In article ,
om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy... _facility.org says...
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.

And Al was rewarded with command of the first really long-duration Skylab
flight. I've always felt that Conrad's decision to jump into the Skylab
crew rotation was at least in part based on his talks with Bean and his
sense that Skylab was where the leading edge of the manned space program
was heading. He had done his moon landing, had a great time, but it was
time to start expanding the envelope again, and Al convinced him that
Skylab was the place to go.

I have always been impressed with Al Bean. One of the finest men to ever
wear astronaut wings.

--

It's not the pace of life I mind; | Doug Van Dorn
it's the sudden stop at the end... |