posted 06-17-2008 08:27 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by alanh_7:
I have always felt the guy who should have had a shot at a landing was Tom Stafford. The important work he did for the program was excellent and I have always felt he should have had a chance.

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Of course, we don't know whether he had a shot at a moon landing (or do we?).

People often think that astronauts would gladly line up after flying an Apollo mission to enter the rat race again, serving a tour as a back-up crewman hoping to get assigned to a later prime crew. However, at least for some, the opportunity to walk on the moon may have been somewhat outweighed by the personal toll it took to be an Apollo crewman. Long hours in classrooms/simulators, etc, meant that it was difficult to maintain some semblance of an orderly life.

posted 06-17-2008 05:17 PM               

Next, regarding Cunningham, who also gets the kiss of death from Kraft; Kraft laughs in one of the post era video documentaries and says, "I may have been a bit too severe with him" (or something close to that). That's a pretty flip attitude to say about a man's flight career, thirty years after derailing it! For all he did towards Skylab, as a straight arrow, Cunningham might have been given another shot. Eisele, on the other hand, had several "unacceptables" for a second flight, including the Apollo 7 rebellion, and an open affair at the Cape.

I have always felt that Wally's "ace in the hole" was the fact he was in the Original 7. He got his slots after others got named, and this grated him. Perhaps it is a combination of his skill, professionalism, and luck, that put him in all three space craft. Schirra was angry about the way management handled the program long before the fire, and that made him difficult to handle at the very least.

Last, and Kris is welcomed to correct me, the jockeying for a flight, to be assigned a capsule, was foremost in the minds of the Original 7. I once spoke to Alan Shepard very briefly about Scott not getting another flight, and he said it was "not only the overshoot, but other things", however Shepard refused to expand on that. Remember that Carpenter changed Deke's "Delta 7" into "Aurora 7", which cut Deke to the bone, and colored his feelings no doubt. Maybe he thought a true brother would have refused the assignment, but I doubt any of the others would. Deke would have had the same thruster issues as Scott. Would he have faired better? Maybe on the fuel situation. Who knows? In FSS, Rene (Carpenter) recalls sitting pool side with Gus and having Grissom reflect from his own misery, "Scotty is just too sensitive!"

posted 06-18-2008 06:34 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by BMckay:
I like who they picked. I would/t change anything. They all made decisions which they thought were correct.

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Nicely stated.

I once had a military history professor (PhD type) who said that, when analyzing events in history, it is wise to always consider 2 points:

1. Personalities matter.

2. People make the decisions they make for what, to them, are good reasons at that time.

posted 06-18-2008 11:07 AM               

Apollo 7: Schirra/White/Cunningham (Stafford/Young/Cernan)* Ed White does not get caught up in the "attitude" problem, and Cunningham doesn't get dragged down either as a result. Only Schirra winds up on Kraft's s--t list after the mission.

Apollo 8: Borman/Lovell/Anders (Armstrong/Aldrin/Haise)
Apollo 9: McDivitt/Scott/Schweikart (Conrad/Gordon/Bean)
Apollo 10: Stafford/Young/Cernan (White/Cunningham/Mitchell)
Apollo 11: Armstrong/Collins/Aldrin (Lovell/Anders/Haise)
Apollo 12: Conrad/Gordon/Bean (Scott/Roosa/Irwin)
Apollo 13: White/Cunningham/Mitchell (Young/Worden/Duke)
Apollo 14: Lovell/Mattingly/Haise (Shepard/Swigert/Engle)
Apollo 15: Scott/Roosa/Irwin (Gordon/Brand/Schmitt)
Apollo 16: Young/Worden/Duke (Haise/Mattingly/Mitchell)
Apollo 17: Shepard/Swigert/Schmitt (Young/Worden/Duke)

Skylab 1: Conrad/Kerwin/Carr (Cernan/Musgrave/Lousma)
Skylab 2: Bean/Garriott/Evans (Brand/Lenoir/Lind)
Skylab 3: White/Gibson/Pogue (Brand/Lenoir/Lind)

posted 06-18-2008 02:42 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by WAWalsh:
Okay Delta, someone has to ask it -- what happened to poor Bill Anders, how did he go from back-up on A11 to a no-show for A14? [The crew dynamics of Apollo 13 with White, Cunningham and Mitchell, also, would have been interesting, I suspect]

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Same as what actually happened. Slayton wanted a CMP with flight experience on both the prime and backup crews for Apollo 11. After promoting Lovell to CDR, it made sense to move Anders to CMP with rookie Haise as LMP. As Anders said years later, he would have liked to have flown again if he could have actually landed on the moon, but just going into lunar orbit again wasn't worth it. He decided to retire after finishing his Apollo 11 assignment, and was replaced on Lovell's crew by Ken Mattingly. I simply kept that scenario in there.

posted 06-18-2008 02:53 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bram:
I have always wondered why Don Lind didn't got a chance to fly Apollo. He was back-up for Skylab, very well trained and did not get a chance to fly ASTP or even one of the early shuttle flights.

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Lind might very well have been the LMP on Apollo 20 had that mission flown. I also always wondered why he didn't get assigned as PLT on a Skylab mission. Being that he met the standard for both Pilot AND Scientist-Astronaut (PhD. Nuclear Physics), NASA would in effect had a 2nd Science-Pilot on the crew.

posted 06-19-2008 04:03 PM               

-Duane Graveline doesn't leave NASA: serves as Skylab 1 backup science pilot (Schweikart/Graveline/McCandless). Finally flies on Shuttle.

-Curt Michel stays: Science Pilot, Skylab 3 (Carr/Michel/Pogue). Ed Gibson serves as backup Science Pilot for Skylab 2 & 3 (Brand/Gibson/Lind), later flies Shuttle.

