[APOLLO 12]. CHARLES CONRAD'S FLOWN APOLLO 12 MISSION EMBLEM

FLOWN Apollo 12 cloth emblem, 4 inches in diameter. Featuring a multi-sailed clipper ship above the lunar surface and four background stars. Three of the stars symbolize the Apollo 12 crew and one for Astronaut Clifton Williams who would have been the flight's Lunar Module Pilot had he not died in a T-38 jet crash in 1967. The emblem is mounted above paragraphs on a Typed Letter Signed by CHARLES CONRAD. All on an 11 by 17 inch blue mat board displaying a color photograph of Charles Conrad as he descends down Lunar Module Intrepid’s ladder to become the third man to walk on the moon. The photograph is SIGNED and INSCRIBED: “CHARLES CONRAD, Cdr Apollo XII.”

This emblem is one of the very few that traveled to the lunar surface from any Apollo mission. Apollo 12 was the United States second manned lunar landing and made a pin-point touchdown within 600 feet of the robotic Surveyor 3 spacecraft, one of the prime objectives of the flight. Conrad and Alan Bean make two 4 hour surface explorations and removed parts of the Surveyor. These returned parts assisted understanding of how long term exposure on the Moon’s surface affected hardware in a complete vacuum with intense solar radiation. With CHARLES CONRAD'S signed provenance letter which reads in part: "The above patch was from the first group ever made... The blue and gold colors are symbolic for my all Navy crew. Our mission to the moon began on November 14, 1969. Alan Bean and I made the second lunar landing of the Apollo program on November 19. This patch was carried in the lunar module and spent over 31 hours on the lunar surface. The Apollo XII mission lasted just over 10 days, ending with splashdown on November 24, 1969. CHARLES CONRAD, Apollo XII CDR."