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

Despite having dyslexia, Conrad 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.

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.

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.

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

[2]: 54–59 Conrad continued flying while he was in college, not only keeping his pilot's certificate, but also earning an instrument flight rating.

[5] During this period, Conrad was invited to take part in the selection process for the first group of astronauts for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (the "Mercury Seven").

Conrad, like his fellow candidates, underwent several days of what they considered to be invasive, demeaning, and unnecessary medical and psychological testing at the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico.

During a Rorschach inkblot test, he told the psychiatrist that one blot card revealed a sexual encounter complete with lurid detail.

[7] Then when he was asked to deliver a stool sample to the onsite lab, he placed it in a gift box and tied a red ribbon around it.

[8] After his NASA episode, Conrad returned to the Navy as a fighter pilot, serving in the Pacific Fleet's second operational F-4 Phantom II squadron, VF-96, on board USS Ranger.

He was also one of the smallest of the astronauts, 5 feet 6+1⁄2 inches (1.689 meters) tall,[14] so he found the confinement of the Gemini capsule less onerous than his Commander Gordon Cooper did.

Also, the Gemini 11 flight holds the distinction of being the highest-apogee crewed Earth orbit ever, reaching an apogee of 1,369 kilometers (851 miles).

The launch was the most harrowing of the Apollo program, as a series of lightning strikes just after liftoff temporarily knocked out power and guidance in the Command Module.

Five days later, after stepping down from the ladder of the Lunar Module onto a landing pad, Conrad joked about his own small stature by remarking: Whoopee!

Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.He later revealed that he said this in order to win a bet he had made with the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci for $500 to prove that NASA did not script astronaut comments.

The station had been damaged on its uncrewed launch, when its micrometeoroid shield tore away, taking one of two main solar panels with it and jamming the other one so that it could not deploy.

Conrad managed to pull free the stuck solar panel by sheer brute force, an action of which he was particularly proud.

During the night, instrument flight rules (IFR) descent, he suffered a generator failure at 800 feet and broke off the approach.

[9] On February 14, 1996, Conrad was part of the crew on a record-breaking around-the-world flight in a Learjet owned by cable TV pioneer, Bill Daniels.

[22] Today the jet is on permanent static display at Denver International Airport's Terminal C.[2] A month before he died, Conrad appeared on ABC News Nightline and said, "I think the Space Shuttle is worth one billion dollars a launch.

In the last interview he gave before his death, Conrad sat down for PBS's Nova series and discussed where he felt the future direction of space travel should go.

While at Princeton, Conrad met Jane DuBose, a student at Bryn Mawr, whose family owned a 1,600-acre (650 ha) ranch near Uvalde, Texas.

[3] He was buried with full honours at Arlington National Cemetery,[31] with many Apollo-era astronauts in attendance and a performance of "Amazing Grace" by music legend Willie Nelson.

[32] The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas has a grove of trees that have been planted to honour the memory of the astronauts who have died.

During the dedication ceremony, his Apollo 12 crewmate Alan Bean used his speech to lighten the sombre occasion by injecting a little levity, pretending to "channel" Conrad's instructions from the hereafter.

[9] The three Skylab astronaut crews were awarded the 1973 Robert J. Collier Trophy "For proving beyond question the value of man in future explorations of space and the production of data of benefit to all the people on Earth.

"[39][40] Gerald Carr accepted the 1975 Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy from President Ford, awarded to the Skylab astronauts.

[11] Conrad was discussed at length in Tom Wolfe's 1979 book, The Right Stuff, about the pilots engaged in U.S. postwar research about rockets, although he was never mentioned in the 1983 film version.