posted 10-01-2018 05:40 PM               

In August 1966, a review was held of the CSM-008 thermal vacuum test. Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations at MSC, proposed adding a flight surgeon to all future test crews to help define medical requirements and "to ensure adequate knowledge of crew members and test objectives for training and the real time mission." The only member of the astronaut corps with a medical background at the time was Joe Kerwin and he was chosen as a crew member for the next long-duration test.

In early 1968, the crew for 2TV-1 was named and the commander would be Joe Kerwin, who had been involved in the vacuum chamber operations since 1966, and he was also a member of the CSM-008 test crew. Vance Brand was named Command Module Pilot (CMP), and Joe Engle would be Lunar Module Pilot (LMP).

Both Brand and Engle had joined the astronaut corps in April 1966. To an outsider it must have seemed a little unusual that Joe Kerwin, who had been selected with the first group of scientist-astronauts in 1965, was named commander. In those days there were some astronauts who felt that their scientist-colleagues didn't have "the right stuff." While Brand and Engle did not belong to that group, Kerwin says that; "It must have rankled them both to be outranked by a stupid staff officer, but they never showed it."

posted 10-03-2018 09:15 AM               

In Joe Engle's JSC oral history interview, he states: "In fact, I think, as I recall, my first meaningful assignment after our astronaut training session year was to be assigned to the crew of — it was called 2TV-1, a thermal vacuum test." But nothing more.

I couldn't find any news release, announcement or any mention of 2TV-1 crew assignment in MSC roundups. No luck in JSC archives either, no memorandum or report could be found.

But here are a few elements that may shed some light about crew assignment.

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to interview Neil Anderson, member of Flight Crews Support Division back in the 60's, and crew member for the SC-008 thermal vacuum test in 1966. He told me that he was assigned to the crew about six months before the actual test.

After some digging in my own records, I found notes that Ed Hengeveld sent me in 2001 regarding the CSM thermal vacuum test program (S/C-008 and 2TV-1).

Among them was a 1999 email interview of Joe Kerwin, by Ed. To the question "How long before June 1968 were you named to the crew ?" he answered "Don't remember exactly. A fairly long time, though, because I participated fully in spacecraft checkout at Downey." Later on, he states that: "It was after Apollo 1 that I was assigned to lead the 2TV-1 (S/C-098) crew."

I also have a report from JSC titled "Crew Training Program For 2TV-1 Thermal Vacuum Test" dated June 1968. Crew training stared two and a half months before the test, so late March 1968.

Robert Wren (manager of 2TV-1 test program) also mentions in his oral history that 2TV-1 was scheduled one year before the actual test began, and that the crew spent some time in Downey.

posted 10-08-2018 08:54 AM               

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Originally posted by Tom:
From Spaceflight Magazine...

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