posted 05-19-2005 11:37 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:
And Schirra's Space said "bomber pilot" of Carpenter's resume?

---

It was that or "transport". But it wasn't malicious.

posted 05-20-2005 12:16 AM               

Per the "Black Shoe/Brown Shoe" Navy issue: All of the future Naval Aviators
served non-aviator time onboard a ship prior to their Naval Aviation duty. It's normal procedure. Thus, when an Air Force guy wants to rag on a Navy guy, whether good-naturedly or not, he does what Gus Grissom does in his book "Gemini!" on page 95: "John started out in the black-shoe Navy, and I never let him forget his destroyer days." One of Young's shipmates at the time was Tom Stafford a USN Academy guy who switched to the USAF upon graduation.

All three Navy guys in the "Original 7" served their time in the "Black-shoe" Navy so each deserves the apellation to the same degree as the others.

< Wally made a comment about Carpenter being "Black shoe Navy" (as opposed to "brown shoe" Naval Avaitors) >
Chapter 2 of "Schirra's Space" entitled "Black-Shoe Navy". Page 13: "I was black-shoe Navy from the time I joined the Pacific fleet in the summer of 1945 until I began flight training in 1947." Schirra is acknowleding that this was the standard progression within the USN. NOT something that indicated lesser ability or qualifications.

Page 70: "Scott Carpenter had lived in San Diego as a fleet Aviator just before joining Mercury..." It doesn't appear that Wally considered him to be Black-Shoe Navy at the time of the 1959 selection.

However, on page 76: "Scott had been through test pilot school, but he was a multi-engine aviator and had been a communications officer on a carrier before joining Mercury. That's black-shoe to me. As the MA-7 backup I believed I was due to fly in Deke's place." "Here I was a fighter pilot standing aside for a bomber pilot. To make it worse, I was designated Scott's backup." "I don't think anyone knew how angry I was."

This is rather like Slayton the WWII bomber pilot referring to Carpenter as a "bomber pilot" because Scott flew Patrol planes. A good way to disparage the competition. Who knows who'll be listening and what effect it may or may not have...

Walt Williams decided to put Carpenter on MA-7 rather than Schirra, which really doesn't make a lot of sense. Why have a backup to replace a guy, and not use him. It made Schirra look bad, and he is understandably angry. Probably at the time he indeed felt as he says, but in later years he doesn't seem to feel the same way.

Also, I believe Carpenter was "Air Intelligence Officer" on a carrier (Hornet, I believe) not a Comm Officer. *If* he had no flying duties during this assignment does this mean the USN no longer considered him a pilot? I think not...

Schirra states that Glenn had a "desk-job" at the time of the Mercury selection. Shepard had spent a year in War College following his Pax River duty. He had no flying duties at the time but like Carpenter he was still wearing Naval Aviator wings and still an Aviator. Shepard was assigned to the Navy's Atlantic Fleet headquarters at the time of selection. If Carpenter was "black-shoe" at the time of selection then he was hardly the only one.

posted 05-20-2005 08:09 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by taneal1:
Wow! Quite a night for posts...

If Carpenter was "black-shoe" at the time of selection then he was hardly the only one.

Tom

---

I hope you're not suggesting there was competition and politicking among the Mercury guys.

But if there WERE, Big Al would be Il Capo de Tutti Capi of astropolitics. John Glenn would be Don Barzini.

posted 05-20-2005 08:13 AM               

Someone (Gordo Cooper?) described Carpenter as the best dancer of the 7 ("He did a mean twist") and had a good singing voice.

posted 05-20-2005 12:24 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by #204:
As well as general qualifications, I feel that crew selection was probably also based upon determination of the individual(aggression, submission???). If you consider the tenacity of "BIG AL" and "DEKE" along with several others who aspired to fly in space or to the moon(CERNAN held out for #17CDR), they deserve some kind of reward or recognition for personal stamina.
JOHN GLENN, SCOTT CARPENTER & GORDON COOPER, might very well have gone to the moon if they had really wanted to, barring any permanent health problems. (Actually GLENN CDR & CARPENTER LMP would have made for a very interesting crew. Who would they have selected as CMP???)

