JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
For Gemini, yes. Grissom wanted his Gemini spacecraft to be thought of as "unsinkable," (cf. his sunken and lately raised Liberty Bell 7) but NASA's public affairs office (PAO) wasn't amused. Only when Gus threatened to call it Titanic did the PAO agree to Molly Brown, but then persuaded NASA administration to end the practice for the remainder of Gemini. Since Grissom flew the lead ship in the Gemini program, that's why almost none of the Gemini missions flew memorably-named spacecraft.
The Mercury spacecraft had suitably dignified names so there wasn't any real need for NASA to step in.
The spacecraft names serve as radio call signs. By longstanding aviation tradition, the pilot names his aircraft and/or call sign and is given great latitude in doing so. So at NASA, spacecraft names were issued by the Astronaut Office, which was only slightly less in stature than the PAO. Remember, NASA is a bunch of squabbling directorates and centers. Internal power struggles abound.
Gemini used the mission designation as the radio call sign. As Apollo 9 first involved multiple spacecraft for a mission, the mission designation alone couldn't distinguish spacecraft that were under way separately. Hence each ship again had to have a separate call sign. Naturally the Astronaut Office lobbied the argument that pilots had always been free to choose their own radio call signs, so that's how they got NASA to relax its Gemini-era restrictions. The CMP would name the command module and the CDR and LMP would agree on a name for the lunar module.
The whimsical names the Apollo 9 gave their ships once again angered the PAO, but the Astronaut Office had negotiated a renewed carte blanche. The PAO beseeched the Apollo 10 crew to do better than Gumdrop and Spider, but didn't go far enough in articulating their expectations. What they wanted were politically correct names that would look good in the history books.
When the Astronaut Office first announced Charlie Brown and Snoopy, the PAO was again livid. However they had to admit that the Apollo 10 crew had improved over their predecessors, first by obtaining the proper legal licenses and approval from Charles Schulz, and second by choosing call signs that were at least crowd-pleasing if not historically solemn. When the PAO saw the enormous marketing success of the tie-in and the enthusiastic collaboration with Schulz, they knew when to shut up. It wasn't their idea of a proper name, but it fulfilled the PAO objectives probably better than any of their own ideas.
Nevertheless the PAO again went to NASA Administration and won increased say over radio call signs. While the crews would still be the creative origin, it was understood that the call signs would have to be more dignified in order to avoid another internal political mess.
It really came down to a question of culture clash. Pilots had always drawn call signs and aircraft names from whimsical, bawdy, irreverent, and personal sources. When my engineering workload is light, I go pal around an old B-17 named Short Bier. The nose art features a cartoon Hitler with his feet sticking out of a too-short coffin. Enola Gay is Col. Tibbits' mother. Glamorous Glennis was Yeager's girlfriend -- and he remarked that every ship that bore Glennis' name brought him back safely.
Combat pilots have some traditions and superstitions that aren't lightly trodden upon, so to tell a pilot he can't name his ship the way he wants to is going to rankle him. It's just not done. And historically the brass who approved those names had themselves risen from the rank and file, so they understood that a pilot's choice of call sign and ship name often had a deep significance that would improve his morale.
But NASA hired professional PR guys, journalism and marketing majors who didn't always understand or agree with those traditions. To them the Apollo spacecraft were not just bombers, fighters, or test planes being churned out by the thousands only to fade into obscurity. They were historic ships that would be mentioned in the same breath as the Mayflower, the RMS Queen Mary, and the USS Arizona. They had to have names worthy of their expected place in history. While history tolerates such famous ships as HMS Beagle and USS Shangri-La, NASA PAO felt that they had the opportunity to choose better names in anticipation of the fame that would be attached to them.
So the compromise was eventually reached that while the Astronaut Office would still have the privilege of naming the spacecraft, the names would be chosen not from the pilots' whimsy but from a more mainstream catalogue of good old American ship names and traditional astronomical names.
