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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.
“Mission Control”9 pages
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project James A. McDivitt 29 June 1999 12-92 I must say, though, that probably the toughest press conference I ever did in my life was when we did the Apollo 13 press conference right after the explosion. And we had made a decision to—you know, they were on a non-free return trajectory. To put them back on a free return trajectory by doing a lunar module burn. I don’t think we’d done that yet. But we’d made the decision, so Chris and Sig [Sigurd A.] Sjoberg and I went out and did this press conference. It was right at that time I thought the probability of getting them back was pretty slim. I knew their wives and—I knew their wives and all their kids. And I knew they were watching. And I knew most of their parents. I knew they were watching. And I thought, “What am I going to say here? I’m not going to say anything that’s not the truth, but how do I say this?” I don’t know what I said, but apparently it was all right. I didn’t get into trouble. But anyway, that was a tough press conference. WARD: Brian Duff, whom I think you remember at the time— MCDIVITT: Oh yeah, I remember Brian well. WARD: —he passed away a few years ago— MCDIVITT: Did he? WARD: Yes. Yeah. MCDIVITT: Oh my God, I didn’t know that! Yeah. I used to run into Brian in Washington a lot. WARD: Yeah. Yeah, Brian died of cancer a year or so ago.
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