Fourth Person To Walk On The Moon

Okay, picture this: You’re at a party, and someone asks, “Who was the first person on the moon?” Easy—Neil Armstrong. “Who was the second?” Buzz Aldrin. Now, brace yourself for the kicker: “Who was the fourth?” If you just drew a blank, don’t worry—you’re in the excellent company of about 99% of the planet. That honor belongs to Alan Bean, and his story is an absolute hoot.

Alan Bean was the Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 12, the second crew to land on the Moon. He stepped onto the dusty surface on November 19, 1969, just four months after Neil made his “one small step.” But while Neil and Buzz were all about history and heroic silence, Alan Bean brought the fun. He was the guy who, when asked about his first moments on the Moon, reportedly said, “Wow, look at that! It’s beautiful!”—and then immediately started humming a tune.

The Backup Plan That Stole the Show

Here’s where it gets weirdly funny. The Apollo 12 mission almost ended before it began. Their rocket was struck by lightning twice during launch—once at 36 seconds, and again at 52 seconds. The command module’s fuel cells shut down, alarms blared, and NASA nearly called an abort. But Alan Bean, sitting in the center seat, had a secret weapon: he’d memorized the backup procedure for restarting the fuel cells because he was bored during training.

While the astronauts up front (Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon) were shouting about the alarms, Bean calmly flipped the right switches and rebooted the system. He later joked, “I saved the mission by being a nerd who didn’t have anything better to do.” And that, my friend, is how the fourth moonwalker avoided becoming a pile of space debris. Always be the nerd, kids.

Moonwalking with Style

Once on the surface, Bean and Commander Pete Conrad did something revolutionary: they laughed. While Armstrong and Aldrin were practicing solemnity, Conrad hopped off the ladder and cracked, “Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me!” Bean followed suit, tripping over his own feet and shouting, “I’m falling! I’m falling!”—then realizing lunar gravity is so gentle, he just kind of floated down.

They also pulled a prank that still makes historians chuckle. Before the flight, a friend slipped a hamburger into Bean’s spacesuit pocket. Out on the Moon, he pulled it out and took a bite. The photo of him munching a squished burger on a desolate lunar plain is one of the most absurd images in space history. “Tastes like chicken,” he said. “But cold chicken.”

Apollo Painting

From Moonwalker to Artist (No, Really)

Here’s the part that makes Alan Bean stand out from every other astronaut. After leaving NASA, he did something nobody else had ever done: he quit the space business to become a painter. And not just any painter—he specialized in painting the Moon. He mixed actual moon dust into his paint to give his canvases that authentic, gritty texture. “I’m the only artist who’s been there and can tell you what it smells like,” he said. “Like gunpowder and old vacuum cleaner bags.”

His studio was a glorious mess. He’d wear his old Apollo flight jacket while smearing blues and grays across huge canvases, occasionally muttering, “That crater was right there, you know.” He once admitted that painting the moon was harder than landing on it. “Landing takes about 12 minutes of terror. Painting a single rock takes hours of frustration.” But his art sold for thousands, and his pieces hang in the Smithsonian and the homes of billionaires who’ve never even seen a launchpad.

The Fourth Man’s Legacy

Alan Bean passed away in 2018, but he left behind a beautiful lesson: you can walk on the Moon, and still decide your best adventure is painting a sunset. He once said, “I’ve done the coolest thing a human can do. Now I want to do the second coolest thing: show other people how cool it was.” So often we think the goal is to achieve one big thing and then coast. Bean’s message is the opposite: “Great, you did the impossible. Now go find your next impossible.”

Alan Bean, the 4th person to walk on the moon, dies at 86 | fox61.com

And here’s the uplifting part: you don’t need a spaceship to be like Alan Bean. You just need the guts to be the fourth person at the party who knows the answer, the humor to laugh when you trip, and the creativity to turn your biggest achievement into a new beginning. He didn’t rest on his moon boots. He picked up a paintbrush and said, “That was awesome. Now what?”

So the next time you feel overshadowed by the first three people in any room—whether it’s a promotion, a competition, or just a trivia quiz—remember Alan Bean. He was fourth. But he was the first to eat a hamburger on another world, the first to paint that world with dust he brought home, and the first to prove that “fourth place” can be the most colorful, joyful, and inspiring seat of all. And that, my friend, is the kind of fourth that should make you smile.

So go ahead. Be the fourth. It’s out of this world.