HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The 50th anniversary celebration of the moon landings continued Thursday. It was 50 years ago on Nov. 14 that Apollo 12 launched from the Kennedy Space Center.

The mission with Alan Bean, Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon almost failed from the beginning. The flight was nearly aborted after lightning hit the Saturn V rocket, causing all of the electrical systems to go offline. It was the quick thinking of mission control that saved the mission and allowed Bean and Conrad to become the third and fourth men to walk on the moon Nov. 19.

“Each mission was so unique,” Cosmosphere Curator Shannon Whetzel said. “We learned different things from each mission.”

Once the crew got to the moon and headed back to earth, more questions surfaced whether the lightning strike damaged the parachutes needed for splashdown. They, of course, worked. However, mission control never told the crew of the possible problem.

The events surrounding the Apollo moon program not only allow a chance to look back, but to use those experiences from 50 years ago to plan for future space travel.

“It was not just learning about how to work on the moon, but also the scientific knowledge we gained,” Whetzel noted. “So we learned so many things about living on the moon, which is going to help us in our future missions. We’re turning back to those historic moments to learn how to move forward.”

As tense as the Apollo 12 mission was, it would pale in comparison with the Apollo 13 explosion in April of 1970.