On the subject of facing rearwards. I witnessed the CO of a VGS doing the same thing in a Barge on the last day of Conventional ops before the VGS converted to the Venture.
The Seat back and parachute tray? were removed and his legs (carefully) inserted into the fuselage before the harness was fixed together behind his back.
He was strangely rather subdued after landing and only much later revealed why. He had never realised just how much the fuselage bent during launch until he saw it on that flight.
I've also heard on many occasions stories of crews changing places in flight. Reasonbly easy I suppose for the Barge but these stories also mention it being done in the Mk III brick, anyone else heard of it / seen it / done it?.