An Artist For the Heavens

"The star pilot in the class behind Pete’s, a young man who was the main rival of their good friend Al Bean, went up in a fighter to do some power-dive tests. One of the most demanding disciplines in flight test was to accustom yourself to making precise readings from the control panel in the same moment that you were pushing the outside of the envelope. This young man put his ship into the test dive and was still reading out the figures, with diligence and precision and great discipline, when he augered straight into the oyster flats and was burned beyond recognition. And the bridge coats came out and they sang about those in peril in the air and the bridge coats were put away, and the little Indians remarked that the departed was a swell guy and a brilliant student of flying; a little too much of a student, in fact; he hadn’t bothered to look out the window at the real world soon enough. Beano—Al Bean—wasn’t quite so brilliant; on the other hand, he was still here." The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe (1979).

Al Bean:  Pleasant, persistent, relentless pursuit of required information - give him an office boy's desk and within a week he will know what the president of the company does. Very pleasant fellow to be around, especially if you like spaghetti, which is all he eats on a trip. Carrying the Fire, Michael Collins (1974).

Noting the passing of Alan LaVern (Al) Bean, test pilot, astronaut, painter.

Extraordinary times, extraordinary people. Al Bean was born in Texas, attended the University of Texas and took his commission as an ensign in the United States Navy. He flew fighters during the early jet age, at a time when aircraft teething problems made Naval Aviation a dicey proposition. He became a test pilot, trained by one Charles (Pete) Conrad, Jr. In the early 1960s he applied to become, and was accepted as, a NASA astronaut.

Isn't life strange, sometimes? Bean's former flight test instructor, astronaut Pete Conrad, specifically requested Bean for Apollo 12 after Conrad's original crewmate Clifton (CC) Williams was killed in a T-38 jet trainer crash. Together, Bean and Conrad landed the Lunar Module Intrepid within sight of the Surveyor 3, an unmanned probe that had landed on the Moon two years before. Bean was the fourth human being to set foot on another planet. Unbeknownst to NASA, Bean had smuggled aboard a self-timer for his Hasselblad camera - intent on taking the first Moon Selfie at the Surveyor site. Alas, he could not find it in the gear bag before he and Conrad departed to return to their LM.

Captain Bean went on to command the second mission to the Skylab, a rudimentary precursor to the International Space Station. Of course, Conrad commanded the first.

Once retired, Captain Bean took up painting. He saw things as only a man could - who had seen the Moon not through a telescope, but through a thin layer of gold-impressed glass, his feet planted on the gray, powdery, desolate surface. Some canvases are detailed and formal representations. Others, displaying a bit of humor. All of them painted by a man who was there. He was there.

Al Bean passed away after a short illness. Another space age hero, gone.

I wonder, sometimes, how it is for other generations of Americans to watch as their childhood heroes fade away as octogenarians. Glenn, Armstrong... And Al Bean. There was a day, it seems not so long ago, when they danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.