Apollo 12 backup (non-astronaut) capcoms

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Topic: Apollo 12 backup (non-astronaut) capcoms

Marc05A
Member

Posts: 39
From: Reims, France
Registered: May 2009

posted 06-25-2017 11:17 AM

According to official sources, there were four civilians backup capcoms for Apollo 12: Dickie K. Warren, James O. Rippey, James L. Lewis, Michael R. Wash.

I was unable to find any information about those people online, and I have a number of questions regarding this assignment:

What is their background (flight controllers, Flight Ops, Flight Crew Support Division)?
How were they selected?
Why did Mission Control need four backup capcoms, in addition to the seven astronauts already assigned to this role (backup and support Apollo 12 crew)?
Why is Apollo 12 the only mission that had backup capcoms?
There were plenty of people available in the astronaut office at the time, why choose civilians?
Did the backup capcoms communicate with the crew during the flight?

I hope that some of you will be able to answer some of those questions.

Fra Mauro
Member

Posts: 1587
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002

posted 09-26-2017 08:14 AM

Does anyone know why non-astronauts capcoms were utilized on Apollo 12?

Editor's note: Threads merged.

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