Does anyone else think that Alan Bean was misrepresented in the series? He's made out to be some kind of Texan farm boy just along for the ride. In fact he went on to command one of the Skylab missions in the mid seventies and was clearly a capable pilot and astronaut.
I'd be fascinated to hear what the man himself made of that particular episode.
You're in luck! He wrote a book about his trip.
Apollo : an eyewitness account by astronaut/explorer artist/moonwalker Alan Bean
Check out In the Shadow of the Moon. I think they did a good job of capturing his character in the series. He is humble and funny, but he was not just along for the ride.
shareI didn't think the episode made him out to be "just along for the ride."
The episodes of the series all differ markedly in style (which is among the things I like about the series). This is the one that features a clear "narrative voice," which was obviously Bean himself. You have to take the bits where he downplays himself as just part of the narrative voice, which was humorous and self-deprecating.
I've known quite a few shrewd people who come from someplace outside the ultra-sophistacted urban world who get a big kick out of playing the hick - sometimes just for fun, sometimes to their very definite advantage.
Also, in this particular mission, he (like most people) was to some extent in the shadow of Conrad, who wasn't very big but had a huge personality.
Incidentally, here's Mike Collins' little capsule description of 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."
I recognize the description from Carrying The Fire, that's a great book.
I didn't think the portrayal of Alan Bean was especially unflattering, because you can tell Conrad has a lot of confidence in him.
"I am a collage of unaccounted for brush strokes, and I am all random!"
Actually I like how Dave played him. I thought, "If Al Bean is that nice in person, I want to meet him." He was definitely that nice. He's very humble which is how Dave played him.
~Be God's~
Pete Conrad had a ton of confidence in Bean.
Conrad had been Al Bean's instructor at Pax River (the U.S. Navy's Test Pilot School), and had encouraged him to try for the astronaut selection with him in 1962. Conrad had made it while Bean and Dick Gordon (who was another long-time friend of both of them) had just missed out. Bean and Gordon made it the following year. Conrad felt that Bean was the type of guy who threw himself at a problem and wouldn't give up until he'd solved it. Conrad would razz Bean -in a joking way- about some of his personal foibles, but respected him very much as a pilot. Bean was Conrad's first choice for LMP, and was the first person he turned to again when C.C. Williams was killed.
The thing about Bean was, he was a much, MUCH more low-key person than Conrad or Gordon. As Andrew Chaikin described it, Conrad and Gordon hated to sweat out the details of things like writing checklists, while Bean threw himself into things like that as if it was the biggest job in the world. He sort of acted as the counterpoint, personality wise, to Conrad and Gordon.
As well, he was the rookie of the crew, so did feel much more anxious and than the other two. I think he came across as "along for the ride" in that he was simply so happy to be on a crew -and a lunar landing crew to boot, with the bonus being he was flying with his two best friends- that he wasn't going try and arrogantly promote his own ideas that way, for example, Buzz Aldrin did.
He did, of course, mess up with the camera on the lunar surface. However, that was a relatively minor error that didn't affect the mission at all. As well, NASA management realized that it was a simple error that could have happened to anyone.
Well after all it was him that knew what the hell "Flight, try SCE to 'Aux'" meant,and saved the day..also a very likeable character on the show and it seems so in real life as well..same goes for the whole "Apollo 12" crew..
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