Apollo Crews - 11 to 14 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Apollo 11

Having flown as the commander of Gemini 8, as well as serving as backup on two more Gemini flights, Neil Armstrong was already a veteran when he was named as the backup commander of what was originally planned as Apollo 9, the second planned test flight of the Lunar Module in Earth orbit. However, the change in the mission schedule saw the prime and backup crews of the then Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 missions swapped, with Armstrong's crew, consisting of Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin, serving as the backup of the new Apollo 8, which became a circumlunar flight in December 1968. Based on the then standard crew rotation, this put Armstrong in line to command Apollo 11, which was tentatively scheduled as the first lunar landing mission.

Apollo 11 was launched on July 16 1969, taking four days to reach the Moon. On the day of the landing, having undocked the LM, a number of issues came up, including the fact that the pre-programmed course would have led to landing in a boulder field. As a result, Armstrong manually flew the LM to find a safer landing spot, taking significantly longer than the simulations they had undertaken. Armstrong eventually touched down with approximately 45 seconds of fuel remaining. Around seven hours after the landing, Armstrong opened the hatch and, having climbed down the ladder, stepped onto the lunar surface. The EVA on the surface lasted around two and a half hours. Following the end of Apollo 11, Armstrong announced his departure from the astronaut corps, initially moving to the Advanced Research Projects Agency before leaving NASA in 1971 to accept a teaching position at the University of Cincinnati.

Answer: Apollo 11

Following his first flight aboard Gemini 10, Michael Collins was assigned to Project Apollo, being assigned as the backup Lunar Module Pilot on the crew led by Frank Borman, which was assigned to the planned second manned mission. However, following revision of the mission plan, this flight was cancelled and, following a rearrangement of flight assignments, Collins was advanced to the Command Module Pilot of Borman's crew, which was then moved to become the prime crew of what was planned as Apollo 9, a test of the Lunar Module. But, during early 1968 Collins found he was having difficulty with his legs, eventually diagnosed as a cervical disc herniation, which required surgery, and led to his being replaced in Borman's crew by Jim Lovell.

Having completed rehabilitation following surgery, Collins was announced as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 11, led by Neil Armstrong, which was the mission scheduled to be the first landing. Having reached lunar orbit, Collins became the first astronaut to orbit the Moon alone following the departure of his crewmates to the surface, describing his complete isolation while on the far side as "If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side." Although he was offered his own command following the successful completion of Apollo 11, Collins instead elected to leave the astronaut corps. He served for fifteen months as an Assistant Secretary of State at the State Department, before being appointed Director of the National Air and Space Museum in April 1971.

Answer: Apollo 11

Buzz Aldrin was originally not scheduled to fly a Gemini mission, as his first crew assignment was as the backup pilot of Gemini 10, meaning that there was no flight for him based on the then standard crew rotation. However, when he and commander Jim Lovell were moved to serve as backups for Gemini 9, they were then assigned as the prime crew of Gemini 12, which then put Aldrin in line for a crew spot on one of the early Apollo flights. In November 1967, both Aldrin and Lovell were assigned as the backup crew, alongside Neil Armstrong, of what was then designated as Apollo 9. Subsequently assigned to the mission that became Apollo 8, this led to Aldrin being named as the Lunar Module Pilot on the prime crew of Apollo 11, tentatively scheduled to be the first lunar landing mission.

Although named as the Lunar Module Pilot, Aldrin's job on the mission was to serve more as the Lunar Module's systems manager, as it was the Commander who did the majority of flying the LM. As a result, during the landing, it was Aldrin's voice that was heard more as he was responsible for calling out time, distance and fuel load measures to Armstrong as they descended. Following the successful landing, Aldrin became the first person to hold a religious service on another world; as a Presbyterian elder, he took a private communion with a small vial of communion win and a wafer. Aldrin remained in the LM for eighteen minutes following Armstrong's exit onto the surface, before becoming the second person to set foot on the Moon. Owing to Armstrong having the only camera, all of the photographs taken during the EVA show Aldrin. Following the end of the flight, Aldrin undertook more than eighteen months of public events, before electing to leave NASA and return to the US Air Force in 1971.

Answer: Apollo 12

Pete Conrad was a Gemini veteran, having flown twice on Gemini 5 and Gemini 11, as well as on the backup crew of Gemini 8, when he was appointed to command his own Apollo crew in December 1966. This was the backup crew for the mission planned as the first Lunar Module test flight, which was initially designated (under the revised schedule) as Apollo 8. However, delays to the LM led to this mission being put back, with the consequence that both the prime and backup crews for this mission and the following one were swapped, with Conrad's crew now backing up on Apollo 9. Based on the crew rotation, this put Conrad in line to command Apollo 12.

