Canceled Apollo missions planning their own circumlunar flight for December to upstage the Americans once again (see Zond program). McDivitt's crew—who had grown accustomed to working with LM-3 and preparing for its flight—was kept on the D mission which now became Apollo 9, while Borman's crew would fly the CSM lunar orbit mission on Apollo 8, and the E mission was canceled. The swap of crews was also decisive in who would be the first man to walk on the Moon. Pete Conrad was backup Commander for McDivitt's crew, and by the process of crew rotation, would have been in line for Commander
Apollo Applications Program the crew. The "Apollo Manned Survey Mission" proposed an Earth-observation science module also based on the LM ascent stage, and would also have been launched using a S-IVB vehicle into a high-inclination orbit. It was also proposed that a surplus Saturn V would launch a manned lunar survey mission to establish suitable sites for later manned landings. The wet workshop space station concept provided for a low-budget Earth orbiting station. The original plan, as proposed by Wernher von Braun, used the S-II stage as the primary structure of the station, with the area normally filled by the S-IVB stage replaced