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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.
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-12 engineering jobs, engineering responsibilities. And those engineering responsibilities focused on Gemini and Apollo; so you had the same responsibility across both programs. Mine was guidance and navigation, so I looked after the computers, such as they were, in Gemini and the software programs. And then the same thing over in Apollo, all the guidance and navigation stuff—the telescopes, the computers, the software, etc., for the Astronaut Office. I wasn’t in charge of it for the Program Office, but it was the astronaut input to these things. WARD: What kind of a relationship did you guys have with the first group? MCDIVITT: At that time it was more of a—well, it’s really hard to explain. They were involved in what they were doing. Some of them had already flown. Al [Shepard] was sort of he was the head of the Office, as I recall. Maybe Deke [Donald K. Slayton] was; I don’t remember how it was at that time. But— WARD: They—Slayton and Shepard had both been removed from flight status weren’t they? MCDIVITT: No, I don’t think so. No. WARD: They were still on? MCDIVITT: Shepard hadn’t been. Slayton had. So, I guess Slayton was the head of the Astronaut Office, because it was very small in those days. John Glenn was involved in all of the hoopla after his flight, plus his attempt to run at political office, and he got hurt. And so, he was really kind of away from the thing. Although he was—he welcomed—he and Annie welcomed us all and invited us over to dinner and things like that. So, he made a real special
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