Following the successful landing by Apollo 11, Apollo 12 was given a revised mission plan, with one of the major objectives being to make a pinpoint landing at a specific place. With the target being the unmanned probe Surveyor 3, which had been on the lunar surface for twenty months, Conrad landed the Lunar Module on a point 163 metres from the probe. Upon his stepping onto the surface, Conrad's first words were "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." He had arranged this beforehand, having made a bet with a reporter who questioned whether Neil Armstrong had been given the words he first spoke by NASA. Following the return of Apollo 12, Conrad was offered the opportunity to return to the Apollo flight rotation, but instead elected to transfer to the Skylab programme, spending 28 days aboard the Skylab space station as commander of Skylab 2.

Answer: Apollo 12

Dick Gordon had already flown in space with his friend Pete Conrad on Gemini 11 when he was assigned as the Command Module Pilot to Conrad's Apollo crew, which was named as the backups to the mission planned originally as Apollo 8, the first Earth orbit test of the Lunar Module. However, the crews for this and the following mission were swapped, leading to Conrad, Gordon and Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean becoming the backups for Apollo 9, which put them in line to serve as the prime crew for Apollo 12 which, in the flight schedule, was planned as the second lunar landing mission.

During Apollo 12's period in lunar orbit, Gordon became the second astronaut to experience the complete isolation of orbiting out of communication on the lunar far side after Michael Collins. Part of his mission plan involved attempting to locate both the Lunar Module and the Surveyor 3 probe on the surface using the Command Module's telescope from orbit, something that had been attempted unsuccessfully on Apollo 11. Gordon's success in being able to locate the Lunar Module exactly where it was intended to be proved that pinpoint landings were possible, which was essential to the successful exploration of the Moon. He was also involved in a number of his own experiments, as well as photographing potential future landing sites. Following the completion of Apollo 12, Gordon returned to the flight rotation in an effort to command his own landing mission. Having been named as backup commander of Apollo 15, this put him in line to command Apollo 18, but this mission was cancelled in 1970. He instead left the astronaut corps, becoming NASA's Chief of Advanced Programs in 1971.

Answer: Apollo 12

Alan Bean's first crew assignment as an astronaut came in 1966 when he was named as the backup commander of Gemini 10, a position with no prospect of a future flight, as Project Gemini was scheduled to end after Gemini 12. As a result, with no spaceflight experience, there was little prospect of Bean getting a crew assignment on one of the early Apollo flights, and he was transferred to the Apollo Applications Project, which was intended to find future uses for Apollo hardware. However, in October 1967 Clifton Williams, who had served with Bean on Gemini 10, and was the Lunar Module Pilot on the Apollo crew commanded by Pete Conrad, was killed in an air crash, which led Conrad to personally request Bean take his place. Having been the backup crew for Apollo 9, this crew, which also included Dick Gordon, was named as the prime crew for Apollo 12.

Bean and his crewmates were launched on Apollo 12 in November 1969. Four days later, Bean and Conrad stepped onto the Moon to undertake the first full mission of exploration, which was intended to include color television. However, while setting the camera up, Bean inadvertently pointed it directly at the Sun, destroying the mechanism and preventing its use. As the first proper science and exploration mission, Bean and Conrad were responsible for setting up the first Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), and undertook a full geologic traverse to a number of named craters. One task Bean set himself was to find and use a self-timer on one of the cameras to allow him to take a picture of himself and Conrad, which would confuse the mission scientists on their return. However, he was unable to find the timer when they were on the traverse, and so the picture was left untaken. After Apollo 12, Bean transferred from Apollo to the Skylab Project, and flew in space again as the commander of Skylab 3 in 1973.

Answer: Apollo 13

Following the successful flight of Apollo 8 in December 1968, Jim Lovell returned to the Apollo flight rotation having been given his own crew, which consisted of the Lunar Module Pilot from Apollo 8, Bill Anders, who moved up to Command Module Pilot, with his place taken by Fred Haise. This crew was named as the backups for Apollo 11, which would have then seen them, according to the crew rotation, named as the prime crew of Apollo 14; Anders left the astronaut corps after Apollo 11, which saw him replaced by Ken Mattingly. However, over the objections of the Director of Flight Crew Operations, Deke Slayton, the original crew of Apollo 13, led by Alan Shepard, was moved to Apollo 14, with Lovell's crew replacing them. Apollo 13 was launched on April 11 1970.

