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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 12-89 ended up playing 7 innings. They didn’t have any lights at the field. But Dick Gordon was our pitcher. He’d pitched for the University of Washington. He pitched the whole game. [Charles “Pete”] Conrad [Jr.] was the catcher. Conrad’s arm got so sore after a couple of innings, he was rolling the ball out! They went through—the North American guys went through a couple of Major League—ex-Major League pitchers. Anyway, at the end of 6 innings I think it was, they were only ahead by one run and it was getting dark. I figured we had a better chance in the dark than they did! So, the Vice President of Manufacturing wanted to stop the game. I said, “No, let’s play one more inning.” And we scored one run. We lost by a run. But the stands were, like, 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 people, who all came out to see us play this baseball game. And they were all North American employees. And they were— and you know, we were all out there as a team of people, working together to do what was the right thing. And you couldn’t do that today. I mean, you know, there are too damn many rules. You can’t have a cup of coffee, and, you know—so, you know, you guys work for NASA. I don’t. But I guess you don’t anymore either. But those are the rules. I think it was a terrible, terrible setback. Terrible setback. I got more done over a cup of coffee or a hamburger, talking to the engineers and stuff, than you could possibly get done in a meeting. I mean, we just—too bad we don’t do it like that anymore. I bet you that got you off the page. WARD: Yeah, it did. It really did! One thing I did want to ask you, it takes you back a ways, but you mentioned that we were going to have the hardware to do 20, 25 Apollo missions as opposed to the 17 we actually flew. Do you think that we could’ve maintained public and Congressional support for that many flights if we’d kept going with them?
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