Apollo 15 went unused, due to the explosion that damaged the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Apollo 14's CMP, Stu Roosa, was enthusiastic about geology, but the mission commander, Alan Shepard, less so. Scott, once assigned as Apollo 15 commander, was determined that his crew bring back the maximum amount of scientific data possible, and met with Silver in April 1970 to begin planning the geological training. The assignment of Schmitt as Apollo 15's backup LMP made him an insider, and allowed him to spark competition between the prime and backup crews. The cancellation of two Apollo missions in September 1970 transformed Apollo 15
Apollo program That was one of the biggest investment of the US in science, research and development, and employed thousands of American scientists. A single Saturn V launch in 1969 cost up to $375 million, compared to the National Science Foundation's fiscal year 1970 budget of $440 million. In 2009, NASA held a symposium on project costs which presented an estimate of the Apollo program costs in 2005 dollars as roughly $170 billion ($ in dollars). This included all research and development costs; the procurement of 15 Saturn V rockets, 16 command and service modules, 12 lunar modules, plus program support and