On Sunday, September 23, 2012 4:13:44 AM UTC-5, Brian Lawrence wrote:
On 22/09/2012 18:19, Jan Philips wrote:

On Fri, 21 Sep 2012 20:00:58 +0100, Brian Lawrence

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

....The other thing Deke could have done was essentially make him the same promise as he made Mike Collins: you've been around once, we're in a bind, and if you fly CMP for this mission, you'll be guaranteed a CDR and a landing. I'll now pause while the two of you wrestle with *that* particular pair of jokers from the deck.

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

....Both Smilin' Al and McDivitt have gone on record that this was a friendly but slightly sarcastic joke made by Al concerning Al's selection of two rookies to fly with him on the then-A13 flight that was taken out of context..

If the mission involved docking (IE all except Apollo 7)

....Last I looked, the Apollo Flight Journal hadn't gotten their transcripts done to that point in the mission, but ISTR that what ruled out either Eisley or Cunningham was the fact that what little docking sim maneuvers were performed were done by Wally. Not to knock the AFJ team by one nano-iota, but after nearly a decade you think they'd finally get around to transcribing the First Space Mutiny so we could all finally get to read Wally, Walt and What's-His-Name's side of the story?

Slayton was forced to slot in two of his perceived 'weaker' guys,
Cernan & Aldrin. Although they were, in theory, qualified as CMPs

....See my previous comments regarding Cernan and McDivitt. Again, with Deke no longer with us, and AFAIK any notes and/or official reports regarding Astronaut qualifications and/or lack thereof, having been released for public review, we can only speculate on just what made one Astronaut "weaker" than another one.

Of course, YMMV on the "not yet released" part for Gordo Cooper :/

The support crews stayed the same until June
1967 when Ed Givens lost his life in an off-duty car accident.

....One interesting fact about Givens was that after his passing, a series of petitions were filed by numerous Boy Scout troops - Givens had been a Scout and a lifelong supporter of that organization - for the BSA to award Givens a posthumous Eagle Scout award. Nothing ever came of it, and based on my own experiences with Scouting in the early 70s, as well as some other rather d-u-m-b decisions they're currently making, I can understand why. Just verifies my decision to help the kids in the three local troops around my parents' house by being what was sorely lacked during the late 80s and most of the 90s: Merit Badge counseling. And I made godsdamned sure that the little *******s learned and earned every single stinking one of those badges, starting with First Aid, Space Exploration, the three Citizenship badges, and if they were *really* on top of their stuff, we'd go for Basketweaving.

Then again, if they screwed up, they still got Basketweaving. :P


Early in 1968 Bull became medically disqualified from what was then
Apollo 9.

....In all fairness, Bull's career wasn't exactly devoid of stellar achievements. To swipe from the Writ of Common Plagiarism:

"After receiving his Ph. D., Bull returned to NASA and worked at the Ames Research Center from 1973 to 1985, where he conducted simulation and flight test research in advanced flight systems for both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. From 1986 until his retirement in 1989, he managed NASA-wide research programs in autonomous systems technology for space applications. He maintained an office at NASA Ames until at least 1997."

....And around the time Lind left NASA, some of the NASA guys who were around in the group's early days said that he still had an office at Ames as late as 1998. I couldn't dig up the posts to that effect - thank you Google for not maintaining the integrity of those DejaNews backups - but 1998 was what was reported around here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Bull

Ken Mattingly was assigned to 'shadow' the backup CMP, Bill Anders,
who was leaving NASA.

....Confusion point here, Brian: IIRC, Anders didn't announce his leaving NASA until after A8 had flown and returned. Nixon didn't offer him the NASA ExSec position until just before he was sworn in, and that was when Anders made it official he was leaving to accept the post. Possibly one of the few Nixon appointees who managed to survive Nixon's post-Watergate debacle without any fallout.

Then again, he was on the AEC and the first chairman of the NRC, so YMMV on the fallout issue...:/


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

....My understanding is that Lind's work with Schmitt was only on EASEP and not the ALSEP packages.

I apologise for going over old ground :-)

....Apollogize? Perish the thought, Brian. This is the type of discussions that George Herbert founded this group upon! Pat will be sorry he missed out on this one, as the crew roster debates were some of his more favored topics in space history.




OM