Vance Brand was one of the 19 pilot astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. He initially was a crew member in the thermal vacuum chamber testing of the prototype Command Module 2TV-1 and support crewman on Apollo 8 and 13. Later he was backup command module pilot for Apollo 15 and backup commander for Skylabs 3 and 4. As an astronaut he held management positions relating to spacecraft development, acquisition, flight safety and missions operations. He got to finally fly an Apollo spacecraft on the final mission, Apollo-Soyuz in 1975.
Vance stayed on with NASA, eventually becoming a three-time Space shuttle commander, on STS-5, STS 41-B, and STS-35. Brand departed the Astronaut Office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. in September 1994, he moved to California to become Assistant Chief of Flight Operations at the Dryden Flight Research Center, then Acting Chief Engineer, Deputy Director for Aerospace Projects and finally Acting Associate Center Director for Programs. Brand retired from NASA in January 2008.