If Liberty bells hatch hadnt blown?

And Apollo wouldnt of adopted the hard to open hatch that doomed apollo one,
Gus and the crew would of got out OK, perhaps a bit singed, from the fire. Then
who would of been first man on the moon?

And, of course, what if he "would of" learned some grammar as well?

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It is generally assumed that Deke Slayton would have assigned Gus to the rotation
so that a Mercury astronaut would have been the first man on the moon. To make
that prophecy come true, all successive missions would have had to have been clean
of problems and the LEM would have had to have been finished on time.
It's really a fruitless point to speculate on, however. The sad reality is that
the Apollo 1 fire extended the timeline making Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the
first men to land on lunar soil. Sad in that three men died horribly in order to
prove that the system was going awfully astray.

RDG

Didn't Gus get a bit screwed in rotations somewhere due to the hatch
incident? Would he have still be CDR for Apollo 1 if he hadn't blown the
hatch (or had it blow, whichever)

Not really. Grissom had been originally slated for the long duration Gemini
mission (what became Gemini 7) because he had spent such a great deal of time
working at McDonnel on Gemini, Deke Slayton figured he knew the craft very well
and could tought out any problems that may crop up on a 14 day flight.

When Shepard was removed from flight status (and any consideration for
commanding Gemini 3), Grissom was bumped up.

What I find interesting is when discussing the Apollo 1 crew assignments in his
book, Slayton mentions his first choice would have been Al Shepard had he not
been grounded, since he was not an option Grissom recieved the command.

There is an interesting what-if scenario. Shepard moving to Apollo 1 after GT
3...Schirra would probably still first command the cancelled Apollo 205 then
become Shepard's backup. Grissom could have ended up with either with the first
lunar module flight or maybe what became Apollo 8.

Of course there is the fire which would then have claimed Shepard...

-A.L.

"OM" wrote...

1) The deaths of Eliot See & Charlie Bassett, which bumped Neil up
from backup to prime crew for G8, and shuffled around the rest of the
Gemini rotation, and put Buzz into a prime crew spot.

Uh, no. The deaths of See and Bassett bumped Stafford and Cernan from G9
backup to G9 prime. It had no effect on G8 assignments. On the other hand,
Lovell and Aldrin moved from G10 backup to G9 backup placing them in line
for G12 prime.

Jim Davis

On 21 Aug 2003 16:54:47 GMT, (MasterShrink)
wrote:

There is an interesting what-if scenario. Shepard moving to Apollo 1 after GT
3...Schirra would probably still first command the cancelled Apollo 205 then
become Shepard's backup. Grissom could have ended up with either with the first
lunar module flight or maybe what became Apollo 8.

Of course there is the fire which would then have claimed Shepard...

....Possibly not. Consider the fact that we've seen "Smilin' Al" could
be an even more adamant ******* than "Gruffy Old Gus", I've felt for
quite some time that Al would have gone quite a bit further up the
chain at NAA and, while probably never delving into the Pure O2 issue,
would have surely gotten some if not most of the sloppy workmanship
issues settled before the "plugs out" test. And, while there's no
arguing that Pure O2 at 16.5 PSI is a ticking bomb waiting to go off,
if there's no ignition source the danger is minimized.

No fire, no deaths, no delay in program, and the first landing is
conducted by the crew of Apollo 5, 6 or 7, flying a Block II which was
being built anyway.


OM

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"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
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poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

...I stand corrected, and claim mea culprit due to being distracted by
telemarketer calls while I was composing that post. Five of them in a
10 minute period will distract anyone to error.

Especially when three of them are not only automated from three
different companies, they're using the *same* spokespuppet is
supplying the voice under different names...


OM

Thanks to my state's Do Not Call list (one of the first in the country),
I haven't had a telemarketing call in nearly two years. :-)

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
"Heisenberg might have been here."
~ Anonymous

0) To a lesser extent, the death of Ted Freeman, which freed up a
slot. However, Freeman's death occurred early enough in the program
that, IIRC, he hadn't been pencilled in on any rotation. Note that
most, if not all of the Astronauts who were part of the program at
that time were convinced that had Freeman lived, he would have been in
line for Apollo and more likely than not one of the Lunar missions.

In Lost Moon/Apollo 13, Lovell refers to Ted as someone considered a strong
contender for the remaining Gemini flights that would have members of Group 3
aboard. Though his assignment to support Apollo might suggest otherwise (a
couple Apollo support guys did fly on Gemini or work backup however).

1) The deaths of Eliot See & Charlie Bassett, which bumped Neil up
from backup to prime crew for G8, and shuffled around the rest of the
Gemini rotation, and put Buzz into a prime crew spot.

I've played around with the crew assignments now and then and as near as I can
figure this factor was something that pushed Tom Stafford from landing a later
Apollo slot...had he commanded Gemini 12 he would have moved over to Apollo
later and commanded a later mission...that later mission could have been Apollo
11 or 12.

2) The A1 fire, which delayed the program long enough for mission
reshuffling and cancelling - ie, AS-278 - to shuffle the rotation
again with three less Astronauts in line.

That pretty much led to the basic creation of the Apollo 11 crew. All the
backup crews moved up post-fire and to fill the void Deke assembled a crew of
Armstrong, Lovell and Aldrin.

3) The delay in the LM, which resulted in A8 & A9 being switched, A8
being redefined totally, and the resulting rotation that up to that
point pretty much had Pete Conrad and CC Williams in line for the
first landing attempt.

That swap actually occured after C.C. died and was replaced by Al Bean.

-A.L.

That swap actually occured after C.C. died and was replaced by Al Bean.

...You miss the point. Had A8 & A9 not been switched - and had CC not
augered - the rotation as it was shaping up would have put both of
them on the first landing attempt.

I didn't miss the point. I was just being a nit-picky *******. =)

-A.L.

In article , OM wrote:

That swap actually occured after C.C. died and was replaced by Al Bean.

...You miss the point. Had A8 & A9 not been switched - and had CC not
augered - the rotation as it was shaping up would have put both of
them on the first landing attempt.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but would CC have flown? I find it odd,
in retrospect, that for the first landing they'd take a rookie... not
that it's really significant, but I'm sure I saw a comment somewhere
about an all-vet crew being a concious choice.

--
-Andrew Gray