Page "Gus Grissom" Paragraph 22

After the safe return of Gemini III, NASA announced new spacecraft would not be named.

Hence Gemini IV was not named American Eagle as planned.

The naming of spacecraft resumed in 1967 after managers found the Apollo flights needed a name for each of two flight elements, the command module and lunar module.

Lobbying by the astronauts and senior NASA administrators also had an effect.

Apollo 9 had the callsigns " Gumdrop " for the command module and " Spider " for the lunar module.

However, Wally Schirra had been prevented from naming his Apollo 7 spacecraft Phoenix in honor of Grissom's Apollo 1 crew since it was believed the average taxpayer would not take a " fire " metaphor as intended.