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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.
“Headquarters”6 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-83 the program were—would have easily accepted, this sounds kind of hard but would have easily accepted a loss of a crew and still continued on with the program because I think when we all got into it, we expected something like that. It never occurred except for the fire, but I know I personally expected a lot of failures, maybe losing crews, along the way. And if you didn’t think that was going to happen, you shouldn’t even have been in the program. So, it was really unfortunate that we didn’t continue on. I think we could have gained really great scientific knowledge up through 25. I mean, you look at a face—look at the picture of the Moon and there’s a few little dots on it. That’s hardly—just think what that would have looked like if we had two times that many, or even more than two times that many, which would have been easy to do. WARD: And so, what you’re saying is that: the public perception today that the Apollo Program was curtailed at the point it was because Congress cut the funding really isn’t the total story. MCDIVITT: No. I don’t think so at all. I think it was a lack of drive on the part of NASA management and a concern over killing somebody. WARD: And the damage— MCDIVITT: It shouldn’t have been a concern, because that should have been a concern the whole way through. WARD: So, you think the desire to get on with the Shuttle Program and Space Station were factors?
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