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All other SM's were silver except Apollo 6. I'm wondering what the justification for this was, if any?

Justin Braun
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    Possibly just for aesthetics! Wikipedia says “the SM was painted white to match the Command Module's appearance,” but it’s unclear what the source for that is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command/Service_Module#Service_Module – Russell Borogove Jun 01 '18 at 21:14
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    It may have been part of the reassembly between the SM and CM. The CM of CSM-14 was disassembled as part of the investigation for the Apollo 1 fire, and the SM was later reassembled with a different CM for Apollo 6 (After that SM was destroyed in an explosion!) – Josh King Jun 01 '18 at 22:29
  • All the Block I modules were painted white. Only the Skylab modules in Block II used white paint, because of the longer duration. – amI Nov 19 '18 at 08:21
  • @amI: Apollo 4 used a Block I CSM... with a silver SM. – Vikki Nov 22 '18 at 05:27
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    @Sean - I was wrong. The change came before block II. Apollo 6 SM was older (014) than Apollo 4 SM (017) because SM 020 was destroyed as noted above so Apollo 6 used the Apollo 1 SM. – amI Nov 22 '18 at 05:43
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    @aml what happened to SM 020? – Justin Braun Dec 23 '18 at 18:36
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    @JustinBraun it launched on Apollo 4: Based on this page it seems that SM-017 had the propellant tank failure (1966 Oct 25). This document confirms that and further states that Apollo 4 was CM-017/SM-020 and Apollo 6 was CM-020/SM-014; CM-014 was modified to CM-014A and used for a land test at MSC (Johnson Space Center, Houston); all these CM and SM are Block I. – Alex Hajnal Dec 25 '18 at 04:10
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    One section of the Wikipedia article mentioned above had errors; I've updated it with correct info for CMs and SMs -014, -017, and -020. – Alex Hajnal Dec 25 '18 at 04:41

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