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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 12-78 MCDIVITT: Yeah. I remember sitting down at the Cape with General [Samuel C.] Phillips, who was the [NASA Headquarters Apollo] Program Director, and somebody else, I don’t remember who it was, I think it was near the time that we were flying Apollo 10. And the subject came up that, if we landed Apollo 11 where we thought we were going to land it, where should we land Apollo 12? Nobody had ever focused on the second landing! And so, we started talking about that. And we already had this ALSEP [Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package] thing. It was being designed, but it wasn’t really included much in the Apollo Program. It was sort of being designed over here on the side. And the stuff that was going to go on the lunar surface and what we were going to do with it was sort of a big question mark. And so, as he and I were chatting about that—I was already the Deputy Program Manager, or whatever we called it, for Lunar Surface Exploration—he said, “You know, we’d better start figuring out how we’re going to do this stuff and what comes next!” And so, that’s—we really were sort of getting our wheels ground up, rotating. But up until Apollo 11, the mission was, as the President said, it was to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. And that didn’t say anything about science. WARD: So, it really was impressive the way that whole science program came together. MCDIVITT: Indeed. Yeah. The scientists really, as a group, were really good guys. And, you know, they knew what they wanted. Gene Shoemaker headed up most of the geology stuff, although there were a lot of individual principal investigators. Some of those guys were a pain in the neck once in a while; but by and large, they were a good group of guys, trying to get the job done. I remember we had one guy who was very outspoken about the dust problem on the Moon. How we were going to have 200 or 300 ft of dust. And after we
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