posted 05-01-2002 05:34 AM               

His next project, again teaming him with Hanks, will be a documentary on the lives of the 12 astronauts who have walked on the moon.

posted 08-14-2002 12:36 PM               

1. Extend the miniseries to go into Skylab, the development of the space shuttle, the Viking lander, etc., or:

2. Do a "what if" scenario, how Apollo 18, 19, and 20 might have gone if they didn't get the budget axe.

posted 08-14-2002 01:40 PM               

• Apollo 18
  Richard Gordon, Commander
  Vance Brand, Command Module Pilot
  Harrison Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot (though after Schmitt flew on 17, this slot would probably have gone to Joe Engle who was originally selected as the LMP on 17).

• Apollo 19
  Fred Haise, Commander
  William Pogue, Command Module Pilot
  Gerald Carr, Lunar Module Pilot

• Apollo 20
  Charles Conrad, Commander
  Paul Weitz, Command Module Pilot
  Jack Lousma, Lunar Module Pilot

posted 08-14-2002 05:29 PM               

I very briefly raised this subject with Richard Gordon on one of his visits to the UK and he said that although it was not impossible he did not remember Pete talk about it as a possibility.

Although I have no arguments with the crews for 18 & 19, these are based on sound information, I have a lot of doubts about the Apollo 20 crew. Another astronaut, Don Lind, thinks he was close to selection as a LMP. This must be Apollo 20. In his book Deke Slayton said that he transferred Lind to Skylab because with the cancellation of Apollo 20 "I could see I just wasn't going to have a flight for him". Lind is the only astronaut linked to Apollo 20 in the book. I am aware that Lousma has said he thought he was in line for the LMP position although I have not personally spoken to him about it.

posted 08-15-2002 07:37 AM            

I get the feeling that although Don is a pilot, that he was seen as a scientist by Deke and they got a bit of the short straw on selection for the moon crews.

Don also missed his chance on the Skylab rescue mission but got to fly on STS-51B, 19 years after being selected as an astronaut. He sat on the front bench in mission control for Apollo 11 and 12 in case of technical advice needed on the lunar surface experiments. He not only trained in their deployment procedures but helped design them.

I feel that if Pete Conrad had been offered the last moon landing then his good friend Dick Gordon would have heard about it and Rob Wood (Robonaut) has asked him that question and he hadn't heard of him mention it.

posted 08-15-2002 02:53 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by WAWalsh:
...does Jim Lovell decide to stay with NASA after Apollo 13 returns?

---

Walter Cunningham was working against NASA politics in his bid to fly again. After Apollo 7 some of the NASA leadership did not want any of that crew to fly again. None of them did. Having said that however, I do think that with more missions available he may have made it eventually.

posted 08-15-2002 03:14 PM               

1. Apollo 18 - Richard Gordon (CDR), Vance Brand (CMP), Harrison Schmitt (LMP)

2. Apollo 19 - Fred Haise (CDR), William Pogue (CMP), Jerry Carr (LMP)

3. Apollo 20 - Edgar Mitchell (CDR), Paul Weitz (CMP), Jack Lousma (LMP)

posted 08-15-2002 05:23 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robonaut:
Jim Lovell had already announced Apollo 13 was his last mission before launch.

---

posted 08-16-2002 09:29 AM            

I beleive that Apollo 20 was cancelled at the time of the Apollo 11 flight but was officially confirmed in Jan 1970.

Jack Schmitt therefore would have been considered for a flight on Apollos 16 or 17 prior to Apollo 11.

With the change in policy of favouring pilots over scientists, of which Lind could fall more in favour with the latter catergory, and the cancellation of Apollo 11 he lost out. Ed Gibson thought that he might be in with a chance, learning to fly a helicopter - then crashing it, ouch.

The Apollo program could have been very different if Ed White had lived. Charlie Bassett according to Deke would have been the CMP on an early Apollo crew and could Gus Grissom have been the first on the moon. Some in NASA wanted that accolade to go to a Mercury astronaut. Indeed Betty Grissom is said to have quoted that Gus had been told on the quiet,that he would be the first.

The normal rotation on Apollo flights was that the CMP gets the backup CDR's slot 2 flights later and then flies in this position two flights after that. If Roosa had not been considered for the Apollo 20 CDR position then Mitchell would have been a good choice for it. John Young CMP Apollo 10 followed rotation and his crewmate Cernan then followed. The point is Jack Swigert as CMP never got offered backup Apollo 16 CDR that went to his crewmate Fred Haise. Could Mitchell have done the same if Roosa had not been offered it? Like Haise he was put on early crew assignments.

posted 08-16-2002 12:08 PM            

• Haise
  
• Pogue
  
• Carr

  Replaced by:
  

• Haise
  
• Roosa
  
• Mitchell

posted 08-19-2002 09:51 AM               

This discussion also would appear to show that there was a trend towards drawing commanders for the later missions from former CMPs. Witness Lovell (A8 CMP) on A13 (originally A14), Scott (A9 CMP) on A15, and Young (A10 CMP) on A16. Also, Collins (A11 CMP) was originally offered the assignment that likely would have become the A17 commander, although he turned it down, and the commander of A18 was scheduled to be Richard Gordon (A12 CMP). Beyond this, the pattern breaks, as the prospective commander of A19 was the A13 LMP. And the commander of A20 appears too uncertain to speculate.

posted 08-19-2002 03:22 PM               

All of this, however, presupposes one mission per commander and I am not sure that I buy the position completely. Certainly, one argument would be if NASA is going to put a LM down inside a crater, it wants someone tested and with experience in lunar landings. Therefore, lets put Pete or Dave back into the pipeline. While correctly noted above that Pete Conrad said he put greater importance on Skylab or Apollo 12 (as Chaikin reports), that is because he saved the program. Further, he switched to Skylab because he did not see anymore opportunities for a Moon mission. Add three more missions and that argument diminishes significantly.

My impression has always been that the Group 2 & 3 veterans called it quits in large part because they were facing a delay (a long one as it turned out) in the future and were tired of the grind. For Gemini and Apollo, many had cycled through up to five or six missions as prime or backup crew. That took one hell of a toll on them. Moreover, I suspect a number of them, as test pilots, saw Skylab as a bore. Skylab was not really aboput flying, it was more about sitting in space and conducting a long series of experiments. All very valuable, but nothing a strap-it-on-and-fly character would want to do (given Wally Schirra's comments about the time spent in orbit for Apollo 7, one could not see him ever committing to Skylab).