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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.
“Nevers”36 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-21 everything was operating, you still didn’t know everything in the spacecraft. So, there was the problem that you had to have the ground and you had to have the guidance in flight. And I think by early Gemini, we had worked out pretty well what the relationship was. It varied over time, but pretty much we had that thing behind us. And Gus—I flew the second Gemini spacecraft. So, I was involved in all—in a lot of the early ground testing of spacecraft at the plant and arguing with the engineers and all that kind of stuff. And before I ever got involved, Gus had sort of laid the groundwork with the McDonnell [Aircraft Corporation] people about what that spacecraft ought to do. It ought to be really controlled by the pilot. And so, we had an attitude controller. We had a translation controller. We had instruments that told us something about what we were doing and where we were going. And I think we were over that philosophical hump probably a year before Gemini ever flew. And then in flight, the relationship between the flight controllers and the airborne crew had to be much better, because we were maneuvering the spacecraft around now. In Mercury, you couldn’t maneuver. You could change its attitude but you couldn’t change its flight path. Gemini you could. So, now you had to have the guy in the spacecraft working with the guy on the ground to know what was going on and where they were going, where they were, and what they were going—what was going to happen. So, that worked out pretty well. As a matter of fact, I think if it hadn’t been for Gemini, flying Apollo would’ve been nigh on to impossible. WARD: I wanted to get into that. [Recorder turned off]. WARD: Jim, we were talking about the contributions of Gemini to Apollo and about the relationship of flight control teams and the astronaut corps. Was there a reluctance early on
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