---

posted 05-20-2005 05:34 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by WAWalsh:
In JSC Oral history project, Wally Schirra gives his take on the seven around page 12-21.

---

posted 05-20-2005 11:02 PM               

quote:

---

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by KC Stoever:
And Schirra's Space said "bomber pilot" of Carpenter's resume?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was that or "transport". But it wasn't malicious.

---

Thanks for the cite, Duke. Haven't read the book, but trust your take.

I agree. Schirra doesn't have a malicious bone in his body. He or his researcher got some facts garbled, slightly, on Carpenter's resume. No big whoop.

Carpenter (TPS 13) was the Hornet's air intelligence officer at the time of the 1959 Project Mercury selection.

Unlike Shepard (TPS 5) and Schirra (TPS 20), both his seniors and both Academy men, he had demobbed after WWII, and so had a later start on his Navy career than they, signing back up on the eve of the Korean war.

Imagine their surprise to find a non-Academy patrol plane pilot, in 1959, impressing people like Gilruth, North, Donlan, and Gamble, and vying with them for the first U.S. spaceflights.

Schirra isn't malicious, but he does have a point of view. Carpenter has one. So does Glenn. And Slayton and Shepard had POVs, when they were alive.

And POV is a challenge for serious readers of history involving rival POVs. You have to juggle all POVS, especially when they contradict or undercut each other.

And with a controversial event, like Delta/Aurora 7 that produced two distinct losers (Slayton and Schirra) and one ostensible winner, Carpenter, juggling these POVs becomes extremely difficult.

And some readers will choose sides. They have favorite protagonists and favorite POVs. Some tire of the exercise altogether and figure if they split the difference the sum will be about right.

Speaking of POV, Tom is right upthread, that it made little senseafter Deke was scratched, to turn to Glenn's backup, Carpenter. Schirra was Slayton's backup. Schirra should have gotten the flight.

But to Gilruth the decision made eminent sense. Glenn and his backup Carpenter had the lion's share of training time in the runup to MA-6. With Deke's grounding for the follow-on flight, MA-7, and a rival Soviet Union sending men into space on what seemed a routine basis, Gilruth et al. reasoned that Glenn's backup, Carpenter, was the readiest to fly (and he was). So they decided to fly the readiest guy.

[On edit]: In other words, NASA has a point of view too!

As it happens, Carpenter had more hours than Slayton. Of the four men training for the first orbital missions (Glenn/Carpenter and Slayton/Schirra) Schirra had the fewest.

Was Schirra incensed and Deke humiliated? Yes. But NASA wasn't thinking much about feelings in 1962.

NASA had no choice. Carpenter was their man.

I'll tell you my POV. I wish my dad had stayed home, after MA-6, and taught me how to ride a bike. Or had read me a book. Or spent some more time with my brothers, helping them with homework.

Sure, Carpenter wanted his own mission--Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, or Mars. But not over Deke's compromised heart condition and not at the expense of his colleague and friend Wally.

But NASA told him he was the man, and he took up his duty. Anyone in the same position would have done the same.

Wally certainly would have, and would never have looked back.

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited May 20, 2005).]

posted 05-21-2005 09:08 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by KC Stoever:
NASA told him he was the man, and he took up his duty. Anyone in the same position would have done the same.

Wally certainly would have, and would never have looked back.

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited May 20, 2005).]

---

Absolutely, but because it was his duty and the nature of the job, not because he had used a knife.

posted 05-21-2005 11:41 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by MCroft04:
"So the first thought Al and I had was to put him (Al) on Thirteen as commander with Jim McDivvit as lunar module pilot, and a new guy-probably Stu Roosa-as command module pilot".

