I myself was rather bummed that 10 and 16 got the shaft. I understand the appeal of showing an episode about the astronaut wives. I just wish they hadn't reduced Apollo 16 to do it. Reducing Apollo 10 to something like twenty-six seconds (I counted) as an afterthough following Apollo 9 was a big mistake, I think, in an otherwise great series.
I don't think the "sandwich incident" hurt John's career in the long run (though it might've kept him from getting a second Gemini mission sooner). What DID affect his career was the Challenger disaster. Young was assigned to what would've been his seventh space mission and third shuttle mission deploying the Hubble telescope, which he was reportedly "excited as a kid" about. After the Challenger was destroyed, that mission was put on hold, however. A number of very candid memos on safety that John had written as Chief Astronaut to NASA management after the accident ended up being leaked to the press and didn't look too good for NASA. In John's defense, he always intended those memos to be internal only. Nevertheless, he ended up being "kicked upstairs" to a higher management position and never flew in space again, though he managed to remain on the list of active astronauts right up to his retirement in 2004.
John's one of the few Mercury/Gemini/Apollo-era astronauts who has not written a book or had a book written about him. Perhaps his appeal is how mysterious he is.
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