Houston, May 27 (TNS): Former US astronaut Alan Bean, who was the fourth man to walk on the Moon, has died in Texas aged 86, his family has said.
In later life he became an accomplished artist, producing paintings that were inspired by space.
His family said he had fallen ill two weeks ago in Indiana and died peacefully at a hospital in Houston.
Astronaut Mike Massimino described Bean as “the most extraordinary person I ever met”.
“He was a one-of-a-kind combination of technical achievement as an astronaut and artistic achievement as a painter,” said Massimino, who flew on two space shuttle missions.
Alan Bean, a former US Navy test pilot, was selected by Nasa as a trainee in 1963.
He went into space twice, the first time in November 1969 as the lunar module pilot on the Apollo 12 Moon-landing mission.
He later described how complex and risky the mission had been: “It was more science fiction to us, I think, than it was to the average public.
“We knew how difficult it was. We knew how many things had to go right. This is like going half way across the Sahara Desert and stopping your car and getting out and camping out for a couple of days and then hoping when you start it up the battery works because if doesn’t you’re up creek.”
Courtesy: BBC