---

posted 05-21-2005 03:48 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by MCroft04:
I'm reading Deke's book again, and ran across an interesting comment (p. 236) that pertains to Deke's and Al's relationship in choosing crews. Al had just came back on astronaut status and Deke makes this comment "So the first thought Al and I had was to put him (Al) on Thirteen as commander with Jim McDivvit as lunar module pilot, and a new guy-probably Stu Roosa-as command module pilot". Talk but the fox in the henhouse.

---

posted 05-22-2005 12:01 AM               

<And you tell me Slayton didn't play <favourites?

I don't know who said Slayton didn't play favorites... certainly not me. He obviously did.

What Slayton did was -- in most cases -- play _fair_. His "favorites" (Borman, McDivitt, Stafford, Armstrong, Conrad, Collins, Gordon, Grissom and Shepard) who were, by and large, ranked most highly by NASA management, their peers and people in the flight test community.

Jim Lovell told me that while he was often disappointed in Deke's assignments -- why, for example, was he working for Armstrong on the original 503 backup crew? -- he always thought he was fair.

That said, I don't think the Shepard assignment to 13 prime crew was the best possible choice. Conrad, Lovell, and McDivitt (to name just a few) all raised hell about it.

But NASA management -- Mueller, Gilruth, et al -- were happy to have Shepard leaping directly to 14.

Slayton _did_ have an oft-stated (in the astronaut office) policy that if you got bumped from a prime crew because of the doctors, you got the next available prime crew. He tried it with Shepard, accomplished it with Collins and -- to some degree -- with himself. (And did the same thing for Mattingly.... giving him prime crew on 16... though he also offered him LMP on 19....

posted 05-22-2005 11:14 AM               

The MEGO (my eyes glaze over) factor sets in for me after Group 1 astronauts, for obvious reasons, but I do find the post-Project Mercury accounts interesting.

Regarding Shepard's return to flight status, I recall that his symptoms (Meneire's disease) abated over time, an also that he had surgery, AFAIK an experimental treatment at the time.

But do we really know, do we have medical records from the surgeon, that this surgical intervention took place? Or was this a wink, wink thing, to get the man back into space?

Best regards,

Kris

posted 05-22-2005 11:53 AM               

I was struck, though, by the following passage, where Shepard describes his early aviation career with justifiable pride:

quote:

---

But when I was selected [for TPS, class 5, in 1951], after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better. You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.

---

Shepard and Carpenter (TPS 13) had something in common. Both were sent to Patuxent after their very first tours of duty! Shepard was younger at the time, in 1951 he would have been 27. Carpenter in 1954 was 29.

[on edit, here's the link]:
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/she0int-1/

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited May 22, 2005).]

posted 05-22-2005 04:53 PM            

(IS THE UBB IMG CODE DISABLED ON THIS FORUM?)

posted 05-22-2005 05:04 PM               

Shepard did indeed have surgery -- pointed to Dr. House in in L.A. by Stafford around 1965, though it took him another 2-3 years to break down and take the chance.

Slayton's files held a big old pile of paper on Shepard's surgery because a senator asked for it....

posted 05-22-2005 06:11 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Michael Cassutt:
Kris--

Slayton's files held a big old pile of paper on Shepard's surgery because a senator asked for it....

Michael Cassutt

---

I hope you don't mind a couple of short questions, Mr. C: First, did Slayton offer Glenn and Carpenter Gemini flights (or the chance to "bid" on them) AND would he have assigned them if accepted?

Second, Deke Slayton was El Supremo of snoring. Did anybody ever make the connection between that and his heart rhythm? (I hope this doesn't raise medical privacy issues.)

Finally, how is Tom Stafford doing these days?

posted 05-22-2005 09:56 PM               

Did Deke Slayton ever offer Glenn and Carpenter Gemini flights? As far as I know, yes -- Carpenter (correct me if I'm wrong, Kris) was one of the recipients of a memo Deke circulated fall 1963, asking the Mercury guys if they were planning to stick around for Gemini, and if so, what flight would they want?

