The flight was extremely normal... for the first 36 seconds then after that got very interesting.

In 1989 Conrad’s youngest son Christopher was stricken with a malignant lymphoma. The Great Depression wiped out the Conrad family's fortune just as it had those of so many others. He was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery with many Apollo-era astronauts in attendance.

He set an eight-day space endurance record along with his command pilot Gordon Cooper on the Gemini 5 mission and commanded the Gemini 11 mission. Navy officer and NASA astronaut and during the Apollo 12 mission became the third man to walk on the Moon.