Alan Shepard explosion caused the moon landing to be aborted and nearly resulted in the loss of the crew. It became a joke between Shepard and Lovell, who would offer to give Shepard back the mission each time they bumped into each other. The failure of Apollo 13 delayed Apollo 14 until 1971 so that modifications could be made to the spacecraft. The target of the Apollo 14 mission was switched to the Fra Mauro formation, the intended destination of Apollo 13. Shepard made his second space flight as Commander of Apollo 14 from January 31 to February 9, 1971. It was
Apollo 7 the mission successfully met its objectives to verify the Apollo command and service module's flight worthiness, allowing Apollo 8's flight to the Moon to proceed just two months later. Apollo 7 was Project Apollo's only human spaceflight mission to launch from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station's Launch Complex 34. All subsequent Apollo and Skylab spacecraft flights (including Apollo–Soyuz) were launched from Launch Complex 39 at the nearby Kennedy Space Center. Launch Complex 34 was declared redundant and decommissioned in 1969, making Apollo 7 the last human spaceflight mission to launch from the Cape Air Force Station in the 20th century.