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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 12-44 to make a judgment, and flying airplanes keeps that sharpness I think, when that’s what you need to do. When it happens, you’ve got to decide right then what you’re going to do. WARD: And of course, the event we’re talking was ignition of the engines without liftoff and the fear that the vehicle might have lifted off a few inches and set back down— MCDIVITT: Yeah. Yeah. Fallen back down. WARD: —and exploded. MCDIVITT: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t like heights. And on Gemini IV, they couldn’t get the umbilical tower down. It was pivoted at the bottom; and instead of moving back like this, it laid down like that [gestures]. And it would go down partway and then it would stop. And then they would bring it back up, and I could—and if you’re looking straight up, through the window, and I could see it over the back of my head I could see what was left of the White Room, which was a big U-shaped thing that would come up around the rocket. And if this were the rocket and this U-shaped thing were coming up like this, it was coming up sideways like that [gestures], where it was going to hit the spacecraft. And right at the last second, it would jump over and do this [gestures]. Then I had visions of this thing coming up and hitting the spacecraft and us tumbling off! I don’t think that ejection seat would’ve worked then! I sure got tired of that! It did give us an opportunity, though, to sit there for a while. As a matter of fact, Ed and I both fell asleep up on top of the rocket. And they finally had to wake us up and ask us if we’d like to talk to our wives. We had a chance to talk to our wives from the spacecraft just before launch, while they were fiddling around, getting that thing down.
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