posted 02-08-2011 12:17 PM               

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Originally posted by garymilgrom:
I don't agree with those who say Senators, teachers etc. should not be flown. I think we need to fly more of these types of passengers. These people help market the program to laymen.

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I can't agree with you on this one, for several reasons.

• One, the public would have quickly grown tired of seeing teachers and senators (and others along those same lines) fly in space. It might have been interesting for a couple of missions, but beyond that it wouldn't have been a sustainable marketing tool.

• Second, flying civilians for public relations purposes would have eventually backfired. People would have started asking why NASA is spending so much money on these missions, only to fill the seats with non-essential passengers. Not only would it make NASA look wasteful of its resources, but it would have become a distraction from the real science taking place on these missions.

• Third, it downplays the risk involved with flying in space. When NASA was flying non-astronauts in space, the full amount of risk was never properly communicated to either the passengers or the public. Indeed, there was an attempt to make spaceflight look safe enough for "ordinary people" to participate. Until NASA (or someone else) can develop a means to get to orbit with a high degree of safety, they should never try to downplay the risk involved.

posted 02-08-2011 02:59 PM            

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
While looking at the statistics of multi-flight astronauts, it is worth considering that of the 29 astronauts who flew on Project Apollo, 13 (45%) flew only a single mission in their NASA careers. A further 11 (who had flown earlier missions) never flew another mission. Only 4 flew two Apollo missions, and only 5 flew post-Apollo missions. It wasn't just a case of "How can you beat a trip to the Moon?" Look at Pete Conrad and John Young in particular. But there does seem to have been a sense (with obvious exceptions) that an Apollo mission (even if it was a first flight) was the culmination of a career.

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The long gap in U.S. spaceflights didn't help either. There were a lot of factors to make the Apollo/Skylab astronauts leave. Dave Scott, Al Worden, Jim Iriwin and Jack Swigert were effectively grounded due to the stamp scandal. Dave Scott himself had intended to fly the shuttle prior to that. The Skylab 4 crew probably figured their chances of another flight were slim, though Gerry Carr stuck around for a few years, and Ed Gibson left, then came back.

Add into it also people who dropped on Slayton/Kraft's totem polls after flying only one mission (Donn Eisele, Walt Cunningham and Rusty Schweickart). Eisele was effectively fired after backing up Apollo 10. Cunningham was shunted to AAP, offered a backup assignment for Skylab which he turned down. Of those three, only Rusty stuck with NASA for the long haul, probably hoping to fly again, but content to work for the agency until he retired, a decade after his one space flight.

Fred Haise, Al Bean and Ron Evans stuck around into the later half of the 70's/early 80's. Gene Cernan, Stu Roosa and Charlie Duke left in the mid 70's. Joe Kerwin stayed at JSC hoping to secure a seat on STS 41-C but was offered a Spacelab flight instead, so he elected to leave the Astronaut Office (but remained at JSC in Life Sciences).

Bill Anders, Ed Mitchell and Jack Schmitt are the only three who made first flights and then quickly, and clearly of their own volition, retired.

posted 02-09-2011 05:54 AM               

Dear Col. Powers: Why are all astronauts not assigned to flights a second rime or more? — Mrs. Orman Weaver, Cottondale, Ala.

Dear Mrs. Weaver: There just aren't enough flights to use all of our men on two or more. In addition, doctors want to expose many different men to the environment of space in order to get a cross-section of medical data. Grissom, Cooper and Schirra flew on both Mercury and Gemini flights. Grissom was slated for a third flight at the time of his death. Schirra is now preparing for his third flight as commander of the first manned Apollo mission. Cooper is still a contender for crew assignment in the Apollo program.

posted 02-09-2011 06:08 AM               

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Originally posted by mjanovec:
Second, flying civilians for public relations purposes would have eventually backfired. People would have started asking why NASA is spending so much money on these missions, only to fill the seats with non-essential passengers. Not only would it make NASA look wasteful of its resources, but it would have become a distraction from the real science taking place on these missions.

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posted 02-09-2011 05:00 PM            

Dick Scobee apparently had a slew of notes in his desk, intended for his post mission debriefing about the negative impact Christa McAuliffe's lesson had on the flight plan. The deployment of the TDRS was getting shuffled around to make sure McAuliffe's lesson could be done on a school day as the mission faced delays.

posted 02-09-2011 06:51 PM               

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Originally posted by Skylon:
Joe Kerwin stayed at JSC hoping to secure a seat on STS 41-C but was offered a Spacelab flight instead, so he elected to leave the Astronaut Office (but remained at JSC in Life Sciences).

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posted 02-10-2011 10:04 AM               

A feature of the closing stages of Apollo and the implementation of Skylab was the criticism that science and scientists were not given their fair share of opportunites presented by the available flight time.

As an academic exercise, the percentage contribution of the various astronaut groups to the total flight time accumulated to the end of Skylab hs been calculated. The scientist groups are numbers 4 and 6.

• Percentage of total selection -
  Group 1 - 9.5; Group 2 - 12.2; Group 3 - 18.9; Group 4 - 8.1; Group 5 - 25.7; Group 6 - 14.9; Group 7 - 10.8.

• Percentage Mercury contribution -
  Group 1 - 100

• Percentage Gemini contribution -
  Group 1 - 11.6; Group 2 - 72.1; Group 3 - 16.5

• Percentage Apollo contribution -
  Group 1 - 6.4; Group 2 - 23.6; Group 3 - 37.2; Group 4 - 4.1; Group 5 - 28.7

• Percentage Skylab contribution -
  Group 2 - 5.5; Group 3 - 11.6; Group 4 - 33.4; Group 5 - 49.5

• Total Group contribution percentage -
  Group 1 - 3.5; Group - 17.6; Group 3 - 20.8; Group 4 - 20.3; Group 5 - 37.9

posted 02-10-2011 02:24 PM            

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Originally posted by Tom:
Do you know what flight Joe Kerwin was offered?

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posted 02-10-2011 03:23 PM               

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Originally posted by moorouge:
As an academic exercise, the percentage contribution of the various astronaut groups to the total flight time accumulated to the end of Skylab has been calculated.

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