"Is Life Indestructible"?
    The Lunar Surveyor Program consisted of 7 unmanned lunar missions (1966-1968) setting the way
for the NASA Apollo Missions to the Moon.
     During the Apollo 12 Mission to the Moon, Pete Conrad was Commander, Richard Gordon was module pilot and Alan Bean was lunar module pilot.  
      One objective of the mission was to retrieve a television camera from the Surveyor III mission, which landed on the moon in April 1967 (2.6 years earlier) in order to study the effects of the vacuum & cold temperatures of space on man-made machinery.  
     Upon opening the TV camera in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory back at NASA on Earth the noted "spicules" on the Styrofoam within the camera. Apparently the TV camera assembler had a cold and had coughed on the Styrofoam. The "spicules" were incubated microbiologically and the cell culture grew establishing that life can survive the harsh environment of space. 		Surveyor III
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