The eagle flew away. Apollo canceled missions

The Apollo program, no matter how vivid it sounds, is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. The man first stepped onto the surface of another celestial body, but, unfortunately, did not linger there. Around the lunar program, passions have not subsided until now, starting from disputes whether it was necessary at all and whether it should be repeated now, and ending with the cry of the conspiracologists mournful with the mind. And if Neil Armstrong, and the Apollo 11 mission, is known to almost everyone, many of them do not even suspect of further lunar missions, much less of canceled ones.
Initially, the Apollo program, as stated during the Apollo 11 triumph, assumed 10 moon landings before the end of 1972, but at the end of 1969 they began to redraw the program, stretch it in time and squeeze it to scale. The roadmap has shifted, budgets have grown, and politicians voices sounded, that the goal presented to society about the “program for restoring national prestige” has been fulfilled, the country is facing an overproduction crisis and it is necessary to save. Nixon, unlike Kennedy, was not a dreamer, and the conflict in Vietnam occupied him much more. The Apollo 13 accident also played a significant role in this, although it turned from a tragedy into a miracle, it reminded that space is not a toy, and it’s deadly dangerous to tinker here.
And today I would like to tell you a little about the failed missions, unrealized plans and what the Apollo program ultimately gave.

Apollo - 20

According to the plan announced in July 1969, the site of landing of Apollo 20 was to be the crater of Copernicus in December 1972, but at the end of 1969 Copernicus was given to Apollo 19, and for the 20th Marius Hills or Tycho crater were offered.
In January 1970, the concept of the program was amended. It was decided to make one flight in half a year, and Apollo 20 from the program was removed and put on a distant regiment, even without drafting a research program, with vague promises for July 1974. Were frozen at the very beginning of the work on the construction of the lunar module, the command and service module and the launch vehicle were given to the Skylab program. The crew was also not officially announced, but according to the wandering rumors, this crew should have been Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz, Jack Lusma, contrary to the rotation principle introduced by the astronaut commander Donald Slayton, that the backup crew was flying two flights to the third, which meant that Moon trinity John Young, Stuart Roos and Charles Duke. Also, again according to rumors, candidates of Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Rusa were considered instead of Conrad as commander and Don Lind instead of Witz in the position of the pilot of the lunar module. The history of the subjunctive mood does not have, and now it is not known whose names were on the coveted list.

Apollo - 19

The initial landing site was the Gigin crater in July 1972. With the program replicated several times, the landing zone changed to the Copernicus crater, the date moved to December 1973. Noteworthy, this mission was that the basic geology training that all astronauts on the Moon were inadequate was planned prepare a pure selenologist.
After the accident at Apollo 13 in September 1970, the flight was canceled due to lack of funding.
Fred Haze, William Pogue and Gerald Carr (main crew) and Anthony England, Henry Hartsfield and Donald Peterson (backup crew) were supposed to get ready to fly on Apollo 19.
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Apollo - 18

Apollo 18 was supposed to be moored near the Schröter Valley in February 1972, later the start was shifted to July 1973, and the landing point was changed to the Gassendi crater . In September 1970, together with the cancellation of Apollo-19, it was decided to cancel Apollo-18 partially to shift its program for flights from 15 to 17, in particular, changing the status of the Apollo-15 mission from the H-mission (two days on the Moon with two exits on surface) on the J-mission (three days on the moon with three exits to the surface using the lunar rover). On the eve of the cancellation, astronaut-geologist Harrison Schmidt proposed to land Apollo 18 in the Tycho crater, in the Copernicus crater or on the far side of the Moon.
The Apollo 18 crew included astronauts Richard Gordon, Vance Brand and Harrison Schmitt (principal), and Joseph Allen, Karl Henitz and Robert Parker (backup).
Among those who prepared to fly on canceled programs, only Harrison Schmidt, who was included instead of John Engle in the Apollo 17 crew under the pressure of scientists, visited the Moon, because he was the only one in the detachment who had a geological formation. Also for three, a flight to the Moon could become the second: Richard Gordon used to fly Apollo 12, Fred Hayes on Apollo 13 and Stuart Roos on Apollo 14.

