Editing Apollo 12 (section)

=== Site selection ===
The landing site selection process for Apollo 12 was greatly informed by the site selection for Apollo 11. There were rigid standards for the possible Apollo 11 landing sites, in which scientific interest was not a major factor: they had to be close to the lunar equator and not on the periphery of the portion of the lunar surface visible from Earth; they had to be relatively flat and without major obstructions along the path the [[Apollo Lunar Module|Lunar Module]] (LM) would fly to reach them, their suitability confirmed by photographs from [[Lunar Orbiter]] probes. Also desirable was the presence of another suitable site further west in case the mission was delayed, and the Sun would have risen too high in the sky at the original site for desired lighting conditions. The need for three days to recycle if a launch had to be scrubbed meant that only three of the five suitable sites found were designated as potential landing sites for Apollo 11, of which the Apollo 11 landing site in the [[Sea of Tranquility]] was the easternmost. Since Apollo 12 was to attempt the first lunar landing if Apollo 11 failed, both sets of astronauts trained for the same sites.{{sfn|Phinney 2015|pp=83–84}}

With the success of Apollo 11, it was initially contemplated that Apollo 12 would land at the site next further west from the Sea of Tranquility, in [[Sinus Medii]]. However, NASA planning coordinator Jack Sevier and engineers at the [[Manned Spaceflight Center]] at Houston argued for a landing close enough to the crater in which the [[Surveyor 3]] probe had landed in 1967 to allow the astronauts to cut parts from it for return to Earth. The site was otherwise suitable and had scientific interest. Given that Apollo 11 had landed several miles off-target, though, some NASA administrators feared Apollo 12 would land far enough away that the astronauts could not reach the probe, and the agency would be embarrassed. Nevertheless, the ability to perform pinpoint landings was essential if Apollo's exploration program was to be carried out, and on July 25, 1969, Apollo Program Manager [[Samuel C. Phillips|Samuel Phillips]] designated what became known as [[Surveyor (crater)|Surveyor crater]] as the landing site, despite the unanimous opposition of members of two site selection boards.{{sfn|Phinney 2015|p=84}}{{sfn|Harland 2011|p=18}}

To locate Surveyor 3, NASA invited [[Ewen Whitaker]], who together with [[Gerard Kuiper]] worked on multiple Moon atlases. Whitaker had found the [[Surveyor 1]] landing site with better precision than NASA. By studying images from Surveyor 3 and comparing them with photographs of thousands of similar craters under the microscope, he identified two rocks near Surveyor 3, that led to the identification of the probe's location.<ref name=snark>{{cite journal |last1=Clow |first1=David |title="A Pinpoint on the Ocean of Storms: Finding the Target for Apollo 12" (with Ewen A. Whitaker) |journal=Quest, the History of Spaceflight Quarterly: 10:4 |date=1 January 2003 |url=https://www.academia.edu/6529975 |access-date=18 November 2024|pages=31–43|url-access=registration}}</ref>