At this point in time, Glenn was already one foot out the door. (I don't know the actual date of the memo... whether it preceded the Kenneday assasination or not. Likely it did.) His retirement from NASA/USMC was official around Feb 1 1964, so it's apparent that his response was negative.

Carpenter was interested in an oceanographic project that took him out of the running for the first 3-4 Gemini crews. Had he not suffered that motorcycle accident in 1964, he would surely have returned and been eligible.

And in spite of the speculation, I'm quite sure Deke would have found a mission for him. When I asked him directly about the alleged Kraft quote -- "He'll never fly for me again" re Scott -- Deke's face clouded over. "It wasn't his decision to make."

Stafford is busy with his company boards, and with the return-to-flight panel.

posted 05-22-2005 11:45 PM               

quote:

---

Please [KC Stoever] avoid comments like this.

---

WAWALSH, you're quite right.

I am not deeply versed in speculation about most astronauts, although I am a scholar of speculation about one, so was not sufficiently aware of the parlous nature of my inquiry.

My new awareness makes me especially grateful for Michael Cassutt's even-handed response.

Regarding the 1963 memo/questionnaire circulated among the astronauts, I believe it was "the fall" of 1963--before the Kennedy assassination. I don't know if Glenn saw the memo or if so how he responded. The peer ratings from the time suggest there was a sense that some astronauts had checked out--were known not on active duty and thus were not in the mix of peers.

Again, re: the 1963 memo, Carpenter replied he wasn't interested in the next couple of flights. I think his plan was he'd train and do Sealab, then train and fly Gemini/Apollo flights, plus as part of his unique training bring in EVA techniques.

But the motorbike accident changed that plan. The accident disqualified him for Sealab I and for flight and spaceflight; workplace injuries sustained during Sealab II disqualified him for Sealab III.

posted 05-23-2005 01:27 AM               

quote:

---

Please avoid comments like this. Conspiracy theories about efforts to get Shepard back into space and on the Moon come from beyond not only leftfield, but outside the ballpark.

---

Here's another post from outside the ballpark

Deke & Big Al try to give Big Al a walk on the Moon as CDR of the first available flight (13) after his flight status is restored. When this move is thwarted, Al goes back to 14, Jim Lovell moves up to 13, the oxygen tank on 13 explodes, Lovell never does get to walk on the Moon...

So, how would it have all panned out if Deke & Al got away with the audacious push for Big Al as CDR of 13? And the tank exploded? My guess is that Al Shepard, unlike Lovell, would have got another shot at the Moon...

posted 05-23-2005 06:23 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by H E Pennypacker:
Here's another post from outside the ballpark

My guess is that Al Shepard, unlike Lovell, would have got another shot at the Moon...

---

I can agree with some of this stuff except for the implied venality.

Deke Slayton was too dedicated to allow an incompetent astronaut on board a spacecraft, let alone in command of one.

I have no doubt that had Shepard been UN-qualified (as opposed to DIS-qualified) he never would have gotten a mission.

I also believe it was Lovell's decision to leave NASA at that time. Could he have gotten another Moon landing mission? Who knows if he even asked for one?

Not everything is done for nefarious reasons. We've fallen into this paranoid mode of thinking since the Warren Commission, Viet Nam and Watergate. We won't move forward as a society (for example by returning to the Moon and going on to the planets) until we get the poison out of our system.

Sorry about the ranting.

posted 05-23-2005 08:24 AM               

Anyway.

"So, I guess you and I agree, in a way. The remaining difference between us is skepticism. I am highly skeptical about the accuracy of the opinions thus formed. It's what people said, sure. But the real reasons, or motives, were unvoiced. What were they? I think they had to do with power and control.

Would it be accurate for me to say you take them at face value?"

