Dr. Phil Metzger:

In 2010, I needed more information about something Alan had seen when he was on the Moon. I was researching how rocket exhaust blows soil and dust during lunar landings. The best information on this topic was from Apollo 12, when Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed their Lunar Module 160 m away from the old Surveyor 3 (“S3”) spacecraft. S3 had sat on the Moon deactivated for about 2 and a half years exposed to the lunar environment.

The Ap12 mission was planned to land near S3 to (1) demonstrate precision landing and (2) to cut pieces off S3 and bring them back to Earth to see how the lunar environment degrades various types of materials and spacecraft parts.

They planned to land the Ap12 Lunar Module (“LM”) about 500 ft away from S3 to minimize the amount of sandblasting that would occur to the S3 as the LM’s big descent engine blew the lunar soil and dust. It turns out 500 ft wasn’t nearly enough!

Wow. Amazing story. Read for the science, stay for the surprising kicker at the end. Thanks to Jason Kottke for the link.