The Apollo program was initiated as a response to President Kennedy’s challenge of landing humans on the moon and was NASA’s largest project, both in terms of personnel and resources.
Apollo spacecraft consisted of a command module, service module and lunar module; three missions had to be cancelled but enough hardware remained for nine more missions.
1. Apollo 11
NASA initially had planned a few more missions after Apollo 11 reached the moon in 1969, including Apollo 20. Unfortunately, due to government funding cuts, several of the more distant missions had to be cancelled and their hardware placed as museum exhibits instead.
After Apollo 11, US public opinion no longer supported manned space exploration as a national priority and were no longer willing to fund billions spent putting men on the moon.
Time Magazine published an expose featuring NASA administrator James Webb and astronaut Robert Holmes protesting about delays to their program, with Holmes suggesting that, under current plans, landing would not occur until 1971.
2. Apollo 13
Since Apollo 11, the US government no longer saw a need to invest heavily in technological and research-based missions; they instead focused on revitalizing the space race and winning it to reach the Moon first.
Apollo 13’s mechanical failure in April 1970 sent shockwaves through society and sent President Nixon reeling, since he had heavily associated himself with its success and worried a repeat catastrophe would undermine his re-election hopes.
Due to their extreme caution, NASA managers were forced to scrap three remaining Apollo flights: 17, 19 and 20. Their hardware was then reused on Skylab missions instead.
Apollo 13’s men were able to safely return home thanks to an impressive team effort that included teamwork, attitude and perseverance from every member of their crew. These lessons from Apollo 13 helped shape modern space travel; join Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise at Space Center Houston for a special discussion about Apollo 13. Register today!
3. Apollo 15
After Apollo 11 and 13’s failure, public interest in seeing humans land on the moon began waning and Congress started cutting funding for NASA, leading them to cancel Apollos 18, 19 and 20.
NASA officials decided to cancel these missions despite having constructed the Saturn V rockets and Command/Service Modules needed for these flights in order to save money, believing their scientific objectives weren’t worth incurring the extra expense of sending humans to the moon.
Original plans called for CDR Dick Gordon, CMP Vance Brand and LMP Harrison “Jack” Schmitt to make up Apollo 18; instead he was promoted to Apollo 17, scheduled for February 1972 and would study lunar linear rilles and craters including Hyginus; it marked the inaugural ‘J-class’ mission which allowed astronauts to spend three full lunar days, providing significant improvements over earlier missions with only three-day stays on the lunar surface.
4. Apollo 16
Once the first lunar landing had taken place, public support for the program declined significantly. Research and technological exploration no longer received as high a priority from US governments.
Dreier used official budget submissions to Congress and actual NASA spending data as well as numerous documents to calculate the costs associated with each Apollo mission, and adjusted them for inflation; ultimately settling on a cost estimate of $42 million which took into account prices such as coal and steel at that time.
For Apollo 16, the Site Selection Board chose a site in the moon’s highlands. They believed these geologic units – which covered more than five times more area than mare regions – could contain volcanic rocks which provided insight into billions of years of lunar evolution.
Harrison Schmitt lobbying NASA officials to consider an ambitious goal involving landing astronauts on the far side of Tsiolkovsky crater of the Moon’s far side – this would require special communication satellites to keep in radio contact with them while on this side – however NASA administrators rejected his proposal as too costly and risky.
5. Apollo 17
Once Armstrong and Aldrin made history by setting foot on the Moon in 1969, Congress and presidential administrations started cutting NASA budgets as lunar exploration became less of an imperative to either beat back Soviet aggression or advance scientific understanding.
Eugene Cernan knew it would be tough going when Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan returned from the moon in 1972, knowing lean times lay ahead. Previously he had been part of Apollo 13, which had narrowly avoided disaster through creative engineering workarounds and was dramatized in the film “Apollo 13.” Ron Evans served as his command module pilot while Harrison Schmitt – an aspiring scientist selected into NASA’s astronaut program in 1965 as its lunar module pilot – became a lunar module pilot instead of fighter pilot or navigator training.
Apollo 18 had planned to visit the Marius Hills, an extraordinary group of gently-sloping volcanic domes unique in our solar system. Additionally, Schroter’s Valley might also have been visited due to its geologic significance.
6. Apollo 18
After Apollo 11, public interest in space had declined significantly due to changing political conditions resulting from Vietnam War, race tensions, and politicians that saw space programs as wastes of resources that should have been spent elsewhere – with some advocating their dismantlement as spending would instead go towards social programs instead of space exploration.
As public interest in space declined, Congress cut NASA’s budget. NASA eventually had to cancel remaining Apollo missions that had been scheduled – first the original Apollo 15 was cancelled in January 1970 and in September both missions 19 and 20 were scrapped; their launch hardware being utilized instead to launch Skylab into Earth orbit.
Apollo 15’s original mission plan called for it to land at Hyginus Rille to study lunar linear rilles and craters, with crew consisting of CDR Fred Haise, CMP Bill Pogue and LMP Jerry Carr all going on to pilot Space Shuttle Enterprise approach and landing test flights. Schmitt had wanted the mission to be more ambitious; she wanted it to visit Tycho or even Tycho’s far side; cancellation of such missions saved NASA $42 million.
7. Apollo 19
As soon as Apollo 11 put men on the moon, public support for space programs began to diminish due to various factors, including rising racial tensions in America, Vietnam War and unscrupulous politicians’ attempts at portraying space exploration as wasteful expenditure of funds that should instead go toward social welfare initiatives.
As the space race drew to an end, NASA officials found it increasingly challenging to justify additional lunar landing expenses. Even after Apollo 13’s disaster, public opinion surveys indicated that less than half of American thought the expense associated with landing on the moon was worth it.
As a result, three remaining lunar missions–Apollo 18, 19 and 20–were cancelled to save $42 million for NASA. These three Apollo missions had planned to explore Marius Hills (a cluster of lava domes on the lunar surface), Schroter’s Valley (a lunar linear rille finalist for J mission), Harrison Schmitt as mission geologist/CMP pilot; Vance Brand operating suite of instruments from lunar orbit.
8. Apollo 20
NASA planned on continuing manned lunar landings after Apollo 11, with plans to complete Apollo 20. Hardware had been constructed, while trained astronauts had been selected. Unfortunately, budget restrictions prevented further landing attempts – museum exhibits ended up becoming museum pieces while Apollo 13 used their spacecraft that would have made contact as a “lifeboat”.
If this mission had gone ahead, Commander Richard Gordon and Lunar Module Pilot Vance Brand would have led an expedition into Copernicus Crater for their inaugural lunar rover expedition aimed at high impact areas to test Galileo’s theory that objects falling without air resistance fall at an equal rate.
At the urging of scientists, geologist Harrison Schmitt was moved up from Apollo 18’s original schedule for Apollo 17. If on that flight instead he had become part of Apollo 17, it may have marked his final flight as an Apollo scientist.