One False Step (11 page)

 For it could have happened. The amount of money saved by cancelling Apollo 18 and 19 was small, only a few tens of millions of dollars. Apollo 20's Saturn V was needed for the launch of Skylab, but Skylab itself utilised a stage from a Saturn IB, and could potentially have been launched 'wet', unequipped but ready for the astronauts to fit out in orbit – there were many technical challenges to solve, but they were undoubtedly capable of solution.

 What form would these missions then have taken? Well, the first change would have been to Apollo 15. The cancellations proved of paradoxical benefit to this mission, upgrading it from an 'H' type to a 'J' type; the mission's commander, Dave Scott, was notable as one of the more science-friendly members of the Astronaut Corps, and this was reflected in the success of the mission from a geoscience standpoint. As originally planned, this mission would not have had any of the improved equipment that it was destined to utilise.

 Nor would it have landed at the same place. The site to which Apollo 15 was ultimately targeted, Hadley Rille, was recognised as one of the more scientifically interesting landing sites, and had always been targeted for one of the 'J' missions. In original planning, Apollo
19
would have been targeted to this site, and we can assume that this mission would broadly have gone as Apollo 15 ultimately did. Instead, Apollo 15 would have landed at Censorious, a return to the area of the Sea of Tranquillity where Neil Armstrong made his famous first footsteps. There it would have been set down in an ejecta blanket, an area where it was hoped material from inside the crater would have been blasted upon its formation – also, hopefully an area suited to investigation over the smaller area available in a 'H' class flight.

 The landing sites for the remaining three Apollo missions are a matter of conjecture. Apollo 19 was originally targeted for Hadley Rille, so it is safe to assume that it would have been visited. One of the likely landing sites for Apollo 17 had been the Marius Hills, rather than the area of Taurus-Littrow where it ultimately landed; it is possible that this would have been the target for Apollo 18 or 20. The crater Copernicus was also a site of special interest, and was
targeted
as a landing site for Apollo 18; this is a spectacular terrain, dominated by a series of peaks reaching as high as 2,625 feet, affording a wide variety of opportunities for mineral sampling.

 Apollo 20 was more controversial. Given the rather wilder suggestions, the Marius Hills are a strong possibility in a 'play-it-safe' environment – a ridge system that displays some of the characteristics of volcanoes on Earth, and hence a key target when the thought of recent lunar volcanism was still accepted as a theory for the formation of the surface of the Moon. Another option was Tycho, a region made famous by Arthur C. Clarke in '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Not that they were seeking the Monolith, however! This was another large crater, one that would have provided opportunities to study impact events in depth, as well as the other associated phenomena such as volcanism. A bonus would have been Surveyor 7, which had been landed in the crater at the conclusion of that series of probes; a return of some key components to Earth could provide much valuable data on the survivability of materials in the lunar environment over an extended period.

 Harrison Schmitt, the only geologist to land on the Moon, had another idea for the 'last mission'; he had lobbied for a landing on the 'dark side' of the moon, in order to obtain samples from 'virgin' ground, and make comparisons with dayside material; the Russian 'Luna' probes and the Lunar Orbiter series had provided some excellent candidate sites. The problem of communication could be solved by the use of off-the-shelf communication satellites.

 It seems unlikely that either of these alternatives would have been selected for main-line Apollo. Tycho would have been a difficult proposition for landing, and there was much resistance to its selection by Apollo management for this reason. This resistance was dwarfed by that to a landing on the far side. A glitch with a satellite, and all contact with the LEM on the surface was lost. At that stage it was a too uncertain proposition to gamble the lives of a crew on.

 As for the missions themselves, they would have greatly resembled Apollo 15, 16 and 17. The final three missions would have used the Lunar Rover (though Apollo 16 would
not
have flown with one; they were originally planned for only the final four flights), and conducted three moonwalks, each along pre-determined scientific foray paths, in the same manner as earlier landing missions. Each would have deployed their own ALSEP, and these would almost certainly have evolved; new experiments were planned for later flights, some to take advantage of the differing terrain types, others not given the same priority as those flown on earlier packages.

