We knew it was going to be difficult to get to the moon. We didn't know how difficult.

Bean did not locate the self-timer until the very end of the EVA when it was too late to use - at which point Bean threw it as hard as he could. Phillips (with Ann Cooper Charles S. As a boy he lived in Minden the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana where his father worked for the U.

After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981 Bean pursued his interest in painting depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as that of his fellow Apollo Program astronauts. Bean was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3. During this mission Bean became the fourth person to walk on the Moon.