I wouldn't say I neccesarily take things at face value all the time. Its well known that astronaut biographies often gloss over issues and even totally re-write history from time to time. I have agreed with nearly everything you've said in this string, especially in your last post. You summed up my point about the impact of whisphers far more elequently than I could manage. However sometimes there are elements that I do believe.

I believe that upon selection Slayton/Grissom/Schirra/Shepard saw "their" view of what a hot test pilot was in each other. I think that they did not hold such views of Cooper and Carpenter and Glenn didn't fit their idea of how a test pilot acted. Where they right in these views? I don't think so. Glenn was a great candidate, so was Carpenter. But I believe the four of them did hold these views and they would have had an impact on their thinking, at least for a time. I don't think there was a conspiracy to get rid of Glenn or Carpenter or Cooper. As has been said, Glenn had other ambitions, Carpenter essentially ruled himself out and was then out for medical reasons and Cooper caused many of his own problems. Nor do I stand by the Kraft comments about Carpenter, they aren't backed up by fact.

If you believe that my comments were some kind of veiled attack on Scott Carpenter, you are dead wrong. My views on Scott have been changed radically in recent years, for the better.

posted 05-23-2005 08:31 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Duke Of URL:
I can agree with some of this stuff except for the implied venality.

---

Who implied venality Duke? Nepotism maybe...

quote:

---

Deke Slayton was too dedicated to allow an incompetent astronaut on board a spacecraft, let alone in command of one.

I have no doubt that had Shepard been UN-qualified (as opposed to DIS-qualified) he never would have gotten a mission.

---

Maybe you're having trouble with my accent Duke - who said that Big Al was incompetent or unqualified? It's a fact that he was a close friend of Deke, wielded enormous power, and was pushed to the front of the queue once he was allowed to fly again. It could be argued that the astronauts that he jumped in front of were more qualified though, if time spent flying in space was taken into consideration.

quote:

---

We won't move forward as a society (for example by returning to the Moon and going on to the planets) until we get the poison out of our system.

---

Sorry for my part in holding us back - If I'd realised what was at stake I would never have entertained such thoughts

Regards,
Peter

posted 05-23-2005 09:27 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by H E Pennypacker:
- who said that Big Al was incompetent or unqualified? It's a fact that he was a close friend of Deke, wielded enormous power, and was pushed to the front of the queue once he was allowed to fly again. It could be argued that the astronauts that he jumped in front of were more qualified though, if time spent flying in space was taken into consideration.

---

posted 05-23-2005 01:10 PM               

Thanks for replying! Had wondered where you had toddled off to . . . and sorry to hear of your accident.

You wrote:

quote:

---

What I would ask is whether anyone agrees with the following. Something does not have to be a fact for it to have an impact, it simply has to be believed. If it has been believed by people, then it has to be considered when looking at history.

---

Agreed. Beliefs (assumptions, group think) have an impact. But this phenomenon has a dark side--obstructing our ability to understand history.

In fact, doesn't it work sort of as a logical fallacy, e.g., post hoc, ergo propter hoc ("After this, because of this.")?

I return to my institutional-shift-in-vision argument: The tectonic plates of power shifted, at NASA, following the flight of Aurora 7 as NASA moved its headquarters from Langley to Houston.

You could write a book about this shift, from Dr. George Ruff's notable point of view. Patricia Santy spent about three chapters devoted to it, in her Choosing the Right Stuff.

As these tectonic plates shifted, the behavioral and other sciences at NASA were overwhelmed in the rising seas, washing out science and exploration champions like Carpenter, who then sealed his fate with an untoward meeting with a coral wall in July 1964.

Surveying the altered landscape, ca. 1964, observers assume that Carpenter sank because he couldn't swim. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

It was more complicated than that, as I'm sure you well realize. And I saw no veiled attack on Carpenter in anything you wrote. Probably I saw some assumptions that I thought worthy, in my intemperate way, of challenge or discussion. You have been very kind to me throughout the thread.

