Pete Conrad

Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. (June 2, 1930 – July 8, 1999) was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer, aviator, and test pilot, and commanded the Apollo 12 space mission, on which he became the third person to walk on the Moon.

Pete Conrad was born on June 2, 1930, in Philadelphia, the third child and the first son of Charles Conrad (1892–1969) and Frances De Rappelage Conrad ( Vinson; 1899–1981), a well-to-do real estate and banking family.

The Great Depression wiped out the Conrad family's fortune, just as it had those of so many others.

In 1942, the family lost their manor home in Philadelphia, and then moved into a small carriage house, paid for by Frances's brother, Egerton Vinson.

Eventually, Charles Sr., broken down by financial failures, left his family.

Conrad was considered a bright, intelligent boy, but he continually struggled with his schoolwork.

He had dyslexia, a condition little understood at the time.

Conrad attended the Haverford School, a private academy in Haverford, Pennsylvania, that previous generations of Conrads had attended.

Even after his family's financial downturn, his uncle Egerton supported his continued schooling at Haverford.

However, Pete's dyslexia continued to frustrate his academic efforts.

Despite having to repeat the 11th grade, Conrad so excelled at Darrow that after his graduation in 1949, he not only was admitted to Princeton University, but he was also awarded a full Navy ROTC scholarship.

While at Darrow, although he was only 5'6" and weighed 135 pounds, Conrad started as the center on his football team and became the team captain. "He was a very tough boy, and we won our share of games," said the school's assistant headmaster.

Starting when he was 15 years old, Conrad worked during the summertime at the Paoli Airfield near Paoli, Pennsylvania, bartering lawn mowing, sweeping, and other odd jobs for airplane flights and occasional instructional time.

He learned more about the mechanics and workings of aircraft and aircraft engines, and then he graduated to minor maintenance work.

When he was 16, he drove almost 100 mi to help a flight instructor whose airplane had been forced to make an emergency landing.

Conrad repaired the plane single-handedly.

Thereafter, the instructor gave Conrad the flight lessons that he needed to earn his pilot's certificate even before he graduated from high school.

Conrad continued flying while he was in college, not only keeping his pilot's certificate, but also earning an instrument flight rating.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from Princeton in 1953, after completing a 200-page-long senior thesis titled "The Design of a Turbo-Jet Military Advanced Trainer" with Richard V. Warden, Richard W. Vannata, and Calvin H. Perrine.

He was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy as a Naval ROTC graduate.

Following his commission in 1953, Conrad was sent to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, for flight training.

He was also trained at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas.

In 1954 he received his naval aviator wings, served as a fighter pilot and, after graduating from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (Class 20), as a project test pilot.

He was designated a Naval Aviator in September 1954 and became a fighter pilot.

In 1959 he was an astronaut candidate for Project Mercury.

Conrad was selected for NASA's second astronaut class in 1962.

Conrad had dyslexia and yet earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Princeton University—being the first Ivy League astronaut—and joined the U.S. Navy.

Conrad set an eight-day space endurance record in 1965 along with his Command Pilot Gordon Cooper on his first spaceflight, Gemini 5.

Later, Conrad commanded Gemini 11 in 1966, and Apollo 12 in 1969.

After Apollo, he commanded Skylab 2, the first crewed Skylab mission, in 1973.

On the mission, he and his crewmates repaired significant launch damage to the Skylab space station.

After Conrad retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, he became a vice president of American Television and Communications Company.

He went on to work for McDonnell Douglas, as a vice president.

During his tenure, he served as vice president of marketing, senior vice president of marketing, staff vice president of international business development, and vice president of project development.

For this, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978.

He died on July 8, 1999, from internal injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident, aged 69.

After he failed most of his 11th grade exams, Haverford expelled him from school.

Conrad's mother refused to believe that her son was unintelligent, and she set about finding him a suitable school.

She found Darrow School in New Lebanon, New York.

There, Conrad learned how to apply a systems approach to learning, and thus found a way to work around his dyslexia.