Unreached

Copernicus Crater (Landing Point - 9 ° 52` N, 19 ° 55` W.) {1} was a cherished dream of both engineers and selenologists. The crater was very difficult to land, and allowed to test the technique in conditions that will be relevant in the future, with the full development of the Moon. From the point of view of selenology - the crater was a real treasure. After a recent impact, rocks from a depth of several kilometers were raised to the surface, which made it possible to seriously advance the issue of the mechanism of formation of the moon.
The Tycho crater (40 ° 56 ′ S., 11 ° 15 ′ W. D.) Was also quite recently, by geological standards, exposed to impact, and it was also possible to collect materials related to planetary processes that took place hundreds of millions years ago. But, given the wild porridge formed after the impact, Copernicus still looked much more attractive in terms of selenology. The landing site was located close to the Surveyor-7 probe; it was supposed to take parts of the probe back to Earth to study the effect of lunar conditions on spacecraft materials after several years, as was already done once with the Apollo-12 expedition apparatus.
The hills of Marius (14 ° 36 'N, 56 ° 34` W.) located in the very center of the ocean of Storms were an open book of the history of lunar volcanic activity and allowed to determine when the last time the lunar magma came to the surface.
The Schröter Valley located in the crater of Aristarchus (26 ° 10 'N, 51 ° 35' W) and the crater Hyginus (7 ° 45 'N, 6 ° 16' E) were at one time a place of very strong volcanic activity, but at the same time, the crater Guigin is one of the few craters formed by volcanic, and not impact.
The Gassendi Crater (17 ° 30` S. 39 ° 58` W. e.), The former Apollo 17 landing was very remarkable in that it was partially filled with lava, only the crater shaft was visible above the surface.
The far side of the moon was, at that time, the goal rather strategic and status than scientific, and would hardly have agreed to it, but agree, it would be a historical flight that would stand on a par with Apollo-11.

What did Apollo give us?

The total cash savings after the program cut and the transfer of production and human resources to the Skylab program was $ 42.1 million, which is slightly less than the total billion-dollar project costs, and according to many involved people, it was not worth it. During the teleconference between Earth and Apollo 17, flying home, the last man on the moon, Eugene Cernan, said, "The end of the Apollon program is an abnormal containment of the human desire for knowledge," Schmidt added, That recovery will be a long process. ”
In September 1969, at the peak of the Lunar mission's success, a program was developed that includes the creation of a giant orbital base, first for 12 and then for 100 people, then it was planned to build a permanently inhabited base on the Moon, and then, having worked out all the elements - to fly to To mars.
During the expeditions, a unique experience was gained of flying to another space body and landing on its surface, astronauts learned how to work on the lunar surface, many conclusions were drawn about the possibility of organizing a residential base on its surface.
However, the Apollo flights revealed several serious flaws in the original concept, and as the program developed, they had to be addressed. The first and main problem was the underestimation of the abrasive properties of the lunar soil. Lunar rovers on the third day turned into a pile of scrap metal, dust clogged all the cracks and devoured all the mechanisms. In addition, the range of research seriously limited the attachment to the resources of the immobile lunar module, on which the suits in spacesuits depended and the charge of the lunar module batteries, but the spacesuits themselves, developed for lunar missions, proved to be from the best side.
Of course, stopping the Apollo program was a step backwards, but, like all the breakthroughs in the space program, it was flesh and blood of the Cold War. Without Sputnik-1 and Gagarin there would be no Apollo, there would not be much and much more. And the notorious strategic defense initiative, competition with which was one of the nails in the coffin of the USSR, would not exist. Several breakthroughs have so redefined our lives that it is impossible to imagine a world without cosmonautics. But those who depended on moving forward even further, preferred to play war games.
Now there is talk again about the flight to the moon, about Mars, about asteroids, but by and large, hope is only for China, which is bored with looking at the tigers fight in the valley and he slowly went on, for no one will be able to catch up and overtake him.

{one}. For the origin of coordinates on the moon took crater Msting A, near the center of the visible hemisphere. The coordinates of this crater are: 3 ° 12′43.2 ″ Yu. W, 5 ° 12′39.6 ″ h. d.