Apollo 8 yet ready to make its first flight. Astronaut Jim McDivitt's crew, who were training to fly the first lunar module flight in low Earth orbit, became the crew for the Apollo 9 mission, and Borman's crew were moved to the Apollo 8 mission. This left Borman's crew with two to three months' less training and preparation time than originally planned, and replaced the planned lunar module training with translunar navigation training. Apollo 8 took 68 hours (almost three days) to travel the distance to the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times over the course of 20 hours, during
Apollo 16 the back-up crew for Apollo 13, who had caught it from one of his children. He never contracted the illness, but was nevertheless removed from the crew and replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert, three days before the launch. Young, a captain in the United States Navy, had flown on three spaceflights prior to Apollo 16: Gemini 3, Gemini 10 and Apollo 10, which orbited the Moon. One of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966, Duke had never flown in space before Apollo 16. He served on the support crew of Apollo 10 and was a Capsule Communicator