James A. McDivitt oral history (Doug Ward)

Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt
29 June 1999 12-43
WARD: Jim, we were talking about the inability to design Gemini to land on land. The fact
that we stuck with the water-landing system. That also, as I recall, led to another change; and
that was the addition of ejection seats. What was the—
MCDIVITT: Yes. Actually, I think the ejection seats were in there all the time. We had to
have some way to get out on the pad. And Mercury had an escape tower tied on to the
spacecraft, so that if the rocket was going to blow up you could move one of the handles and
it would blow the spacecraft—separate the spacecraft from the rocket. And this escape
rocket on top would pull it up to a few thousand feet, fall off, parachutes would come out,
and you’d land.
In Gemini, because we had all these other things, we ended up with no escape tower;
and we had ejection seats in it because of the airplane-like characteristics of it. Which meant
that, on the pad, you ejected. If you wanted to get out, you didn’t—the whole spacecraft
didn’t get taken up in the air a few thousand feet. You just ejected sideways, right out of
there at 200 feet, or whatever it was. And the theory was that it was going to come out—you
were going to come out, the parachute would open up, and you’d kind of hit the ground.
Fortunately, we never had to try that!
WARD: Do you think the nature of the ejection system might’ve had as much to do with
Wally Schirra’s cool decision to sit on the pad [during the Gemini VI-A launch abort] as
anything? Just the reluctance to use it?
MCDIVITT: No, I don’t think I would’ve liked to use an escape tower either! No, I think that
was just good judgment. I mean, you had to make the best judgment you could. It goes back
to flying airplanes, like I mentioned. You know, you sometimes you just have a split-second