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This is a NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project transcript of astronaut James A. McDivitt, interviewed by Doug Ward at Elk Lake, Michigan, on 29 June 1999. McDivitt talks about flying F-86s in Korea, test pilot work at Edwards, and his first class at the Aerospace Research Pilot School. He also covers turning down Dyna-soar, joining NASA in 1962 and learning to be an Apollo Program Manager. He describes the Change Board and says decisions were not second-guessed.
“Edwards Air Force Base”3 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-101 I think that was a good decision. Then every one of the big flights we had, we had a major problem, you know. My first effort as a Program Manager was Apollo 12, when we launched it and then it got struck by lightning twice. Then I had to decide whether it was okay to send it to the Moon or not. And I did. Then 13 was—it was probably the greatest spaceflight anybody has ever flown. And that worked out fine. Then—I think it was 14, we had solder balls flying around and sending “I’m going to shut off”—engine shut off signals to the engine. And in 15 we had a major problem. I don’t remember what they were. 16 we had the gimbal thing. And we were able to go forward with all of those except 13. And the philosophy that I used I think is important. Because I always thought when the guys are on the ground and we hadn’t launched anything, we had no investment of risk. So that it would be easy to stop. A little thing could go wrong, we could stop it. The only risk that we would have, we’d have another month on the pad if it was going to take another month, which did increase the risk. So, I was always weighing the risk that we had invested or the risks that we were going to get into, against the gain that we were going to have. Now if we’d launch and something happened, then I’d have to—if something went wrong, you already had the risk of the launch. So, I would be more aggressive on a individual problem. It’d be the same problem if we were airborne or on the ground. If we were airborne, I would go forward a lot more than I would have on the ground. And if we were at the Moon, where we’d made the risk of getting—taken the risk of getting there, I would be more aggressive in the decisions I made at the Moon than I would be back at the Earth. And if we were separated and were about to do the lunar landing or something like that, I would be more aggressive in the decisions I made there than if we were anyplace on the way.
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