Exactly 50 years ago today, on their 2nd moonwalk, Alan Bean and Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. became the first humans to touch and reach out to a spacecraft that landed on another celestial body in the past. The 1969 Apollo 12 Moon mission of NASA and the forthcoming Mars 2020 undertaking to the Red Planet may be disconnected by 500 years and 100 million miles at a distance.