Best,

posted 05-23-2005 01:42 PM               

Cassutt upthread noted:

quote:

---

At this point in time, Glenn was already one foot out the door. (I don't know the actual date of the memo... whether it preceded the Kennedy assasination or not. Likely it did.) His retirement from NASA/USMC was official around Feb 1 1964, so it's apparent that his response was negative.

---

Yes, Glenn resigned from NASA on 31 January 1964, but not from the Marine Corps. At that same time he informed the commandant of the Marine Corps that "I intended to resign my commission" (p. 299, John Glenn: A Memoir, bound galleys

His accident in the Columbus, Ohio, apartment took place several weeks after that--Annie had bought some throw rugs for the apartment and John took a flier on the one in the bathroom.

But Glenn was still with the Marine Corps, and after an excruciating recovery from the fall passed his medical exam and then regained his flight status in November 1964, flying a Panther out of El Toro:

"I flew twenty-six hours during fifteen flights over eleven days and never felt better. It was a good end to a bad year." (p. 311)

Glenn resigned his commission on January 1, 1965.

[This message has been edited by KC Stoever (edited May 23, 2005).]

posted 05-23-2005 02:38 PM               

I am sure it was a shift, as opposed to science taking a deeper back seat at the time. As Frank Borman eloquently put it, anyone who believes that the space race was about exploration is just nuts. Following Sputnik and Gagarin, in a cold war era that witnessed the invasion of Hungary, the Bay of Pigs, the start of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam and the construction of the Berlin Wall, national prestige and U.S. supremacy were primary aspects of US foreign policy and NASA reflected that. Kennedy's lunar goal was established as an international yardstick in our competition with the Soviet Union and there was little room for "recreational" science until we achieved that goal. The mission criteria for Apollo XI versus the criteria for the various J missions reflect this. First, get to the Moon and get back, then we will dedicate time to scientific exploration.

posted 05-23-2005 05:06 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by WAWalsh:
I am sure it was a shift, as opposed to science taking a deeper back seat at the time. As Frank Borman eloquently put it, anyone who believes that the space race was about exploration is just nuts.

---

Jeez, WAWALSH, you just slaughtered my metaphor. And Borman was being succinct, not eloquent.

When tectonic plates shift, you get earthquakes and tsunamis. There are casualties. The landscape changes. And you stay in the front seat of your car, so you can drive faster.

But Borman's quite right, as discussed at some length on the JFK and the Space Race thread from a couple of months ago.

This was Kennedy's point to James Webb in their notable November 1962 showdown in the White House, reported in For Spacious Skies, pp. 311-312. You can hear the audio, I think, on the JFK Library website (I heard it on the tapes they send out on request.)

The high-flown rhetoric Kennedy used about exploration was meant to inspire normal Americans, whose popular support he needed because of the funds required by a lunar program. And his rhetoric succeeded. At its core, however, the space race was all about the cold war. The finish line? Men on the moon.

My point about the science and exploration is not about gee-whiz superfluous science.

Carpenter wasn't growing mung beans in space, or advocating the practice, or seeing if he could eat them with his granola, he was answering pressing technical, observational, engineering, and physics questions, with experiments devised by a NASA committee.

Pre- and postflight, he cheerfully submitted to medical and psychiatric probing, something Dr. Ruff reports Glenn and Slayton too were interested in.

But why jettison the only longitudinal behavioral study on spaceflight, in October 1962? Why not gather data in efforts to validate the original selection criteria?

Dr. Charles Berry, NASA's chief medical officer during the 1960s, wrote in 1973:

quote:

---

We still know very little about the effects of the space environmental complex on personality and psychic well-being. These aspects of the human could prove to be the factors which limit the duration of space flight."