-John Bull isn't medically disqualified: winds up as John Young's LMP (Young/Swigert/Bull); backup LMP Apollo 13; LMP Apollo 16; backup LMP, Apollo 17. Shuttle Commander?

posted 07-11-2008 07:50 AM               

WHAT IF... Armstrong said yes.

Let's assume that Apollo 11 is now Armstrong, Collins, Lovell. Does Lovell then want to command his own mission to the moon? He would back up Apollo 14, then command 17. Cernan would be told this and accept the Apollo 16 LMP position. Apollo 12 (as the Apollo 9 back up crew) would remain the same. So what would the rest of the rotations look like- where would Buzz get his shot to walk on the moon? Would Duke jump into another crew? Who would command 13?

posted 07-11-2008 03:13 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by cddfspace:
Apollo 13- ??

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posted 07-12-2008 10:22 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by cddfspace:
I read (maybe in First Man) where Deke originally went to Armstrong with the idea of switching out Aldrin for Lovell as LMP. Armstrong felt that Lovell should have his own command and declined.

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I got the impression that Slayton was talking about Lovell as CMP and Collins as LMP. Lovell had just navigated to the moon and back as CMP, so that would make more sense. Aldrin's efforts to get the flight plan changed to make HIM the first to go out of the LM were well-known, as well as the friction it created between Armstrong and Aldrin. Slayton was possibly offering Armstrong the opportunity to replace Aldrin, with Collins (who had originally been selected as an LMP in 1966).

Aldrin stated in his biography Return To Earth that he considered asking Slayton to be removed from Apollo 11, once it became a foregone conclusion that Armstrong would be the first out. His thinking at that point was that he'd rather fly on one of the later landing missions which would spend more time on the surface and be more scientifically-oriented. Aldrin then decided doing so would be too risky, as there was no guarantee he'd get another flight.

Maybe Slayton had an inkling of Aldrin's feelings. And Aldrin may not have objected too much if he had been replaced on Apollo 11.

posted 07-12-2008 10:47 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by kr4mula:
If Lovell had been on the first landing crew, do you think he would've gotten another assignment at all? Maybe he or NASA would've felt it better to quit while ahead, as the actually 11 crew did.

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In fact Slayton asked Collins before the flight to consider backing up 14 with a potential CDR slot on 17.

As far as Armstrong and Aldrin were concerned, they probably felt that landing on 11 was the ultimate flight...what could top that?

posted 07-12-2008 02:26 PM               

I will not even go into how Kraft crucified Carpenter.

posted 06-15-2010 05:42 PM               

Scanning through this post I found no reference to Alan Shepard's role of sharing the head of astronaut office authority with Deke Slayton for all those years. Astronauts didn't just need to stay on Slayton's good side but Shepard's as well.

Shepard was determined to join the flight line ever since his diagnosis with Miniere's disease (as perhaps did Slayton). Shepard's choice (his decision?) to fly as CDR of Apollo 14 came just after having surgery that cleared his medical status for flight. I'm not the one to claim Shepard's choice was his own prerogative (along with Slayton's agreement) but it's well known Shepard cared little for participating in geologic science on the moon. Granted he was there as a pilot first and foremost. But many other astronauts had put in much more time in field training and simulations than Shepard.

posted 06-17-2010 05:43 AM               

The only crews to fly where all three crew members had flight experience were Apollo's 10 and 11.

Four others had a crew where two of the crew had previous experience. These were Apollo's 1, 8, 9, and 12. Apollo 7 appears to be an anomaly with only Schirra having flown before. Was this as a result of the Apollo 1 fire as this crew were the back-up crew?

All flights from 13 on had only one member of the crew with previous experience. Was this policy in view of the growing astronaut corps?

Interestingly, the most experienced crew in terms of flight time was Apollo 8 with 31 days, 11 hours and 47 minutes of flight time. The second most experienced crew was that of 13 with 22 days, 20 hours and 12 minutes between them - all down to Lovell.

The crew with the least flight time was 14 with just 15 minutes experience. Did this contribute to the fact that this was probably the most criticised of the Apollo missions.

In a rank order of experience, the 11 crew come 8th. The full list is - 8, 13, 12, 16, 17, 15, 10, 11, 9, 1, 7, 14.

posted 06-17-2010 08:46 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
I also wonder if there was any resentment in the Astronaut Office towards Stu Roosa, who didn't have to be a backup before he flew.

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Roosa replaced Donn Eisele, whose career demise likely came as no surprise to anyone. The only other veteran who might have contended for the spot was Walt Cunningham, who also had supposedly been blacklisted by Kraft after Apollo 7. It really and practically had to be one of the rookies from the 5th group, so why not Roosa? There might have been some professional jealousy, but I doubt any resentment that somehow Roosa didn't deserve or earn the spot, any more or less than other group 5 members would have incurred.

Keep in mind that Deke had the rule for early Apollo missions that anyone in a position to fly the CM solo had to be a veteran, including backups. That's likely why Eisele, despite Slayton's and Kraft's misgivings, was assigned to the Apollo 10 backup crew (and also why Bill Anders was assigned as backup CMP of Apollo 11, and not LMP as he would have preferred). Eventually, that rule was dropped, and Roosa got the prime crew slot over Eisele, who was likely never going to fly again anyway.

posted 06-17-2010 02:50 PM               

After Mercury only four flights in the Gemini/Apollo era were 'virgin' missions, i.e. flown by a crew with no flight experience. These were Gemini 4, 7, 8 and Skylab 4.

posted 06-18-2010 10:51 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by jasonelam:
If things had been perfect, we are fairly confident (based on Deke's own observations) that Armstrong wouldn't have been first on the moon.

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The feeling at the time was that the 'first' should be a civilian to reflect the peaceful nature of the Moon landing. Armstrong was a civilian.