Canceled Apollo missions wasn't going to have a flight for him". Another lunar landing was lost in April 1970 when Apollo 13 had its in-flight failure, and the Fra Mauro landing site was reassigned to Apollo 14. Then on September 2, 1970, NASA announced it was canceling the H4 and J4 missions, due to more budget cuts. Skylab was also pushed out to 1973, and the final landing schedule became: At the time, 35 of NASA's 49 active astronauts were waiting for a chance for a mission. In the closing days of the program, Apollo 17 LMP Harrison Schmitt aggressively lobbied for a
Apollo program home one evening, early in 1960, because he felt "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program." In July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with a "mission module" cabin separate from the "command module" (piloting and reentry cabin), and a "propulsion and equipment module". On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, three study contracts were awarded to General Dynamics/Convair, General