---

Patricia Santy observes that "considering Berry's role in terminating the only psychological research at NASA in 1962, his statement is ironic at best." Choosing the Right Stuff, p. 30.

You can fight a cold war and be debriefed by the NASA shrinks, can't you? In the interests of long-duration spaceflights?

Who knows. It might even have helped, God forfend, with any potential PTSD or postflight, postfame personal issues.

posted 05-23-2005 06:12 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Captain Apollo:
Lovell didn't leave after Apollo 13 though? He seemed to be supervising the 17 moonwalks somehow if the documentary footage I've seen is right.

---

But he might have chosen not to fly or there were no available seats left on Apollo.

posted 05-23-2005 06:26 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by H E Pennypacker:
Sorry for my part in holding us back - If I'd realised what was at stake I would never have entertained such thoughts

---

Naturally, I include your statements in my comment about not being nefarious. (I'm also relieved to have spelled it correctly!)

Nah, my point was that Deke Slayton would NEVER have sent Al Shepard to the Moon if he was UNqualified (not up to the job).

I think he really believed Shepard was fully capable for the mission or he would NOT have assigned him.

As Michael Cassut said, Deke may have had favorites but he played fair. Also, putting a "protoge" where he didn't belong could have wrecked a mission, endangered the program and might very well kill his buddy along with all crew mates. From everything I've read about the guy, this wasn't his style.

Deke Slayton, I believe, ran totally scared around Shepard. It could be he was inwardly intimidated into giving Shepard Apollo 13/14 but I just don't think there was a conscious decision by anybody (except maybe Shepard) to advance Big Al at all costs.

posted 05-23-2005 07:48 PM               

quote:

---

Nah, my point was that Deke Slayton would NEVER have sent Al Shepard to the Moon if he was UNqualified (not up to the job).

I think he really believed Shepard was fully capable for the mission or he would NOT have assigned him.

---

And so say all of us..

quote:

---

Deke Slayton, I believe, ran totally scared around Shepard. It could be he was inwardly intimidated into giving Shepard Apollo 13/14 but I just don't think there was a conscious decision by anybody (except maybe Shepard) to advance Big Al at all costs.

---

Well, that's sort of where I was coming from Duke. I was speculating that if Al had flown on the aborted 13 mission, he would have found a way to get back to the Moon on a later flight. At someone's expense.

I don't think anyone doubts that Big Al probably deserved a shot at the Moon given his service and commitment, but the queue jumping didn't make him or Deke look that good. Personally, I think it would have been a better move to put him back into the rotation with command of 17 the target. Cernan would have taken the LMP on 16 if he knew Shepard was in the running for 17, and then Big Al could have laid claim to being the first American in space & the last on the Moon - sort of bookending the whole Mercury - Gemini - Apollo program. The only downside to this scenario would have been Charlie Duke missing the Moon.

Regards,
Peter

posted 05-24-2005 04:33 AM               

There are also issues of the crew makeup. Edgar Mitchell was (with Haise) the top gun on the LM. If Shepard flies later then he might miss out on getting a true LM expert as his LMP. Indeed...with Shepard flying as CDR on Apollo 17 he might still have ended up with Doctor Rock as his LMP. I'm not suggesting this was dangerous, mearly that it actually makes more sense to fly Shepard earlier with Mitchell (or McDivitt as Deke originally wanted) than to fly him later on a science intensive J flight with maybe either the first scientist-astro or Joe Engle as his LMP.

posted 05-24-2005 11:17 AM               

Thanks for the factual correction I didn't have access to my files (or my own books!) when I answered, and I had the niggling feeling there was a difference between Glenn's departure from NASA and his resignation from the Marines.... forgot it was a year and not a few months....

For Duke re Deke "running scared" around Shepard.... we're just going to have to disagree on this. Deke had tremendous respect for Shepard's abilities and admired him as the consummate wheeler-dealer. But he gave as many breaks to Gus Grissom.

German AA scared Deke. I don't know that much else did.