"MasterDebater" wrote:

Here's a question which has been bothering me for awhile.

Why did Tom Stafford command an Apollo mission before Neil Armstrong?

In Gemini, the New-Nine command order (the order in which New-Nine
astronauts commanded missions) was: McDivitt, Borman, Armstrong, Stafford,
Young, Conrad, Lovell.

The important point here is that Stafford was elevated up the pecking order
by the deaths of See and Bassett. Up until that time (28 Feb 66) he was the
backup CDR of GT-9 which should have seen him fly as CDR of GT-12. Lovell
would not have commanded a Gemini at all.

But in Apollo, New-Nine commanded in this order: Borman, McDivitt, Stafford,
Armstrong, Conrad, Lovell. We all understand why McDivitt and Borman were
switched, of course (due to the LEM not being ready, etc.), But I have never
found an explanation as to why Stafford commanded a mission ahead of
Armstrong.

The first four Apollo crews were formed in December '65/January '66 - Grissom
(backup McDivitt) and Schirra (backup Borman). This was just after the Gemini
7/6 flights. In theory the next few Apollo CDRs would have been Armstrong, See,
Young, Conrad and then Stafford. We know from Slayton that he wasn't planning
to use See on Apollo, and at that time he planned to utilise Young and Stafford
as CMPs. Armstrong and Conrad were pencilled in as the next two Apollo CDRs.

Stafford flew GT-9 and was immediately available for another assignment. Deke
had planned to use both Armstrong and See as backup CDRs for the last two Apollos,
so used Stafford in the slot planned for See. Stafford was also assigned as
Borman's CMP, replacing the deceased Charlie Bassett.

When Apollo 2 was cancelled (Nov '66) Stafford was "promoted" from Borman's CMP
to backup CDR of Apollo 2. The four crews were then Grissom (backup Schirra) and
McDivitt (backup Stafford). An additional two crews were assigned at about this
time, with Borman commanding Apollo 3 (backup Conrad). The schedule at that time
was:

AS-01 Grissom (Schirra)
AS-02 McDivitt (Stafford)
AS-03 Borman (Conrad)

Theoretically Schirra could have commanded Apollo 4, with Stafford getting Apollo 5
and Conrad Apollo 6. Armstrong was the only other potential commander (ignoring
Cooper) and could be assumed to get Apollo 7. Of course Deke had plans to assign
Grissom, McDivitt and Borman to early landing flights, so the rotation would not
necessarily have followed the above order.

Clearly Conrad was also ahead of Armstrong at that time - they swapped roles in
the McDivitt/Borman exchange.

Theory: After the Apollo 1 fire, it became clear to Slayton, and possibly
all of the astronauts, that Armstrong was in line for the moon landing due
to the perceived (or actual) flight rotation at that time and to the
perceived number of mission-types, which, I believe at that time may have
been *4*.

The manned mission types at that time were "C" (earth orbit CSM only / flown by
Apollo 7), "D" (earth orbit CSM/LM / flown by Apollo 9), "E" (high Earth orbit
CSM/LM / superceded by Apollo 8 [C' C Prime]), "F" (lunar orbit sim. / Apollo 10),
and "G" (first landing / Apollo 11). It was anticipated, if not expected, that
some of these missions would be repeated because not all planned events would
have been successful.

Post-fire Armstrong's crew came into the rotation, but at that time still below
Conrad. By then Stafford was in line for the F mission (Apollo 10) and Conrad for
the G mission. However, in theory the first landing attempt could have been made
by any of the CDRs.

Possibly, before the Apollo 1 fire, Slayton had already designated *at
least* the first 6 Apollo commanders as: Grissom, Schirra, McDivitt, Borman,
Armstrong, Stafford, thus maintaining, among the New-Nine, the previous
Gemini command order (and, I believe, ignoring the Cooper wild-card due to
unpredictability).

Immediately pre-fire the order was Grissom, McDivitt, Borman, and potentially
Schirra, Stafford, Conrad, with Armstrong waiting "in the wings".

