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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 12-41 except Gus and John Young, who landed and sat up vertically in the spacecraft the same way we would. But they only flew a four and a half hour flight, and we were going to fly over a four-day flight. And the medical profession was concerned about whether you could pump blood from your heart to your brain, a distance of that far when you’re vertical as opposed to a distance of about that far [gestures] when you’re lying on your back. And so, we had a lot of medical input that we didn’t need about, oh, “They’re going to die.” “Maybe we ought to put them in the spacecraft and let them sit there for four days and nights in the simulator, four days and nights, to see if we can separate the effect of confinement and the effect of weightlessness,” and a whole bunch of junk like that. Well, we would have died sitting in the simulator for four days because it—the seats weren’t vertical. They were tilted like this [gestures]. So, one of us would have been like that; and the other one like this [gestures]. And it wouldn’t have proved a thing anyway. But fortunately, Chuck [Dr. Charles A.] Berry, the NASA physician, and some of the cooler heads prevailed; and we just went ahead and flew. I do remember when we landed. We hit the water and we checked around for leaks. And I said to Ed, “How are you feeling?” He says, “I’m feeling great. How are you feeling?” “I’m feeling great, too. Guess we aren’t going to die!” As a matter of fact, the one concession that NASA made to these medical nitwits was to try to show us how to put our head down between our legs. Because that way we’d get our head below our heart, and blood would flow to our brain normally. So, we went through the motions of trying to learn how to our head down between our legs. But the fact is that the instrument panel was about here [gestures]. And one would have had to have a joint about here and another one here and another one here [points] to get
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