Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice within a minute of launch and survived because one flight controller recognized an obscure electrical pattern almost nobody else in Mission Control understood

Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice within a minute of launch and survived because one flight controller recognized an obscure electrical pattern almost nobody else in Mission Control understood

Thirty-six and a half seconds after Apollo 12 left Kennedy Space Center on 14 November 1969, lightning travelled through the Saturn V and its exhaust trail. The spacecraft’s electrical system reacted as if several unrelated failures had arrived at once. Warning lights filled the cabin, telemetry on the ground dissolved into implausible numbers and the command module’s master alarm sounded. Fifteen and a half seconds later, at 52 seconds after li…