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Author
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Topic: What if Mike Collins had flown Apollo 8?
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Delta7
Member Posts: 1527
From: Bluffton IN USA
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted 10-27-2007 07:44 PM
   
If Collins had not been temporarily grounded due to his surgery in 1968, he would have flown as CMP on Apollo 8 instead of Jim Lovell.Would Collins have stuck around for another flight? He seemed pretty intent on leaving after Apollo 11, turning down the offer of an Apollo command from Slayton. If he had decided to fly again, the normal progression, according to Deke's system, would have been to serve as backup CDR for Apollo 11, then fly as CDR Apollo 14 (moving up to 13 for Shepard's sake?). If not, who would have assumed that position? Borman had decided to leave after Apollo 8, and did Deke have enough confidence in Bill Anders to name him as Neil Armstrong's backup? One thing sure is that Jim Lovell would have flown Apollo 11 as CMP, then almost certainly gone on to command Apollo 17. Gene Cernan might not have flown a third time, unless he was able to land a Skylab prime crew command. |
Wehaveliftoff
Member Posts: 2343
From:
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted 10-28-2007 12:45 PM
I thought after 13 Lovell was retiring. I'd imagine that would've been the same after 11. I don't think his wife would've let him do Apollo 17. |
Delta7
Member Posts: 1527
From: Bluffton IN USA
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted 10-28-2007 01:01 PM
Lovell was actually asked if he wanted to go back into the rotation after Apollo 13, but declined. His reasoning was basically that "4 missions was enough for anyone" and that he would have "felt the wounds of a million knife stabs in his back" from his fellow astronauts (or something to that effect) if he had said yes. He obviously wasn't ready to retire from NASA after 13 (serving as head of the Office of Science & Applications until 1973), so my feeling is he would still have flown a fourth mission (Apollo 17).As to what the prospects were if he had said yes to another flight after Apollo 13, who knows? At the time, Apollo 19 was still on the schedule; it's also possible he could have flown Skylab or ASTP. |
cddfspace
Member Posts: 609
From: Morris County, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 10-28-2007 03:45 PM
It gets even more confusing if Collins had not come back when he did...What would this have done to Haise and Aldrin. Haise would probably have gone on to Apollo 11 LMP. Where would that have landed Alrdin? Alot of scenarios play out if/when Collins comes back from the surgery (Would Slayton have put him back in the rotation for Apollo 12,13, 14...). |
dtemple
Member Posts: 730
From: Longview, Texas, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 10-28-2007 07:19 PM
Slayton required flight experience for the crew of the first lunar landing attempt yet the backup crew for the mission was NOT composed of three flight experienced astronauts. Fred Haise was the backup LMP for Apollo 11. So, if Collins had flown as originally scheduled on Apollo 8, I believe he would have not stayed to command a later mission. Why would have been different? He would have orbited the moon just as he ultimately did on Apollo 11. Collins began training as an LMP but got bumped up to CMP due to the reshuffling caused by his surgery. Aldrin was in the position of CMP for a while. (In fact, due the the cross training these two had, at launch Collins was actually seated in the right hand, or "LMP," couch with Aldrin in the center. Collins performed the LM extraction.) Assuming Collins flew Apollo 8, who would have been on the Apollo 11 prime crew? Armstrong is a certainty. However, wouldn't Aldrin have been CMP? Wouldn't Haise have been the LMP? He was the backup for the mission and certainly would have flown it if the prime crew couldn't. |
Tom
Member Posts: 1610
From: New York
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 10-28-2007 09:11 PM
quote:
Originally posted by dtemple:
Collins began training as an LMP but got bumped up to CMP due to the reshuffling caused by his surgery.
Not quite... originally Collins was selected as back-up LMP on the original Apollo 2 mission (Schirra - Eisele - Cunningham) along with Borman as CDR and Stafford as CMP.When the Apollo 2 flight was cancelled in November 1966, Stafford was promoted and got Young and Cernan on his own crew, and Collins was "promoted" to CMP with Bill Anders getting the new LMP position. |
dtemple
Member Posts: 730
From: Longview, Texas, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 10-28-2007 09:13 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Tom:
When the Apollo 2 flight was cancelled in November 1966, Stafford was promoted and got Young and Cernan on his own crew, and Collins was "promoted" to CMP with Bill Anders getting the new LMP position.
Yes, that is correct. I had forgotten that. |
robsouth
Member Posts: 769
From: West Midlands, UK
Registered: Jun 2005
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posted 10-29-2007 12:57 AM
Collins was on the Apollo 3 crew as CMP with Borman as commander and Anders as LMP. If this was the crew that eventually fly to the moon on Apollo 8 then Collins would have had his moon flight and probably left NASA, just as he did after Apollo 11.The Apollo 11 crew would have been Armstrong commander, Lovell CMP and Aldrin LMP. If this had been a success then Lovell would have been eligible to be backup commander on Apollo 14 and been chosen for commander of Apollo 17. I think Lovell announced he was going to leave the active astronaut list before Apollo 13 because he thought he was going to be the fifth man on the moon. If he was CMP on Apollo 11 then the chances are he would have stuck around for a commanders job. With this in mind Cernan would probably have either accepted the LMP role on Apollo 16 or stuck it out for a command role after 17 which would have meant that he wouldn't have gone at all. |
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