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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.
“Mission Control”9 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-7 WARD: It sounds very similar to what was going on in Mercury at the same time, where spaceflight was being invented. MCDIVITT: Oh yeah! Yeah. Yeah. We were sort of inventing it in the academic sense. They were inventing it in the operational sense. But anyway, when I got all through with that, which was—I think it was about a six- or eight-month course, I went back to flight testing and had only been there a short time when Bob [Robert M.] White, who was the number one X-15 pilot in the Air Force, was going to leave. And the number two guy was going to move up, and they asked me if I’d like to become the new number two guy for the Air Force. Of course I jumped at that! And then the F-4 Program—Air Force F-4 Program—was going to start, and my boss called me in and told me I was going to be the project officer—project pilot on that. That was really a cushy, wonderful job. And about the same time, then, I—another one of my bosses called me in and said they’d like to have me—like to assign me to the Dyna-soar Program. Well, by then I knew enough about space that I thought, “Well, I better look into this a little bit more!” WARD: This might not last. MCDIVITT: Yes! So, I hopped in a T-33 and flew up to Boeing and spent about three or four days going through the plant, talking to the guys, and my conclusion was that the Dyna- soar Program would never fly. The spacecraft was wrong. They were trying to make it a military weapon system. It wasn’t. It was too heavy. There wasn’t a rocket that could lift it. And so, I went back and told my boss I really wasn’t interested in the Dyna-soar Program.
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