posted 07-02-2016 08:57 PM               

Seriously, though, it's an impossible question to answer fairly, since you don't specify what work Lovell would have done between 1972 and 1978, when the STS-1 crew was assigned. Was he chief astronaut in place of Young? Did he play a key role in Shuttle development, as Young did? If you posit a 'yes' to both, the answer might change...

posted 07-02-2016 09:51 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael Cassutt:
Was he chief astronaut in place of Young? Did he play a key role in Shuttle development, as Young did?

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posted 07-05-2016 10:47 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by onesmallstep:
Or Haise staying after the ALT program to ride an orbiter into space? It depends on the circumstances, and the individual.

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Haise wasn't interested after the Skylab Rescue mission went away. He would have stayed had he been offered STS-1, Haise has said.

posted 07-05-2016 03:14 PM               

Bean would have been assigned to a Shuttle/Spacelab mission had he stayed in the office, but by summer 1981 he was already making plans to leave. See his JSC Oral History for an amusing account of his meeting with Mr. Abbey.

posted 07-06-2016 06:10 AM            

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Originally posted by carmelo:
More than Lovell, would be interesting to see a Pete Conrad around in 1979-81.

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posted 07-06-2016 07:25 AM               

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Originally posted by JasonB:
I think a more interesting question would be why Alan Bean wasn't given one of the early shuttle assignments.

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Something I began to learn as the acting chief of the Astronaut Office was that George Abbey wanted to really do that job.

I was planning about this time, thinking about what I was going to do. Was I going to fly the Shuttle? I was doing all the things you do to be a Shuttle commander. I was getting as much simulator time as anybody, flying the Shuttle Training Aircraft, flying T-38s and everything like that. I was thinking, “I don’t know what to do.” But finally I decided that they had enough good young men and women that could fly the Space Shuttle as good as I could or better.

But I had a skill and an experience and I said, “In my opinion someone needs to do this job, to record this great human adventure in fine art so that it will remain.” It doesn’t replace the movies, it doesn’t replace the books other people write. But it’s a great enough event in human history, that recording it this way is something that only I am interested in doing, but it’s worth doing. It was a big decision because I’d worked my whole life to get where I was, and I was looking forward to flying the Shuttle and I liked doing that job and I knew how to—my whole life had been directed to doing that job. I had the best job in the world for someone like me, and I could do it well.

Indeed they haven’t missed Alan Bean, but if I hadn’t done this job [painting] it wouldn’t exist. And I believe that 100, 200, 300 years from now all these paintings will be around, because they’re the first paintings of humans doing things off this Earth. When humans go to Mars they’re going to do the very same things, because this is what humans do. I think all these paintings will someday be in museums and be known just as paintings by early other explorers are in the same way. This is probably more valuable because it is the first time humans went to another world. So I’m glad I did it.

So I began to think about that, doing that. They wanted me to stay and run this, do that, until John Young had flown [STS-1] so I did that. I said, “That’s what I’ll do. I’ll concentrate on being an astronaut, helping our new astronauts.” That was my way of thinking. I tried to minimize using NASA assets, because that’s me. In fact, the reason I finally told George Abbey—he called me in and he said, “You haven’t been flying the T-38s lately.”

I said, “That’s true, George.” I wasn’t planning to tell him this. “I’m planning to leave here in several weeks, and I didn’t want to use the gas money.” Didn’t seem right to me. He said to me, “Where are you going?” It really shocked him, because he knew I liked being an astronaut. He was sitting in his chair, and he sat up. “What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?”

I said, “I’m going to be an artist.” He went back like this and if he hadn’t had the window behind him, he would have gone over backwards. He banged into the window. His first comment, “Can you earn a living at that?” That was his first comment. I said, “I don’t know, but if I can’t I’m going to go to work at Jack in the Box [fast food restaurant] so I’ll have my energy. And then I’ll learn to do it.”

He didn’t think it was a particularly good idea, because I’m sure he had me scheduled to do other things, but you have to live your dream even if other people think it’s screwed up. About half the astronauts thought it was a midlife crisis or something. The other half, the ones that were more right brain, thought it was a pretty good idea. Joe [Joseph P.] Kerwin, who’s a pretty right brain kind of guy, a doctor, he thought it was a good idea. Some others did. Others that knew me well knew that I wasn’t having a midlife crisis. I had a plan. They all love it now. When I had this exhibition in Washington [DC] on the 40th anniversary [of the Apollo 11 moon landing] on July 20th, they all came and they all looked and saw themselves.

...made me satisfied with my life for the rest of my life.

We are charged with making our dreams come true... If you gotta a song in your heart you better sing it!

Light to thy path, wind to thy sails, dreams to thy heart.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

posted 07-06-2016 08:08 AM            

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Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
Why was Conrad told no about being Chief of the Astronaut Office?

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He didn't want to be Chief Astronaut. He wanted to be Director of Flight Crew Operations. There's a quote out there that post-Skylab, he said words to the effect of 'I'd like Deke's job' to then be told by Kraft that 'there won't be another Deke'.