English: Video clip from this photo session:
James Burke - The Men Who Walked on the Moon (aired July 20th, 1979, on BBC1 for the 10th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing).
From the official NASA photo caption:
"A number of former NASA astronauts assemble for a 1978 reunion near the Johnson Space Center's Project Management Building."
Names of the Apollo astronauts are shown in this image. Mission numbers in white are those who walked on the Moon. Mission numbers in grey are those who flew to the Moon without landing. For those who flew twice, each mission is noted separately. Those who did not fly to the Moon have their mission numbers in black. People who acted as backup or support crew but never flew to space have their name in italics.
- The Apollo Program had 12 primary crews, with 32 astronauts (4 having flown twice).
-- This photo of 22 astronauts has 20 of those 32.
- 9 Apollo missions went to the Moon, with 24 astronauts (3 having gone twice).
-- This photo includes 17 of those 24.
- 6 of the Apollo Moon missions landed, with 12 astronauts becoming moonwalkers.
-- This photo includes 9 of those 12.
The complete crews from Apollo 11, 14 and 15 are present. Of the 29 astronauts who few on Apollo, missing from this photo are:
- Don Eisele (Apollo 7),
- Frank Borman (Apollo 8),
- Jim McDivitt (Apollo 9),
- John Young (Apollo 10 & 16),
- Alan Bean (Apollo 12),
- Fred Haise (Apollo 13),
- Jack Swigert (Apollo 13),
- TK Mattingly (Apollo 16), and
- Jack Schmitt (Apollo 17).
The Apollo 1 crew, which were killed on January 27, 1967 during a fire on the launchpad during a rehearsal test, are shown in the lower right on the Command Module which they perished inside of. Astronauts lost on this day were:
- Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom,
- Senior Pilot Ed White, and
- Pilot Roger B. Chaffee.
Astronauts who are in this photo but did not fly during the Apollo Moon Program are Gordon Cooper (Backup Commander for Apollo 10) and Bill Pogue (Skylab 4 crewmember, and also Support Crew for Apollo 7, 11 and 14).
This photo was taken on the steps in front of the Headquarters Building (Building 1) at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Many of these astronauts had left NASA and had moved away from Houston by 1978. They had gathered for an event organized by Chris Kraft, who was Center Director at JSC at the time, for briefings on the Space Shuttle Program. Several of the Apollo astronauts who are missing from this photo were active in the Shuttle Program and were perhaps involved with briefing preparations when this photo was taken. These include John Young (Chief of the Astronaut Office, CDR on STS-1 and STS-9), Fred Haise (CDR on ALT-1, ALT-3 and ALT-5), Alan Bean (Acting Chief of the Astronaut Office when John Young started training for STS-1), and TK Mattingly (CDR on STS-4 and STS-51C).
NASA photo ID: S78-34135 (also 116-KSC-78P-192).