On 22/09/2012 18:19, Jan Philips wrote:
On Fri, 21 Sep 2012 20:00:58 +0100, Brian Lawrence
wrote:

No he wasn't. At least not in the minds of Slayton, Shepard and NASA
bosses. ...

You are right.

Yes, although really only those who flew before Apollo 11. Some were
'pensioned off' to Skylab (Cunningham, Schweickhart), One (Anders) was
offered a CMP flight, but having trained as LMP wanted to fly the LM.

That makes sense. He had already been around the Moon on A8, so he
would want to land.

McDivitt was sort of offered the LMP position on Shepard's crew but
having flown two missions as CDR wasn't exactly keen.

One other restriction I got to thinking about later was the positions
to fill. Someone who had been to the Moon but not landed would want
to land. Slayton didn't want to use the same CDR more than once. So
there were probably several CMPs that wanted to be on the LM and LMPs
that wanted to be CDRs. Without going through the details, that
probably leaves a shortage of CMPs unless you pull from group 5
(although several of them became LMPs).

Deke had 'rules' regarding crew selection, one of which concerned CMPs.
If the mission involved docking (IE all except Apollo 7), the CMP should
have previous spaceflight experience of at least rendezvous and
preferably docking as well. This was why, for example, when Mike Collins
was removed from the Borman crew because he needed an operation, he was
replaced by Jin Lovell from the backup crew, AND the LMP from the backup
crew (Buzz) was moved to CMP, with the new LMP, Haise, replacing Buzz.
However, by the time 11 had proved that landings were possible enough
was known to be able to abandon that rule - in effect from 13.

If they had not felt able to allow rookie CMPs to fly, the pool of
qualified CMPs was effectively empty. Deke had pre-selected his chosen
CMPs back in 1964, choosing five G3 astronauts to fly as pilots on the
last five Gemini missions - Dave Scott (GT8), Charlie Bassett (GT9),
Mike Collins (GT10), Dick Gordon (GT11) & Ted Freeman (GT12). Sadly
two of the five lost their lives before getting their chance, and
Slayton was forced to slot in two of his perceived 'weaker' guys,
Cernan & Aldrin. Although they were, in theory, qualified as CMPs
they were assigned as LMPs, with two G2 guys recycled as CMPs instead
(Lovell & Young). This reshuffling ended with two Apollo crews where
all three had spaceflight experience, the critical flights of Apollo
10 and 11.

As with G3 Slayton divided his G5 guys into those with more relevant
experience (test pilots) and those without. The former were assigned to
CM and the latter to LM. This became clear when the support crews were
announced for early Apollo missions, Block I (no LM) missions had three
CM specialists while missions which included a LM had 2 or 3 LM specialists.

Before the fire there were three crews in training, initially the first
two were for Block I missions, but later that was changed to a single
Block I, with the other crews pointing at early Block II. If we think
of these as Apollo 1, 2 & 3, the support crews we

CM LM
Apollo 1 Ron Evans
Ed Givens
Jack Swigert

Apollo 2 Al Worden Ed Mitchell
Fred Haise

Apollo 3 Ken Mattingly John Bull
Jerry Carr

After the fire these three missions became Apollo 7, 8 & 9 (8 & 9
swapping over later). The support crews stayed the same until June
1967 when Ed Givens lost his life in an off-duty car accident. His
place in the A7 support crew went to Bill Pogue (also CM).

Mike Collins' surgery promoted Fred Haise to b/u LMP for Apollo 8,
his support crew position was filled by Jack Lousma (LM).

Early in 1968 Bull became medically disqualified from what was then
Apollo 9. Perhaps as a sign of the impending AS8/9 swap, he was replaced
by Vance Brand (CM).

Ed Mitchell was promoted to the Apollo 10 b/u crew, with his position
going to Stu Roosa (CM not LM).

Apollo 10 introduced three more support crew, all of whom were LM
specialists - Joe Engle, Jim Irwin & Charlie Duke.

After Apollos 7, 8 & 9 flew, some support crew were reassigned to
Apollos 11, 12 & 13:

AS11 Evans, Pogue, Mattingly (all CM)
AS12 Paul Weitz (CM); Jerry Carr (LM)
AS13 Brand, Pogue (CM); Lousma (LM)

Ken Mattingly was assigned to 'shadow' the backup CMP, Bill Anders,
who was leaving NASA. Jack Swigert was added to the support crew as
an extra member.

From Apollo 12 G4 scientist astronauts were also assigned to support
roles, and gradually took over for later missions, with men from G6
(scientists) and G7 (ex-MOL) coming in too.

Apollo 14 was the last mission with G5 support:

Pogue (CM), Bruce McCandless (LM)

The only G5 astronaut who didn't get a support crew position appears to
have been Don Lind, but he did work with Jack Schmitt on early
development of ALSEP deployment procedures, so he was almost certainly
more of an LM specialist. He was more of a scientist than pilot, and
later, together with McCandless, became a Mission Specialist astronaut
and flew on the Shuttle.

Stu Roosa didn't serve on any other support crews, but together with
Mitchell was chosen as prime for Apollo 14 - effectively replacing Donn
Eisele from the AS10 b/u crew, who was basically 'fired'.

Jerry Carr was heavily involved in the development of the Lunar Rover.

Joe Engle was the original LMP for Apollo 17, but lost his place when
Jack Schmitt, a geologist, was brought in.

Vance Brand would have been the CMP on Apollo 18 if it had not been
cancelled (with Gordon & Schmitt).

The AS 16 backup crew, looking to fly Apollo 19, were Haise (CDR),
Pogue (CMP) & Carr (LMP). When 19 was cancelled they were reassigned to
Skylab (except Haise), after about 6 months training.

Apollo 20 was effectively cancelled in 1969, so any crews would be
highly speculative. Pete Conrad has been mentioned, but he was soon
told that no one would get a second mission, and decided to move to
Skylab. The most likely candidates for CMP/LMP were Paul Weitz & Jack
Lousma, both of whom also went on to fly in Skylab (both as CMP).

Vance Brand went on to fly as CMP on ASTP.

Mattingly, Brand, Weitz, Lousma, Engle, McCandless & Lind all flew on
the Space Shuttle (Fred Haise flew Enterprise on its ALT flights).

I apologise for going over old ground :-)

--

Brian W Lawrence
Wantage
Oxfordshire