Apollo 17 backup crew of Apollo 14) would become prime crew of the mission. NASA Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton ultimately assigned the backup crew of Apollo 14 (Cernan and Evans), along with Schmitt, to the prime crew of Apollo 17. The Apollo 15 prime crew received the backup assignment since this was to be the last lunar mission and the backup crew would not rotate to another mission. However, when the Apollo 15 postage stamp incident became public in early 1972 the crew was reprimanded by NASA and the United States Air Force (they were active duty officers). Director
Fallen Astronaut upright. He also denies it was agreed he would remain anonymous. Both his and Scott's versions of events are given in an article in "Slate" magazine in 2013. During the Apollo 15 mission, near the completion of his work on the lunar surface on August 1, 1971, Scott secretly placed the "Fallen Astronaut" on the Moon, along with a plaque bearing the names of eight American astronauts and six Soviet cosmonauts who had died in service: Scott photographed the memorial, but waited for a post-mission press conference to publicly disclose its existence. Later, he noted that "Sadly, two names are