on

the earth, and well, is that it? It was a little bit of a letdown, I

guess. That whole period of their lives was so exciting. They

were constantly traveling around the world, getting the best

training, working with the best instructors in every field. The

heightened lifestyle of being an astronaut. And all that

comes to an end when their mission's over. I can see where

that would suddenly leave you feeling a little adrift, 'cause

you've focused everything on this objective and you've had

the entire world supporting this objective, and suddenly it's

over. It's understandable they felt letdown.

In your opinion, what is the significance of the Apollo missions?

I think it's significant because of how inevitable it was.

Eventually it had to happen, and these were the people who

happened to be ready to make it happen. There was no way,

from the first time people ever looked at the moon, that we

were ever gonna not go to the moon. I think that's the nature

of human beings--if you can see something but you can't

touch it, you figure out a way to touch it. It's like a child, you

know--you don't believe anything's real until you've touched it.

The moon had to be made real by sending people there. I

think the same thing is true of Mars, and everything else.

People just aren't that excited about robots landing on Mars.

People want to have that sense of "one of us has been

there." As soon as one of us has been there, there's that

feeling like, ok, we've all escaped the confines of this planet

a little bit. I think that's good for people.

If given the chance, would you go to the moon?

Oh, yeah! If I could, I would definitely! If I had the requisite

skills to go to the moon, I would love to, but so far NASA has

not expressed any interest in having someone go up and run

an experiment on how well improvisational workshops go in

zero gravity! If they develop any curiosity in the subject, then