Apollo 9 in early 1969. However, LM problems again prevented it from being ready for the D mission by December, so NASA officials created another mission for Apollo 8 using the Saturn V to launch only the CSM on the first crewed flight to orbit the Moon, and the E mission was cancelled as unnecessary. Slayton asked McDivitt and Borman which mission they preferred to fly; McDivitt wanted to fly the LM, while Borman volunteered for the pioneering lunar flight. Therefore, Slayton swapped the crews, and McDivitt's crew flew Apollo 9. The crew swap also affected who would be the first crew
Apollo 1 Apollo 1 Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was the first manned mission of the United States Apollo program, the program to land the first men on the Moon. Planned as the first low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module with a crew, to launch on February 21, 1967, the mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the command module (CM).