Keeping in mind that, prior to the fire, Owen Maynard's alphabetical mission
sequence had not yet been devised, really, and that, at that time the only
reasonably-clearly-defined manned Apollo mission-types were the two
low-Earth-orbit missions, which would later be designated as the C and D
missions, it is, nevertheless reasonably to assume that, as far as bringing
the program up to the point of having completed the Big Moon Landing, only
*2* other manned Apollo missions-types were envisioned, which would later
turn out to be the missions designated as F and G.

I believe that Maynard's system was devised in late 1966, shortly before the
cancellation of Apollo 2. Also, I believe that H, I & J mission types were
under consideration, probably not with those designators, many months before
the fire.

[snip]

So, in essence, as I believe most people involved in the Apollo program saw
it in January, 1967, there were only *4* real manned Apollo mission-types.

No, the E mission was still planned, and the H, I & J missions were in planning.

So here is my guess at the sequence of events: After the fire Slayton sees
that his list of Apollo commanders is now Schirra, McDivitt, Borman,
Armstrong, etc, and since he *assumes* that four manned missions will result
in a Moon landing, he sees that Armstrong is in line for the landing, and
this knowledge leaks out and becomes generally known by the astronauts.

His list included those and Conrad, but not necessarily in that order. Here's
a quote from "Deke!", "The assignment to the C mission Apollo left McDivitt ..
as the crew for D, along with Borman, .. for E. I kept Conrad-Gordon-Williams
as a crew and had them backing up McDivitt's guys. I put together a new crew
of Armstrong, Lovell and Aldrin and assigned them as backups to Borman. Eighteen
guys, prime and backup crews for the first three missions. These were the guys
who were going to get us to the moon and make the first landing, though not
necessarily in those crews or that order."

He certainly didn't assume that they would achieve a landing on the fourth
manned mission - just the opposite in fact, he assumed that it would take
several more missions. No one really expected that it would take so few
missions as it actually did.

Then Maynard decides five manned missions are necessary to produce a moon
landing, thus effectively bumping Armstrong from the coveted first landing
spot. Since this sort of bump is not something that the astronauts would
generally accept as valid, Slayton decides to *switch* Armstrong and
Stafford in the flight rotation order, most likely with the knowledge and
approval of both.

Maynard's system was in place well before the fire, and it didn't decide on
"five manned missions", it defined five mission types - C, D, E, F & G, any
of which might have included two or more flights. Flights that might have
been flown by the original crew, by the backup crew, by the next crew in line,
or by a new crew.

I'm probably way off, but I still can't figure out why Stafford and
Armstrong seem to have been switched.

They were not switched per se. Commanders were not assigned solely in the
order previously established, although the previous order did have some
bearing - assignments depended on who was "available" after previous flights.
That said, it seems clear that in late 1966 Deke created what would become
the Apollo 10 crew (Stafford/Young/Cernan) with the idea that they would be
in line for the F or G missions. They were the most experienced of the early-
Apollo crews - the only other no-rookie crew being Apollo 11. If the pecking
order had been important then Armstrong (or Conrad) would have been assigned
as commander of that crew. The logical assumption would be that those two
would be better utilised on early landing missions - at that time we assume
that Deke had plans to recycle Gus to command the first landing.

Deke rated both Armstrong and Conrad as excellent Apollo commanders - and even
as Gemini commanders. Although McDivitt and Borman were the first to command
Gemini missions they were both assigned to relatively simple missions, while
Armstrong was kept back for the technically more demanding first docking mission.
Conrad was originally planned as commander of Gemini 7 with Borman assigned to
fly under Grissom's command on Gemini 6. Conrad lost out in the early Gemini
crew shuffles, but was always one of Deke's favourites - Pete was very close
to becoming a Mercury astronaut too.


--

Brian Lawrence

Wantage, Oxfordshire, UK


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.766 / Virus Database: 513 - Release Date: 17/09/2004