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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.
“Jet Propulsion Laboratory”1 page
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-85 up the Shuttle Program because it was years late. It was billions and billions of dollars overrun. And they didn’t have the guts to go forward with a budget that dealt with shuttle! The same thing, they didn’t have a budget that went forward with the Skylab Program. And so, we got into some very, very heated arguments. And to the point where the Chief Financial Officer—I don’t know what the heck we called him in those days—from Engineering and Development came down to me in my first budget review and presented this budget to me of what was in Apollo and what was in the other things. And I wasn’t as stupid as he thought I was, and I said to—looked at it for about 15 minutes and finally I said, “Look, this is a total fabricated lie. Now take it back upstairs. I’m giving you one more chance. You take it back upstairs”—or downstairs, wherever it was—“and do an honest budget.” And he said, “Well, you know, [mumbles].” I said, “You’ve got one more chance.” And so, he says, “Okay.” So, he went. He came back a week or so later, presented another budget to me, and it was a lie also. I threw him out of my office and I said, “You are never, ever to come back into the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office again! You are an out-and-out liar!” And so, he left. And Max [Maxime A.] Faget [Director of Engineering and Development] called me and said, “You know, Jim, this is a budget.” I said, “Max, it’s a goddamn lie! And so, I won’t accept it.” And so, we had a big donnybrook over that, and finally I got back the Apollo budget. And so, we did that, you know. But it was unfortunate that we had to go through all this other really deception. You know, when the guy I think that probably is most responsible for the whole space program is a guy named Jim [James E.] Webb, who was totally disliked by almost all the astronauts because he asked them to do politically correct things, like going to the Raspberry Festival and talking to Senator So-and-so. But if it hadn’t been for Jim Webb and his approach to spaceflight, there would’ve never been a space
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