NASA Astronaut Group 3 (nicknamed "The Fourteen") was a group of fourteen astronauts selected by NASA for the Gemini and Apollo programs. The Apollo spacecraft had a crew of three, so more astronauts were required. Their selection was announced in October 1963. Four died in training accidents before they could fly in space: Theodore Freeman, Charles Bassett and C. C. Williams in air crashes, and Roger Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. All of the surviving ten flew Apollo missions. Five also flew Gemini missions: David Scott, Gene Cernan, Michael Collins, Richard Gordon and Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin, Alan Bean, Cernan and Scott walked on the Moon, and Bill Anders, Collins and Gordon orbited the Moon but did not land. Seven were from the United States Air Force (Aldrin, Anders, Bassett, Collins, Donn Eisele, Freeman and Scott), four from the United States Navy (Bean, Cernan, Chaffee and Gordon), one (Williams) was from the United States Marine Corps, and two (Walter Cunningham and Rusty Schweickart) were selected as civilians, although both had prior military experience. Like the two groups before them, all members of the group were male and white. All were married except for Williams, who became the first bachelor astronaut. Group 3 was the first to waive the requirement that candidates have a test pilot background, with 1,000 hours of jet aircraft experience accepted as a substitute. This applied to Aldrin, Anders, Cernan, Chaffee, Cunningham and Schweickart; all the others were test pilots. On average, its members were younger, slightly taller and heavier than those of the previous two groups, and better educated. In preparation for flights to the Moon, the fourteen astronauts received scientific and technical classroom instruction. Field trips were conducted to teach them geology and train them in survival techniques.
Background The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. NASA created an American spaceflight project called Project Mercury, which aimed to send a person into space and then into orbit. The selection of the first astronauts, known as the "Original Seven" or "Mercury Seven", was announced on April 9, 1959. By 1961, NASA was confident that Project Mercury had overcome its initial setbacks, and that the United States had overtaken the Soviet Union as the most advanced nation in space technology. This confidence was shattered on April 12, 1961, when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth. In response, President John F. Kennedy announced a far more ambitious goal on May 25, 1961: to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. This already had a name: Project Apollo. On April 18, 1962, NASA formally announced that it was accepting applications for a second group of astronauts who would assist the Mercury astronauts with Project Mercury, and join them in flying two-person Project Gemini missions. Nine candidates, known as the "Next Nine", were selected, and their names were publicly announced on September 17, 1962. By May 1963, while there were enough astronauts for the needs of Project Gemini, the schedule for Project Apollo called for four crewed Earth-orbit missions launched by Saturn I rockets in 1965; between two and four launched by Saturn IB rockets in 1966; and six or more Earth-orbit and lunar-orbit missions launched by Saturn V rockets, commencing in 1967. On that schedule, the NASA Chief of the Astronaut Office, Mercury Seven astronaut Deke Slayton, could foresee a shortage of astronauts, although he doubted so many flights would actually be flown. By mid-1963, three Mercury Seven astronauts—Scott Carpenter (who was injured), John Glenn (who was retiring), and himself (an atrial fibrillation) —were no longer flying, so this left thirteen active astronauts. On that basis, he calculated an attrition rate of about ten percent per year. As the Apollo spacecraft had a crew of three and each mission required a prime and a backup crew, four missions per year would need 4 x 2 x 3 = 24 astronauts. On June 5, 1963, NASA announced that it would be recruiting another ten to fifteen new astronauts. Civilian applications had to be submitted by July 1, 1963; military ones were due by July 15, to give the services time to pre-screen their applicants.
Selection criteria Most of the criteria were unchanged from the previous selection, of the Next Nine: candidates had to be U.S. citizens, 6 feet (1.8 m) or less in height, with a degree in engineering or the physical or biological sciences, and recommended by their employer. There were two differences: the test-pilot qualification, while still preferred, was no longer a prerequisite, with 1,000 hours of jet-aircraft pilot time accepted as a substitute, and the maximum age was lowered by one year, so candidates had to be aged less than 34 on June 30, 1963.
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