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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 12-104 each Program Office—the Command Module Program Office under its Deputy Program Manager—we had Systems Managers. And they dealt then with contractors, under a loose system, or the people in NASA who looked after it. Some of them weren’t even at the Manned Spacecraft Center. And so, we had this very complicated management system. But I had only a few direct reports that I had to worry about. I had Aaron Cohen as the Command Module Program, Deputy Program Manager; Owen Morris as the Lunar Module; and anything that needed to be done within those programs, they were responsible for. And so, I had complete faith in what they did. Then I had this technical assistance over here, and I had some administrative assistance over here. A very simple thing for me to manage. Now there was a limited authority that they had, where they could do things by themselves. They could make recommendations; but the limited authority was such that they couldn’t authorize anything over $10,000. They couldn’t authorize anything which changed the weight of the vehicles. And they couldn’t authorize anything that changed the schedule. We took those kinds of things to an organization we called the Configuration Change Board or Configuration Control Board, which met every Friday afternoon at 1:00. Sometimes it went to Saturday morning at 1:00. Sometimes it went to 8:00 in the morning, and sometimes it was through in just a few hours. But every change that changed the schedule, changed the weight, or changed anything over $10,000 came through the Change Board. And at that Change Board we had a representative from North American; we had a representative from Grumman; and we had a representative from every major organization at the Manned Spacecraft Center. Safety, Engineering and Development, Flight Crew Operations, Flight Operations, Safety, all those people. And they sat on the Board. And we’d bring up an issue and we’d
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