In August 1968, in response to a report from the CIA that the Soviets were considering a lunar fly-by before the end of the year, Low proposed a bold solution to keep the Apollo program on track. Since the next Command/Service Module (CSM) (designated as "CSM-103") would be ready three months before LM-3, a CSM-only mission could be flown in December 1968. Instead of repeating the flight of Apollo 7, it could be sent to the Moon, entering lunar orbit before returning to Earth. This also meant that the medium Earth orbit mission could be dispensed with, keeping to the schedule for a lunar landing in mid-1969. With the change in mission for Apollo 8, Slayton asked McDivitt if he still wanted to fly it. McDivitt turned it down; his crew had spent a great deal of time preparing to test the LM, and that was what he still wanted to do. When Borman was asked the same question, he answered "yes" without any hesitation. Slayton then decided to swap the crews and spacecraft of the Apollo8 and9 missions.