 The next question must be
when
these missions would have flown. The original schedule called for all the flights to be completed by the end of 1972, as indeed the Apollo series as flown was concluded, but it can be assumed that this schedule would not have been maintained. After Apollo 13, there was a delay for an accident investigation that would not see it fly until January 1971, four months later than originally planned.

 A critical factor here was the launch of Skylab. By the end of September 1970, planning had evolved to put Skylab in the middle of the landing program; Apollo 17 would take place by the middle of 1972, leaving 1973 as the 'year of Skylab', the last two flights to take place in 1974 (by then, remember, Apollo 20 had already been cancelled.) The difficulty with interrupting the landing program was maintaining the skills required to send Apollo to the moon. Personnel would be redeployed to support the Earth-orbiting station, and there was a grave risk of them losing their edge. On the other hand, Skylab had been in the works for years.

 Any speculation on the landing schedule cannot approximate more than an educated guess; my speculation is that Skylab would have been delayed a year, to 1974, and the last two or three landing flights would have been made in 1973, to close out the program with skills and personnel intact. The agency would then have been at liberty to concentrate on Skylab, and after that, to work on future projects such as Shuttle. (Had Skylab been launched a year or two later, it is
just
possible that it would have survived long enough to have been visited by Shuttle on its early missions.)

 One of the more intriguing possibilities to explore for the armchair Chief Astronaut is who would have been assigned to crew these missions to the moon. There were certainly plenty of choices to choose from, but some limitations were apparent. The commander of the mission had to be an experienced astronaut who had flown before; this had been true on every Apollo flight. Some astronauts were earmarked for Skylab.

 By 1971, NASA had eight groups of astronauts. Of the original 'Mercury Seven', only two remained on flight status, both paradoxically because they had spent time off it. Al Shepherd had been grounded after his pioneering suborbital flight by a disease of the inner ear that had left him susceptible to vertigo and loss of balance; this was treated with an experimental procedure, and he returned to flight status with a landing on Apollo 14. Group II, selected for Gemini, were also growing thin on the ground; the Group had been well represented, commanding Apollo 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 – and going on to command Apollo 16. Every surviving astronaut of this group commanded an Apollo mission; only two would go on to fly another mission – Pete Conrad ultimately commanded Skylab 2, Tom Stafford commanded the Apollo-Soyuz flight in 1975, and John Young commanded two Shuttle missions, including the first, STS-1.

 Group 3 were mostly still available – selected for Apollo flights, towards the end of Gemini, all the surviving members of this group had flown into space either in Gemini or Apollo. Some had left the agency by this point, and there were question marks over others in the minds of some in management – but many were considered strong candidates.. Two Apollo missions and one Skylab flight were commanded by this group. Groups 4 and 6, the two batches of scientist-astronauts, were in a different position.

 Many in NASA, and in the Astronaut Corps, were somewhat dubious over the value of sending a scientist to the moon. This may seem paradoxical, but they did have several powerful arguments. First, this was a high-risk experimental program. Never mind the dangers involved, which were evident, there was no ability to carry a 'passenger'. Any crewmember must pull his weight. Moreover, there was a limit to the amount of actual
science
an astronaut would be able to undertake. Trained observers were more important, and that all the astronauts were. Certainly the test pilots were – the ability to observe and record phenomena in a split second was critical to any testing regime. It was conceded that the Skylab program perhaps had more room for a scientist, with any emergencies likely to be less critical; it was no coincidence that most of the scientist-astronauts were pointed towards the rather nebulous dumping ground of 'Apollo Applications'.

 The test pilots may have had a point – certainly they did some excellent science on their landing missions. But having a fully trained observer who had spent his life in his field could make a world of difference, providing on-the-spot interpretations that could be used for modifications to the program if necessary, able to quickly evaluate whether this site or that would be the best for that extra ten minute extension to the moonwalk. Group 4 all flew, either in Apollo or Skylab; Group 6 had to wait for Shuttle. It seems unlikely that they would have had any earlier opportunities to fly.

