Alan Bean, astronaut of Apollo 12 spoke about his experience as a moon explorer. For the zeitgeist surrounding the early Apollo expeditions, it was clear that you needed teams who were used to more risky and adventurous work if missions were to succeed. At the time Alan Bean worked as a test pilot for newly developed planes and like his fellow crewmen he was picked up on these credentials by NASA. His talk covered both the preparation for flight, the uncertainty aspects of the mission, arrival on the moon and the work carried out by gathering samples. After his return from the Apollo 12 mission he took up painting to express some of the emotions and memories from the journey. His paintings mix both facts and fiction by adding elements of what he would have wanted to experience and exploring stories that he wished for. Both paintings and photos from the mission formed part in expressing his particular experience throughout the talk.
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Overall this talk could probably be best described as your favourite bedtime story told by your grandfather. Alan Bean walked on the moon but importantly he is not a scientist and neither does he claim to be. He sees himself as an explorer; then for man, now for art. With a hall of mesmerized audience at the Roundhouse Alan Bean delivered a fascinating journey and his presence made you feel that you were a little bit closer to having been there yourself. This is actually a strategy used in his paintings by adding pieces of materials from the journey such as the crest on his suit or a bit of moon dust. His paintings have an immediate reference to comic books in their depiction, action and use of colours.