Posts: 3445
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 01-01-2014 10:55 AM               

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Reading an article on Jim Bagian in which it is stated:

One of the astronauts of STS-29 Discovery, Dr. James Philip Bagian, was initially scheduled to be on board the ill-fated Challenger, but several months before the scheduled launch there was a change of plans and Bagian and his crew switched places in the schedule and didn't fly.

Later on,

Another dramatic aspect of the story is the fact that initially Bagian was scheduled to be on board the Challenger Shuttle on that day. Fortunately there was a change in schedule, and he and his crew did not fly that day.

My questions: What crew is this? Or is the author mistaken? I do know that the 61C and 51L crews were at one point assigned to each other's missions, the Bolden-Gibson crew manifested to fly the Teacher-in-Space. But I've never heard of Bagian assigned to what would become 51L.

I also know that Bagian was assigned to Spacelab 4/Mission 61D as well as to Mission 61I, the latter of which was assigned to Challenger and had Mike Smith as its pilot. I'm thinking the author had mixed up 61I with 51L because of the two points, even though 61I was not scheduled to fly until mid-1986 at the earliest.

Posts: 1597
From: New York
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 01-01-2014 12:43 PM               

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Hart... you are correct. Bagian was originally assigned to the 61I mission scheduled for Sept. 1986 (along with Mike Smith as Plt).

Following Challenger, he was assigned to the STS-29 flight, and subsequently, STS-40. However, he was also assigned to the STS-51L investigation team, and if I remember correctly, was part of the cockpit retrieval operation.