mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (08/02/88)
In article <14876@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> saki@sonia.MATH.UCLA.EDU (D. MacLaughlan) writes: > [delete, delete delete] >Apollos 2-6 were unmanned, I thought, and Apollo 8 followed in December '68. > Gotcha! There were no Apollo 2 or 3 missions. The first was Apollo 4 in November 1967 I think. This was the first Saturn V flight test. I haven't heard any good reason as to why they jumped the mission designators. Originally Apollo 2 would have been the Schirra and Co. -- *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick *** "Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is temporarily cancelled". [disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/03/88)
In article <12716@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes: >Gotcha! There were no Apollo 2 or 3 missions. The first was Apollo 4 in >November 1967 I think. This was the first Saturn V flight test. I haven't >heard any good reason as to why they jumped the mission designators. Tsk tsk, Grasshopper, you have not been paying attention. :-) To recap what I posted a while back, there were no official "Apollo N" designations before the fire, and in fact there was some confusion about what the first manned flight would be called; the crew was calling it Apollo 1, while the booster people were calling it Apollo 4. The only official name it had was Apollo 204, a NASA internal mission code. Afterward, the never-flown mission was officially designated Apollo 1 out of respect for the dead crew. The first post-fire unmanned test was officially called Apollo 4. This led to a problem: how to designate the three pre-fire unmanned tests without infringing on the sacrosanct Apollo 1 designation. NASA HQ decided to resolve the problem by doing nothing about it, so those three tests never had Apollo N designations and there never was an Apollo 2 or 3. -- MSDOS is not dead, it just | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology smells that way. | uunet!mnetor!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
mcdowell@cfa250.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) (08/03/88)
From article <12716@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, by mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick): > Gotcha! There were no Apollo 2 or 3 missions. The first was Apollo 4 in > November 1967 I think. This was the first Saturn V flight test. I haven't > heard any good reason as to why they jumped the mission designators. > Originally Apollo 2 would have been the Schirra and Co. They started off with the unpiloted missions as Apollo-Saturn 201, Apollo-Saturn 202, and Apollo-Saturn 203. These then sort of retrospectively became Apollos 1-3 although they were not formally renamed as such, and the sequence then carried on with the 11/67 Apollo 4 test. The issue was complicated when NASA officially named the pad fire Apollo 1 in response to a request from the dead astronauts' families. The sequence ended with Apollo 17, and the nomenclature for the Apollo spacecraft in the Skylab and ASTP programs is even more confusing. Thats what I remember; anyone got a more accurate explanation? Jonathan McDowell
mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) (08/07/88)
In article <1988Aug3.151700.8678@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: > >Tsk tsk, Grasshopper, you have not been paying attention. :-) > >To recap what I posted a while back, there were no official "Apollo N" >designations before the fire, and in fact there was some confusion about >what the first manned flight would be called; the crew was calling it >Apollo 1, while the booster people were calling it Apollo 4. The only >official name it had was Apollo 204, a NASA internal mission code. I see the error of my ways oh wise one :-). I checked David Baker's book and he says virtually the same thing. Interestingly enough however, the Apollo Chronology series lists Apollo 1, Apollo 1-A, Apollo 2, and Apollo 3 as "rejected numbers" in the index then refers the reader to the AS-20X entries. The crew's personal reference to the Apollo 1 title would explain it's presence on their patch. Oh, by the way Henry, have you ever seen an Apollo 1, er, AS 204 flight plan?? I glommed on to the Apollo CSM012 Operations Handbook a while back and the AS-204 review board results which was supposed to include a copy of the manual, but couldn't find it. -- *** mike (starship janitor) smithwick *** "Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is temporarily cancelled". [disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/09/88)
In article <12959@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Mike Smithwick) writes: >... Interestingly enough however, the >Apollo Chronology series lists Apollo 1, Apollo 1-A, Apollo 2, and Apollo 3 >as "rejected numbers" in the index then refers the reader to the AS-20X >entries. The proposal that NASA HQ rejected in favor of doing nothing about the issue was, in fact, to call the pre-fire unmanned tests Apollo 1A, 2, and 3. But the Apollo 1 designation is official, I think, although this didn't happen right away. (My reference is "Chariots For Apollo", the NASA History book about the Apollo spacecraft, which is probably the most authoritative source in printed form, but my copy isn't handy for me to check.) >The crew's personal reference to the Apollo 1 title would explain it's >presence on their patch. Yes, the patch was one of the ways in which the crew were displaying their preference. It's a bit surprising that things got that far without NASA HQ ever issuing an official pronouncement on the subject. >Oh, by the way Henry, have you ever seen an Apollo 1, er, AS 204 flight >plan?? ... No, I haven't, although I haven't made any particular effort to look for it. It wasn't meant to be a particularly exciting mission. -- MSDOS is not dead, it just | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology smells that way. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu