On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 05:58:05 GMT, Doug... wrote:

Beano is another story -- had Gemini X had to fly with its backup crew,
Deke was confident that Al would have done a fine job in the left seat.
And Bean wasn't just shunted down into some possible dead-end crew slot
in AAP, he was given a great deal of responsibility in getting that
program to a flyable status. So it seems that Deke had more faith in Al
Bean than he did in Ed White.

....And that may be the actual truth behind Bean's AAP assignment. He
may have been qualified to be LMP or CMP, or even CDR if you get down
to it, but his skills for getting AAP may have actually been *better*.
Because Bean did make the A12 prime crew after Williams augered, he
tends to get overlooked for his work on AAP and what eventually became
Skylab. A lot is owed to his work in the fact that Skylab got off the
ground.


OM

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