Apollo 11 as CMP, and Haise as LMP. Anders had flown with Lovell on Apollo 8. In early 1969, he accepted a job with the National Aeronautics and Space Council effective August 1969, and announced that he would retire as an astronaut at that time. Ken Mattingly was moved from the support crew into parallel training with Anders as backup CMP in case Apollo 11 was delayed past its intended July launch date, at which point Anders would be unavailable. Lovell, Haise, and Mattingly were later assigned as the prime crew of Apollo 13. During Projects Mercury and Gemini, each mission had
Apollo 15 operations on the Lunar surface inside it to sample, but found most of the rocks to be too large. Mission Control called up and said they would like the crew to dig a trench to study the soil mechanics and take a core sample. Irwin dug the trench, which Scott photographed. Then the core sample was taken from inside the crater. Returning to the Rover, they drove 650 ft (200 m) to a large boulder. Even walking short distances on the slope was time consuming so it was easier to just have the crew use the Rover to get there. The boulder was 10 ft