 Group 5, the 'Original Nineteen' had been chosen at a time when it was thought that Apollo would consist of dozens of flights, to the moon and for Apollo Applications, but these missions began to dry up as soon as they arrived. Only one of them, Jerry Carr, had a command during Apollo – Skylab 4, the penultimate Apollo flight. Certainly several of them were extremely strong candidates; some had to wait for Shuttle to make their first flights, but it seems fairly likely that this would have been attained if the last three Apollo landings had been authorised.

 Last and unfortunately in this context (but no other) least, the seventh Group – astronauts that had been inherited by NASA from the military on the cancellation of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, intended as a manned station to be used for conducting espionage and surveillance, a role that by the time of the project's cancellation was being adequately carried out by automatic satellites for a fraction of the cost. None of these were likely to fly to the Moon; too many other astronauts were in the pipeline before them.

 Before trying to work out the puzzle, the manner in which crews were selected must be examined. The head of Flight Crew Operations, then-unflown astronaut Deke Slayton, believed that any astronaut could fly any mission, and ultimately selected on that basis – though he did try and match astronauts to suitable missions, and gave some regard to keeping 'buddies' like Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon together where he could. One rule that proved
almost
ironclad was the crew rotation system. A crew would serve as backup for a mission, wait out two, and then fly as the Prime Crew for that mission.

 The crew of Apollo 18 can be stated, then, with some certainty – the back-up crew to Apollo 15. This consisted of Dick Gordon as CMD (Mission Commander), Vance Brand as CMP (Command Module Pilot), and Harrison Schmitt as LMP (Lunar Module Pilot). As with all back-up crews, they trained as if they could potentially fly the mission at a moment's notice. In several cases, back-up crews had been called upon the fill this role; following the deaths of Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, the backup crew of Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan flew Gemini 9, albeit with some months' notice. In the case of Apollo 13, CMP Ken Mattingly was switched with backup Jack Swigert with only a few days notice, when it was feared that he had contracted the measles. (Later, Deke Slayton would say he would not have made this decision again, opting instead to delay the flight.) Although obviously they had not trained for Apollo 18 itself, they had fully-trained for the similar 'J' class Apollo 15 mission, in which they had been noted to perform well as a backup crew.

 Dick Gordon was one of the more experienced astronauts as of his selection as backup commander; he had first flown as Pete Conrad's co-pilot on Gemini 11, setting what at the time was a new altitude record; subsequently, he had remained with his old room-mate on the backup crew for Apollo 9, before circling the Moon as CMP of Apollo 12. He had originally applied for the second group of astronauts, finally being selected for the third group a year later.

 Vance Brand would have been a rookie, but an experienced one. He had participated in the testing of the prototype Apollo Command Module, and served as a support crewman on Apollo 8 and Apollo 13, both eventful missions, but for very different reasons; known as a CSM specialist, he joined as part of the large fifth group of astronauts. Though he joined as a civilian test pilot from Lockheed, he had flown with the United States Marine Corps.

 The planned third crewman would have been the first of NASA's scientist-astronauts to fly into space, and the only one of the first group selected to have a realistic chance of walking on the Moon, geologist Harrison Schmitt. Almost since his selection in 1965, he had begun campaigning for a landing mission, trying to make himself a member of the astronaut fraternity; while other scientists had joined the program to fly in the space stations projected for Apollo Applications, he knew that his primary skills pointed him towards the Moon.

 This led to controversy when Apollo 18 was cancelled. The crew for Apollo 17, which would become the final flight to the Moon, had not been officially selected, though following the standard practice suggested that it would be the Apollo 14 backup crew – Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Joe Engle. All had performed well in training, but there was considerable pressure on Deke Slayton to select a different crew. Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott stated that he believed his backup crew was a superior choice, and should be picked to go to the Moon; the scientific community was up in arms when it appeared that none of the scientist-astronauts they had lobbied for would receive an lunar  mission. Nevertheless, Slayton stuck to his rule, considering Joe Engle the best choice for a landing, and recommended the Cernan-Evans-Engle crew.