On the Apollo 12 mission in November 1969, astronaut Alan Bean walked on the moon. Only a dozen human beings have ever accomplished that feat.

Today Alan Bean's business card reads: "Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 12. The fourth human to set foot on the moon. Mission Commander of Skylab 3, our first space station. Spent 59 days in orbit 270 miles above the earth. Now an artist, creating paintings that record for future generations mankind's first exploration of another world."

Alan Bean excelled as a Navy test pilot and had the Right Stuff to become an American astronaut. But he admits that in high school he wasn't a popular, well-motivated student or a talented athlete. He overslept and almost missed the NROTC entrance exam that would lead to an historical career. So what finally woke him up and put his life on the right professional track?

The University of Texas.

"At The University of Texas I found out that . . . if you put out effort you could change your results very quickly," Bean says. "When this dawned on me, I said, 'I don't want to be this person I've been all along.' When I did begin to put out effort I did really well. That was a big eye-opener. Then I began to put out more effort and do more, and maybe that's the story of my life."

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