Apollo 18, 19, and 20 (Encore)

Decline

After the monumental success of Apollo 11, public and governmental interest in moon missions waned significantly. Gary Arndt explains that while Apollo 12 was successful, its broken TV camera and reduced media coverage marked the beginning of declining enthusiasm. By January 1970, Congress made its first cut to the Apollo program, canceling Apollo 20 to allocate resources to Skylab, America's first space station 1.

Once the race to the moon was won, interest in further moon flights decreased dramatically.

--- Gary Arndt

This trend continued, leading to the cancellation of Apollo 18 and 19 in September 1970, as attention shifted towards the upcoming space shuttle program 2.

   

Reassignments

The cancellation of Apollo 18, 19, and 20 led to a reshuffling of astronauts and missions. Gary Arndt notes that Stuart Roosa, originally slated for Apollo 20, became the command module pilot for Apollo 14, while Jack Lausima and Don Lind were reassigned to Skylab and the space shuttle program, respectively 1.

All of the astronauts who were scheduled to fly on the cancelled missions eventually went into space on either another Apollo mission, Skylab, or the space shuttle.

--- Gary Arndt

Harrison Schmidt, the only scientist in the astronaut corps, was moved from Apollo 18 to Apollo 17, which became the last Apollo mission 1.