![]() ![]() Slayton ultimately chose Cernan and Evans, though support for assigning Cernan to Apollo 17 was not unanimous within NASA. Schmitt's selection to the Apollo 17 crew left NASA Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton with the question of who would fill the two other Apollo 17 slots: the rest of the Apollo 15 backup crew ( Dick Gordon and Vance Brand) or the Apollo 14 backup crew (except for Engle). NASA subsequently assigned Schmitt to Apollo 17 as the Lunar Module Pilot. The scientific community pressed NASA to assign a geologist, rather than a pilot with non-professional geological training, to an Apollo landing. In September 1970, Apollo 18 was cancelled. Harrison Schmitt, a professional geologist in addition to an astronaut, served on the backup crew of Apollo 15 and would be due to fly as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 18 as a result of the rotation. This put them in line to be prime crew of Apollo 17, as the Apollo program's crew rotation generally meant that a backup crew would fly as prime crew three missions later. In 1969, NASA announced that the backup crew of Apollo 14 would be Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and former X-15 pilot Joe Engle. ![]()
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