Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Apollo 2-6 Message-ID: <4184@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Aug-84 15:49:24 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.4184 Posted: Tue Aug 7 15:49:24 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 7-Aug-84 15:49:24 EDT References: <616@sri-arpa.UUCP> <4178@utzoo.UUCP>, <411@astrovax.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 31 I got curious enough about this to check my previous comments in the best available reference, "Chariots For Apollo", which is (roughly speaking) the official history of the Apollo spacecraft. Turns out the situation was more complex than it looked. The Grissom/White/Chaffee mission was indeed known as "Apollo 1", but not 100% officially. The astronauts had official approval for a shoulder patch marked "Apollo 1", and this designation also appeared in other places, but much of NASA continued to refer to the mission by its internal planning number, AS-204. Three earlier unmanned tests had been AS-201 through AS-203. Just how this would have all turned out in the absence of the fire, one can only speculate. What actually did happen was that the first flight after the fire, an unmanned test, was officially known throughout NASA as "Apollo 4". (It still had an AS-xxx number, but this was no longer the final name of the mission.) Further tests and manned missions went from there. There was an official decision *not* to retroactively rename the earlier tests, perhaps partly to avoid the problem of having to call AS-201 "Apollo 1", a name which many people thought should be reserved for the never-flown AS-204. So there never (officially) was an "Apollo 2" or "Apollo 3". [Bibliographic note: "Chariots for Apollo" is still available from the US Govt Printing Office, and is well worth having, as are "Moonport" and "Steps to Saturn", the corresponding books on Kennedy Space Center and the Saturn boosters. Not cheap, and not thin, but good.] -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry