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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.
“The Pentagon”3 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-107 Office, trying to make schedules and do a lot of this other stuff. So, I was spending all my spare time—all my spare working time—working sort of in the Program Office. I even got to the point where we were having difficulty one time getting a clock, a digital clock, that would do what I thought the astronauts needed; and so, I talked to Joe Shea about, “Why don’t I go design the clock and get the thing all approved and everything?” And “Be my guest.” So, I went up to someplace in Boston [Massachusetts] with the guys where there were clockmakers and figured out, you know, how we could get two or three more digits on this rotating clock, and came back and negotiated price with them. Came back and told the program control guys what the price was and what we wanted—needed to do, and told them what the specs were. And we got it done. So, I spent a lot of time doing program control, program management, the financial aspects of it, the scheduling part, and even some of the manufacturing parts. WARD: So, if I understand you correctly, what you’re really saying is that being an astronaut doesn’t automatically qualify you to be a manager. MCDIVITT: No. WARD: You have to—you’ve got to train yourself and have the instincts that would lead you in that direction. MCDIVITT: Yeah. A lot of my astronaut buddies were—have been criticized for not doing well in business. And you’ve got to remember that we were picked as pilots, not as businessmen. And sometimes you can be good at one and not at the other. And the same thing goes along with program management. You know, you can be a good pilot and not
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