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David Scott
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===Postal covers incident=== {{Main|Apollo 15 postal covers incident}} [[File:Apollo 15 Flown Cover.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A rectangle with the headline "An Apollo 15 Flown Lunar Postal Cover" with a logo in the middle. Below it are two smaller frames. One has some text certifying that what was below was flown to the Moon and back, signed by flight commander David Scott. Below it is an envelope with stamps, logos and, postmarks.|One of the covers that were taken to the lunar surface]] The crew had arranged with a friend named Horst Eiermann to carry postal covers to the Moon in exchange for about $7,000 for each astronaut.{{sfn|Faries|p=28}} Slayton had issued regulations that personal items taken in spacecraft must be listed for his approval;{{sfn|Fletcher July 27, 1972, letter|p=3}} which was not done for the covers.{{sfn|Fletcher July 27, 1972, letter|pp=1, 7β9}} Scott carried the covers into the CM in his spacesuit; they were transferred to the LM en route to the Moon and landed there with the astronauts.{{sfn|August 3, 1972, hearing|pp=107β109}} Scott sent 100 of them to Eiermann, and in late 1971, against the astronauts' wishes, the covers were offered for sale by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger.{{sfn|Faries|pp=28β29}} The astronauts returned the money,{{sfn|August 3, 1972, hearing|p=77}} but in April 1972, Slayton learned of the unauthorized covers{{sfn|August 3, 1972, hearing|pp=62β63}} and had Scott, Worden, and Irwin removed as backup crew members for [[Apollo 17]]. The matter became public in June 1972,{{sfn|Faries|p=29}} and the astronauts were reprimanded for poor judgment by NASA and the Air Force the following month.{{sfn|Chaikin|p=497}}{{sfn|August 3, 1972, hearing|pp=75β76}} The covers that the crew still had were initially impounded by NASA but were in 1983 returned to the astronauts in an out-of-court settlement, as the government felt it could not successfully defend the lawsuit, and that NASA either authorized the covers to be flown or was aware of them.<ref>{{cite news|title=U.S. Returns Stamps to Former Astronauts|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/us-returns-stamps-to-former-astronauts.html|date=July 30, 1983|page=11|access-date=April 29, 2019|archive-date=June 22, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622172049/https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/30/us/us-returns-stamps-to-former-astronauts.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The press release that announced the reprimands, dated July 11, 1972, stated that the astronauts' "actions will be given due consideration in their selection for future assignment",<ref>{{cite press release|title=Apollo 15 Stamps|publisher=NASA|date=July 11, 1972|url=https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/83124main_1972.pdf|access-date=February 22, 2019|archive-date=February 25, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225161721/https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/83124main_1972.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> something that made it extremely unlikely that they would be selected to fly in space again.<ref>{{cite news|last=Marsh|first=Al|title=Astronauts 'Canceled' for 'Stamp Deal'|newspaper=[[Florida Today|Today]]|date=July 12, 1972|pages=12β13}}</ref> ''[[Newsweek]]'' reported that "there are no forthcoming missions for which he [Scott] is being considered".<ref>{{cite news|title=Postmark: The Moon|newspaper=[[Newsweek]]|date=July 24, 1972|page=74}}</ref> Scott related in his autobiography that [[Alan Shepard]], then head of the [[Astronaut Office]], had offered him the choice between backing up Apollo{{nbs}}17 or serving as a special assistant on the [[Apollo-Soyuz Test Project]], the first joint mission with the Soviet Union; Scott had chosen the latter.{{sfn|Scott & Leonov|p=327}} Although a NASA spokesman had stated that Scott had no choice but to leave the Astronaut Corps, and this was reproduced in the press, Slayton's supervisor, [[Christopher C. Kraft]], stated that the Public Affairs Office at NASA had erred, and the transfer was not a further rebuke.{{sfn|August 3, 1972, hearing|pp=158β160}}
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