Two days into the flight, during a routine procedure to stir the liquid oxygen on board used to power the fuel cells, an explosion crippled the Command Module. Although this was initially reported by Command Module Pilot Jack Sweigert (who had replaced Mattingly on the flight), it was Lovell who uttered the famous words "Houston, we've had a problem" to signify the situation. The new mission had a single objective, which was to get the crew home safely, and which involved the entry of a brand new computer programme that Lovell was required to input into the LM's computer, and then fly using the LM's descent engine, which had to be used for two separate course correction burns. For the second, with no power for the LM's guidance systems, Lovell maintained course by lining up with Earth's terminator, the line between day and night. Following the successful return of Apollo 13, Lovell removed himself from flight rotation, and retired from NASA in 1973, instead going to work for the Bay Houston Towing Company in Houston, of which he was made CEO in 1975.

Answer: Apollo 13

Jack Swigert made two unsuccessful attempts to join the astronaut corps before he finally succeeded in 1966. Upon becoming an astronaut, he was one of the few to actively volunteer to become a Command Module Pilot, and therefore became one of the leading Command Module experts among NASA's astronauts. Having served as a member of the support crew for Apollo 7, he received his first crew assignment when he was assigned to John Young's crew as the Command Module Pilot, which was initially assigned as the backup crew for Apollo 13, However, the backup crew's Lunar Module Pilot, Charlie Duke, contracted rubella from one of his young son's friends. Four of the five crew members in the prime and backup crews were immune, but the prime crew's Command Module Pilot, Ken Mattingly, was not. Rather than delay the launch, instead NASA's management replaced Mattingly with Swigert two days prior to the start of the mission.

Two days into the flight, Swigert was undertaking some housekeeping tasks when, as part of a routine stirring of the oxygen tanks, a spark led to an explosion that crippled the spacecraft. This led to the cancellation of the mission, with the Lunar Module required to serve as a lifeboat as a result of the Command Module being shut down. Owing to Swigert's unfamiliarity with the LM, the majority of the operations of the spacecraft during the four day return to Earth were undertaken by his crewmates, although one major task that he undertook was to construct an adaptor for the CM's carbon dioxide scrubbers to work with the LM's system. Following the successful return of Apollo 13, Swigert was reassigned from Apollo to serve initially as the Command Module Pilot of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. However, following a scandal involving payments for having signed postal covers that were flown in space, Swigert took a leave of absence from NASA to serve as executive director of the US House of Representatives' Science Committee.

Answer: Apollo 13

Fred Haise was selected as an astronaut in 1966 as part of the fifth group, and became the first of this cohort to receive a crew assignment when, following the reassignment of Jim Lovell to the prime crew of Apollo 8 as Command Module Pilot, which led to Buzz Aldrin becoming the backup crew's Command Module Pilot, Haise was assigned to the backup crew as Lunar Module Pilot. Although this would have put him in line to go to the Moon with Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11, Aldrin was subsequently moved back to the LMP role, with Michael Collins assigned as CMP. Haise was instead assigned to Jim Lovell's crew, which served as the backup crew of Apollo 11, putting them in line as the prime crew of Apollo 14. However, this crew was swapped with the prime crew of Apollo 13, and launched in April 1970.

Following the explosion that crippled Apollo 13, which occurred two days into the flight, much of the flying, which had to be done from the Lunar Module, was done by Lovell and Haise. Haise however began suffering from a urinary tract infection over the course of the flight, believed to have been caused by the need to ration the crew's water supply, which was needed both for drinking and for cooling the spacecraft's electronics. One of Haise's major achievements during the mission was, alongside Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert, constructing the adaptor for the carbon dioxide scrubbers from the CM to work in the LM. Following Haise's return from Apollo 13, he returned to the Apollo flight rotation, being given his own crew when he was appointed as backup commander of Apollo 16. This would have put him in line to command Apollo 19, but that mission was cancelled in September 1970. After Apollo 16, he moved to the Space Shuttle program, serving as one of two crew commanders on the initial Approach and Landing Tests using the prototype shuttle orbiter, Enterprise, and being named as commander of the second planned shuttle mission. But, delays led to this mission being delayed, and Haise left NASA to join Grumman as a test pilot.

