NASAīefore potential going to the Moon, Bassett was scheduled to fly with Elliot See as the prime crew of Gemini 9. The backup crew, however, was one he designed as a good potential lunar landing crew: Frank Borman, Charlie Bassett as CMP, and Bill Anders as LMP. It wasn’t a crew he intended to use on a lunar mission Schirra was planning his retirement and Slayton intended to punt Eisele and Cunningham over to the Apollo Applications Program as soon as their mission was done.
This first Apollo prime and backup crew began training in 1966.įor the second mission, Slayton picked another Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra as commander, brought Eisele back as CMP, and assigned Walt Cunningham as LMP. He picked Veteran Jim McDivitt, Dave Scott as CMP (who was at the time training for rendezvous on Geminin 8), and Rusty Schweickart as LMP. For the backup crew, Slayton knew this crew would likely be the first to fly a lunar module and maybe even the first lunar mission. When Eisele injured his shoulder, Ed White took his place on the crew. Rounding out the crew were two rookies, Donn Eisele as command module pilot (CMP) and Roger Chaffee as lunar module pilot (LMP). Grissom had served as commander on Gemini 3 and backup on Gemini 6A, so he was a natural choice in the rotation schedule to command Apollo 1. His first choice was Al Shepard, but when Shepard was grounded with Meniere’s Disease (an inner ear problem that causes debilitating balance problems), Slayton picked Gus Grissom as commander instead. Slayton wanted one of the other original Mercury astronauts to command the first Apollo mission. NASA planned as many of each mission type as needed before attempting the all-important G mission, so there was no guarantee that the seventh flight would be the first landing. Leading up to the landing, they looked like this:Ī mission: unmanned command-service module (CSM) only flightī mission: unmanned lunar module (LM) only flightĮ mission: High earth orbit CSM and LM flight to test reentry at simulated lunar speeds All the Apollo flights were designated by a letter denoting their type, later letters being more complex missions. NASAīut first, a word about the missions’ designations.
NASAĭeke Slayton shortly after joining NASA’s astronaut corps. Deke Slayton shortly after joining NASA's astronaut corps.
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