bwood@janus.uucp (Blake Philip Wood) (07/19/89)
Eugene Cunningham's book about the Apollo program (I forget the title)
provides an interesting perspective on several issues which I've not
seen elsewhere. Cunningham, if you'll remember, flew on Apollo 7.
According to him, the crews of the Apollo flights were basically decided
early on, without particular regard to what the flight missions were.
For a long time Apollo 12 was to have been the first moon landing, but
the successes of the earlier flights allowed NASA to move it up to
Apollo 11. Cunningham states that the smart money within NASA (and
there were bets made) was placed on Charles Conrad to do the first
moonwalk. As it turned out, Conrad made the third moonwalk on Apollo 12.
Blake P. Wood - bwood@janus.Berkeley.EDU
Plasmas and Non-Linear Dynamics, U.C. Berkeley, EECSkluksdah@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) (07/20/89)
In article <30095@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, bwood@janus.uucp (Blake Philip Wood) writes: > For a long time Apollo 12 was to have been the first moon landing, but > the successes of the earlier flights allowed NASA to move it up to > Apollo 11. Cunningham states that the smart money within NASA (and > there were bets made) was placed on Charles Conrad to do the first > moonwalk. As it turned out, Conrad made the third moonwalk on Apollo 12. > Also read "Carrying the Fire" by Mike Collins. According to Collins, the schedule was for Conrad to command Apollo 11. That was screwed up when Collins, then scheduled to fly on Apollo 8, was taken off the flight list because of a medical problem in his spinal column. His backup flew on 8, and the successive schedule was perturbed. As a result, Conrad was bumped back from commanding 11 to commanding 12. Also as a result, Collins was assigned to 11 after he recovered from surgery. Good book. In this time of nostalgia, "Carrying the Fire" is another good book to read. ********************************************************************** Norman Kluksdahl Arizona State University ..ncar!noao!asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah alternate: kluksdah@enuxc1.eas.asu.edu standard disclaimer implied
dsmith@hplabsb.HP.COM (David Smith) (07/20/89)
In article <30095@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> bwood@janus.UUCP (Blake Philip Wood) writes: >Eugene Cunningham's book about the Apollo program (I forget the title) >provides an interesting perspective on several issues which I've not >seen elsewhere. Cunningham, if you'll remember, flew on Apollo 7. That's *Walt* Cunningham. Eugene Cernan flew on Apollo 10. -- David R. Smith, HP Labs dsmith@hplabs.hp.com (415) 857-7898