Apollo 18 was a cancelled flight within the Apollo Program, which would have been the eighth attempted lunar landing. Description Role: Earth and Lunar Orbit Crew: 3; CDR, CM pilot, LM pilot Dimensions Height: 36. ...

Crew

The crew would probably have been:

• Richard Francis Gordon Jr. - commander
• Vance DeVoe Brand - Command Module Pilot
• Dr. Harrison Hagan (Jack) Schmitt - Lunar Module Pilot

However this was based on normal crew rotation and may have been subject to change. When Apollo 18 was cancelled, Schmitt was moved up to Apollo 17 under pressure from the scientific community. Schmitt, a geologist, became the only scientist and the twelfth man to walk on the Moon. Richard F. Gordon, Jr. ... Vance DeVoe Brand is a former NASA astronaut. ... Schmitts famous photograph of Earth taken from Apollo 17 as he travelled to the Moon Harrison Jack Schmitt (born July 3, 1935) is a geologist, astronaut, and senator. ... Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program, and was the sixth and last mission to date to land on the Moon. ...

Mission

On 2 September 1970, NASA announced it was cancelling what were to be the Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 missions. Apollo 15 was originally meant to be a H mission—like Apollo 12, 13 and 14. These cancellations meant that Apollo 15 became a J mission—three day stay on the moon with the lunar rover and that Apollo 18 would no longer be launched. September 2 is the 245th day of the year (246th in leap years). ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Apollo 12 was the sixth manned mission in the Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. ... Apollo 13 was an American space mission, part of the Apollo program. ... Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in the Apollo program and the third mission to land on the moon. ...

Being effectively cancelled at least two years before it would have launched, little detailed planning had happened for the mission. Before cancellation, (according to "NASA OMSF, Manned Space Flight Weekly Report - July 28, 1969.") Apollo 18 was scheduled to land on the Moon at Schroter's Valley in February 1972. Other NASA sources list the landing site as Copernicus or Gassendi craters, with a launch date in July 1973. Copernicus is a prominent lunar impact crater located on the eastern Oceanus Procellarum. ... Gassendi is a large lunar crater feature located at the northern edge of Mare Humorum. ...

Like Apollos 15, 16 and 17, Apollo 18 would have been a three day mission involving a lunar rover and a science platform on the Command Service Module. Apollo 15 was the ninth manned mission in the Apollo program and the fourth mission to land on the Moon. ... Apollo 16 was the tenth manned mission in the Apollo program and the fifth mission to land on the Moon. ... Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program, and was the sixth and last mission to date to land on the Moon. ...

Hardware

The Saturn V that would have been used for the mission was SA-513, of which the first two stages were used to launch the Skylab space station, with the third stage now on display at the Johnson Space Center. If instead Apollo 18 had used SA-514, this booster is now found in pieces around the United States. The first stage is at the Johnson Space Center and the second and third stages are at the Kennedy Space Center. The Apollo Command/Service Module that would have been used was CSM-114, which was used for the Apollo 17 mission. The Saturn V (popularly known as the Moon Rocket) was a multistage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by NASAs Apollo and Skylab programs. ... Americas first space station, the 75 metric ton Skylab, was in Earth orbit from 1973-1979, and visited by crews three times in 1973 and 1974. ... An aerial view of the complete Johnson Space Center facility in Houston, Texas in 1989. ... The S-IC was the first stage of the Saturn V rocket. ... The S-II was the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. ... The S-IVB was built by the Douglas Aircraft Company and served as the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB. It had one J-2 engine. ... Merritt Island and Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is the NASA space vehicle launch facility (spaceport) at Cape Canaveral on Merritt Island in Florida, United States. ... Description Role: Earth and Lunar Orbit Crew: 3; CDR, CM pilot, LM pilot Dimensions Height: 36. ... Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program, and was the sixth and last mission to date to land on the Moon. ...

See also

• Apollo 19
• Apollo 20

Apollo 19 was a cancelled flight within the Apollo Program. ... Apollo 20 was a cancelled flight within the Apollo Program. ...

External links

• Apollo 18 at the Encyclopedia Astronautica
• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Apollo 18 through 20 - The Cancelled Missions
• CM-115 on display at Johnson Space Center
• Complete flight hardware set on display at Johnson Space Center