Answer: Apollo 14

Alan Shepard holds the distinction of being the second human and first American to fly in space when Freedom 7 was launched in May 1961. However, in the initial stages of Project Gemini, he was diagnosed with Ménière's disease, an inner-ear condition that led to his being removed from flight status. He was instead named as Chief of the Astronaut Office, a senior management role that saw him become responsible for astronaut training and selection. But, in 1968, Tom Stafford, with whom he had been initially paired to fly a Gemini mission, recommended a surgeon to Shepard who had developed a cure for his condition. Shepard had surgery in May 1968, which eliminated his condition and saw him returned to flight status a year later. As a result, Shepard was assigned to the first available Apollo flight, at that point scheduled to be Apollo 13 in April 1970. But, NASA's management thought Shepard would require additional training time given his long period out, and instead swapped Shepard's crew with that of Jim Lovell, which was the prime crew of Apollo 14.

Apollo 14 was eventually launched in January 1971, following the long hiatus after Apollo 13. The flight made Shepard the only member of his astronaut group to walk on the Moon when he set foot on the lunar surface on 5 February 1971. Alongside the Lunar Module Pilot, Edgar Mitchell, Shepard made the furthest traverses across the surface then undertaken, which they did with the aid of the Modular Equipment Transporter, a two-wheeled cart designed after Apollo 12; this included an effort to reach the rim of Cone Crater, which they came within 30m of doing before being ordered to stop. At the end of the mission's second EVA, Shepard undertook a stunt he had been planning for years, when he used one of the contingency sample containers and attached the head of a six iron golf club to it, before hitting two golf balls, thus becoming the first person to play golf on another world. After the completion of Apollo 14, Shepard returned to his previous role of Chief Astronaut, in which he remained before retiring from NASA in 1974.

Answer: Apollo 14

Having been selected as an astronaut in 1966, one of Stuart Roosa's first major tasks was as a Capsule Communicator (CAPCOM) assigned to the first manned Apollo mission. He was serving in this role on January 27, 1967, when the crew was killed in a fire inside the spacecraft during a routine test on the launch pad. Although he served on the support crew of Apollo 9, his first crew assignment came when he was assigned as the Command Module Pilot to the prime crew of Apollo 13, commanded by Alan Shepard. This was ostensibly the crew that had been the backups for Apollo 10, but both the commander and Command Module Pilot that had served in these roles for that mission were replaced by the time Apollo 13 was being prepared, Roosa replacing CMP Donn Eisele. But, owing to Shepard having been off flight status for almost a decade, the crew of Apollo 13 was swapped with that of Apollo 14, which eventually launched in January 1971.

Part of Roosa's training for the flight saw him work with geologist Farouk El-Baz, who devised a programme for Roosa to allow him to make detailed geological observations from orbit. Roosa spent two days alone in lunar orbit, and undertook the first full scientific program by a CMP, much of which had originally been planned for Apollo 13. One of his major objectives was to photograph the area intended as the landing site for Apollo 16; although one of the camera developed a fault that he was unable to repair, he was still able to confirm the suitability of the region for Apollo 16. Additionally, he carried a number of seeds with him on the flight as part of a project with the US Forestry Service, which were subsequently planted on his return, becoming known as "Moon trees". After Apollo 14, Roosa served as the backup CMP on both Apollo 16 and Apollo 17, before being assigned to the Space Shuttle Program until he retired from NASA in 1976.

Answer: Apollo 14

Edgar Mitchell was one of the first members of his astronaut group to receive a crew assignment when, having served on the support crew of Apollo 9, he was named as the backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10, on the crew commanded by Gordon Cooper. This crew would have, under the standard flight rotation, expected to be named as the prime crew for Apollo 13. However, both Cooper and Donn Eisele, the Command Module Pilot, were not expected to receive further spaceflight assignments for various reasons, which led to both of them being replaced, with Alan Shepard named as the crew commander and Stuart Roosa as CMP, alongside Mitchell, when they were initially assigned to Apollo 13. But, as a result of Shepard not long having returned to flight status, and seen as requiring more training, the crew was switched with that of Apollo 14. The mission eventually launched in January 1971.

Mitchell eventually stepped onto the Moon's surface on February 5, 1971, after Shepard had been on the surface for a few minutes. Part of Mitchell's task while on the surface was to control the Modular Equipment Transporter (MET), a new transport device designed to allow easier movement of the equipment the crew required on the surface. While hauling the MET, Mitchell and Shepard undertook a traverse up Cone Crater, with the intention of reaching the rim. Despite both being confident that they were close to the rim, it was eventually decided that this effort should stop - it was ultimately determined that they had got to within 30m of the rim. Following their departure from the surface, during the flight home, Mitchell, who had always had an interest in both consciousness and paranormal phenomena, undertook a number of private experiments into ESP, the results of which were published later that year. Following the completion of Apollo 14, Mitchell was immediately named as the backup LMP for Apollo 16, before he left NASA in October 1972 to start his own consultancy.