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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 12-90 MCDIVITT: I think the news media interest was waning as we got deeper into the program. And could we have done 25 lunar-landing flights? I think we could have. We’re doing shuttle flights today, which are a hell of a lot less exciting than landing on the Moon. But still, you know, the enthusiasm for spaceflight in the United States today has waned a lot. And a lot of people don’t even know when there’s a flight up there, including me sometimes. So, it’s—you don’t have this “wow!” enthusiasm that we had early on. I remember on Apollo 14 I think it was, after the fire, Apollo 14’s on its way to the Moon; and they’re having trouble docking the command module back on the lunar module when the lunar module’s still in the S-IVB. They’re on translunar flight. And we had live TV of this stuff, and you could see the—I’m sitting down at the Launch Control Center, and you can see the probe come in and bounce around the drogue. And it’s coming down a live feed. And I’m looking at the three big channels. There’s a golf match on one, there was a baseball game on the other, and there was a soap opera on the other one. And nobody was getting this live feed of us possibly losing an Apollo mission. And when I saw that, I— “Um-hmm, I think the bloom’s off the rose!” But we went ahead and flew—I’m quite sure that was 14. Because 15, 16, 17, you know, we were still doing it. And I think that we could’ve done it. WARD: Maybe it’s a mistake to equate public interest with public support. MCDIVITT: Yeah. I think—well, no. I think it’s a mistake to equate press interest with public support. You know, public interest can be significantly different than press interest. You know, it—the press wants sensationalism. If it’s not blowing up or dying or something else like that, it’s—sometimes they lose it.
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