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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 12-106 WARD: Would it be correct to say that the Change Board was a mechanism that allowed the Program Manager to assure that important details didn’t slip by unnoticed, but that the Program at the same time didn’t get bogged down by things that were less important? MCDIVITT: Absolutely. The Deputy Program Managers took care of every detail. They were very—Owen Morris and Aaron Cohen are detail nuts. And they took care of all that little stuff. I had total confidence in them that nothing would slip by. But at the same token, I just couldn’t release the program to everybody making changes that weren’t coordinated. So, we had this other super board that took care of the meatier things. And I always had confidence that everything was there. Now you asked another question about, how did I get to be—how did I make that transition from astronaut to Program Manager. WARD: Yeah. MCDIVITT: Well, I’ve always been interested in business; and when I first got assigned to NASA I was busy just learning what space was. But then when I got assigned to the Gemini flight crew, I used to go up to all the program reviews at McDonnell. This wasn’t an astronaut job. I’d go up there and sit in on the discussions, review the contracts, see what the schedules were, how they were changing. Sit in on a lot of the manufacturing scheduling stuff. And even worked with them when they did the first incentive contract. We had a great, big three-dimensional model of performance versus dollars versus schedule. And so, I spent a lot of time doing that. Then when I took over my—the astronaut job of looking after Apollo, I spent a tremendous amount of time working with the contractors and working with the Program
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