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
Curt Michel NASA scientist-astronaut in June 1965. He resigned from NASA in September 1969 without having being assigned to any spaceflight missions. Michel believed that it was his decision to resign, after it became clear that he would not be given a flight assignment, that motivated the scientific community to demand that his fellow scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt be reassigned to Apollo 17 after Schmitt's planned mission on Apollo 18 was cancelled. After his resignation from NASA, Michel returned to teaching and research at Rice, where he also served as chair of the space physics and astronomy department from 1974 to 1979. He