At the Lovells' Apollo 11 landing party, Pete Conrad jokingly congratulates Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Ken Mattingly for their "heroic" job as the Apollo 11 backup crew. While it's true that Lovell and Haise were indeed the backups for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, respectively, Mattingly was not an "official" member of the Apollo 11 backup crew; the backup Command Module Pilot for the mission was William A. "Bill" Anders. Mattingly did, however, train parallel with Anders for Apollo 11 as backup Command Module Pilot, because Anders was going to retire from NASA in August 1969 (Eagle landed on July 20, 1969). Had the mission been delayed for any reason, Anders would be unavailable and Mattingly would be elevated to primary backup.
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05-03-2025 alle ore 07:57