List of Astronauts By Year of Selection - 1966

1966

April 4 – NASA Group 5 – The Original 19 – USA

Vance Brand, John S. Bull, Gerald Carr, Charles Duke, Joseph Engle, Ronald Evans, Edward Givens, Fred Haise, James Irwin, Don Lind, Jack Lousma, Ken Mattingly, Bruce McCandless II, Edgar Mitchell, William Pogue, Stuart Roosa, Jack Swigert, Paul Weitz, Alfred Worden.

Note: This group – except John Bull, who left NASA due to a medical disqualification; Edward Givens, who died; Joseph Engle, who was bumped from Apollo 17 for Harrison Schmitt; and Bruce McCandless and Don Lind, who were candidates for one of the canceled Apollo flights – flew on all Apollo flights after Apollo 12. Fred Haise and Jack Swigert flew on Apollo 13, the latter replacing Ken Mattingly after he was scrubbed due to measles exposure although he later flew on Apollo 16. Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa both flew on Apollo 14 with Alan Shepard, while Alfred Worden and James Irwin flew with David Scott on Apollo 15. Charles Duke, who was CAPCOM for Apollo 11, flew on Apollo 16 with John Young and Mattingly, while Ron Evans served as Command Module Pilot with Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Apollo 17. Paul Weitz, Jack Lousma, Gerald Carr and William Pogue flew aboard Skylab while Vance Brand, a backup Skylab astronaut, flew aboard ASTP with Thomas Stafford and Deke Slayton in 1975. Joseph Engle and Fred Haise, in 1977, commanded crews on the Space Shuttle Enterprise landing tests, with Engle, Lousma, Mattingly, Brand, Weitz, Bruce McCandless, and Don Lind later flying actual Space Shuttle flights. Engle, with MOL transferee Richard H. Truly, would command the last all-rookie US spaceflight crew (STS-2) in November, 1981, as current NASA policy requires that the Shuttle commander be an experienced astronaut.

May 23 – Civilian Specialist Group 2 – USSR

Sergei Anokhin, Vladimir Bugrov, Gennadi Dolgopolov, Georgi Grechko, Valeri Kubasov, Oleg Makarov, Vladislav Volkov, Aleksei Yeliseyev

June 30 – USAF MOL Group 2 – USA

Karol Bobko, Robert Crippen, Gordon Fullerton, Henry Hartsfield, Robert Overmyer.

Note: This group was selected for training for the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. All transferred to NASA after the MOL program was canceled and all five flew on the Space Shuttle as pilot astronauts.