Why does Neil Armstrong get Apollo 11 command and not for exemple Pete Conrad who had more experience?

[razark]

8 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Just a week, and they still have occupations to stay busy.

Apollo lunar missions?  Yes.

Skylab?  Not quite as much. 

ISS, even less (and you can pay to get there as a tourist).

 

8 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Also ISS crew anyway will consist of random people. 

I have heard rumors of some incidents.  As I cannot speak to the veracity, I will not speculate further than pointing out that googling "nasa", "protocol", and "duct tape" brings up some interesting results.

[YNM]

I'd argue this is a very fine example that we always remember the firsts, but never those that came afterwards. Even if they did the same thing and more.

Spoiler

 

So I'd say it doesn't matter in the end - we went to the Moon and now we know the Moon a little bit better.

[KSK]

9 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

I dunno. 

From various sources, Armstrong-Aldrin-Collins were noticeably not as friendly with each other as other crews...  But they're often held out as proof that any three astronauts [in that era] could form a crew and successfully complete a flight.  All three have military backgrounds, and one of the things the military teaches you is how to submerge such differences (at least while on duty).  Then there's the intense competitiveness to get a flight, and a reluctance to do anything that might jeopardize that.  Etc... etc...  I dunno what standards to use to judge, as the situation is not a normal one.

I can’t speak to any personal military experience but everything else in there is consistent with what I’ve read. I just can’t see any of the astronauts of that era turning down a flight - especially a lunar flight. Quite aside from all the geopolitics around Apollo, for Armstrong at least, I think the chance to take the LM on its ultimate test flight would have been incentive enough.

If Armstrong or Collins had kicked up a real fuss about flying with Aldrin then I imagine it would have been a case of calling up the backup crew and then three mulchcanned careers.

[kerbiloid]

Afair, presumably Soyuz-21 mission was interrupted due to interpersonal frictions between the military commander and the civil engineer.
The commander was pressing too much, the engineer fell into depression.
All participants accused unknown chemicals in poisoning the station air and causing the crew member's sickness, so the next crew (Soyuz-24) has _ritually vented the station replacing the air.
It's strange, but no unknown chemicals were poisoning the station air during this flight.

Not every military person is compatible with the civil ones.

***

Afaik, once there was a fighting onboard, but with no details (some cosmonaut mentioned it on the radio).

Edited November 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[wumpus]

14 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Just a week, and they still have occupations to stay busy.

Also ISS crew anyway will consist of random people.

You might want to come to Washington DC and peek in the Apollo 11 capsule.  That is not a large area, and except for the brief period when they were in the LM and/or on the Lunar surface, all three were crammed in there.

I understand the ISS people get tired of only seeing the same five (or so) people, but there at least is a way to get "somewhere else".  In an Apollo spacecraft* you pretty much were next to two other astronauts for two extremely critical weeks.  There simply was no time to deal with friction.

* Micheal Collins was clear in "Holding the Fire" that only the Mercury program used "capsule", although that was a cockpit you barely fit inside [and only small astronauts were even considered]