James McDivitt

• 1. Introduction

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  James McDivitt flew his 145th combat mission in Korea two hours after the armistice was signed. The war was technically over. He flew anyway. That timing captures something essential about the man. He was not someone who stopped mid-task.

  His career stretched from fighter jets over Korea to the corridors of NASA management. McDivitt commanded two of the program's most pivotal missions. He also found himself at the center of a quiet crisis that eventually pushed him out of the agency he had served for a decade. How a boy from Kalamazoo, Michigan, became one of the essential figures of the Apollo era is not immediately obvious. The journey began far from any launch pad.

• 2. Kalamazoo to the Cockpit

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  James Alton McDivitt Jr. was born on the 10th of June 1929 in Chicago, Illinois, to Margaret Mary and James Alton McDivitt Sr. The family settled in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he earned the Boy Scouts rank of Tenderfoot Scout. He graduated from Kalamazoo Central High School in 1947. Rather than go directly to college, he worked for a year to save money for tuition. He attended Jackson Junior College in Jackson, Michigan, from 1948 to 1950.

  In January 1951, McDivitt joined the Air Force as a private. He chose to enlist rather than wait to be drafted by the Army. In training, he was the first in his class to make a solo flight. He received his pilot wings and a commission as second lieutenant in May 1952 at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona.

  McDivitt flew with the 35th Fighter-Bomber Squadron in Korea, piloting F-80 Shooting Stars and F-86 Sabres. He earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses for his service. Returning to the United States in September 1953, he joined the 19th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Dow Air Force Base in Maine. He later moved to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey with the 332nd Fighter Interceptor Squadron, serving as pilot, operations officer, and eventually flight commander.

  In June 1957, McDivitt enrolled at the University of Michigan under the Air Force Institute of Technology program. He would graduate first in his class two years later.

• 3. Test Pilot and Astronaut

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  McDivitt went to Edwards Air Force Base in California as a student test pilot in June 1959. He completed both the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School, Class 59C, and the Aerospace Research Pilot School, Class I. He then joined the Manned Spacecraft Operations Branch in July 1962.

  On the 17th of July 1962, McDivitt flew as chase pilot on Robert M. White's North American X-15 flight. White reached an altitude of 59.5 miles and became the first X-15 pilot to be awarded Astronaut Wings under the Air Force's definition of space as starting at 50 miles. McDivitt was next in line to fly the X-15 himself after White's departure. He was also being considered to head the project office for testing the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II.

  By September 1962, McDivitt had logged over 2,500 flight hours, more than 2,000 in jet aircraft. When NASA began searching for a second group of astronauts to supplement the Mercury Seven, he applied. The agency selected him that month as part of Astronaut Group 2.

  On the 29th of July 1964, NASA announced that McDivitt would command Gemini 4, the second crewed Gemini mission.

• 4. Open Hatch, Open Sky

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  Deke Slayton, the chief of the Astronaut Office, chose Ed White as McDivitt's pilot for Gemini 4. The two men had studied at the University of Michigan and gone through test pilot school together.

  On the 18th of March 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to perform a spacewalk, floating outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft. McDivitt had already been lobbying for an extravehicular activity to be part of Gemini 4. NASA administrator James E. Webb formally approved the EVA for the mission on the 25th of May 1965.

  Gemini 4 launched on the 3rd of June 1965, on a mission that would last 97 hours and 56 minutes and complete 62 orbits. The mission's first objective was to attempt a space rendezvous with the spent upper stage of the Titan II rocket that had launched them. McDivitt could not close the gap to less than what he estimated to be 200 feet. The orbital mechanics of space rendezvous were not yet well understood; catching up to something in orbit requires slowing down, not accelerating. McDivitt broke off the attempt to preserve propellant for White's spacewalk.

  Before the flight, McDivitt had worked with a McDonnell engineer on the hatch mechanism. The latch gears had a tendency to come unmeshed, making the hatch hard to open and hard to re-seal. Their solution was to force the gears back into alignment by inserting fingers directly into the mechanism. In flight, McDivitt had to use that technique twice, both times working inside pressurized space suit gloves. Had he failed to re-latch the hatch after White's spacewalk, neither man would likely have survived re-entry.

  On the second day of the mission, while White slept, McDivitt saw something outside the window that he reached for his camera to photograph.

• 5. The Object in Orbit

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  Over Hawaii, the object McDivitt spotted fit no easy category. He described it as resembling a beer can or a pop can, with something like a pencil sticking out of it. The photographs he managed to take were poorly exposed and out of focus. He reasoned that the object's visibility from the capsule meant it was in a nearby orbit. His best guess was that it was a fragment of ice or multi-layer insulation that had broken away from the vehicle.

  By the time Gemini 4 splashed down, word of the photographs had reached reporters. One photograph, showing a cluster of what appeared to be three or four disc-shaped objects with tails, became known as the tadpole photo. McDivitt identified those images as reflections of bolts in the capsule's multipaned windows. Mercury Seven astronaut Gordon Cooper later wrote that this was the only officially reported UFO account across the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.

  Flight controller Chris Kraft ordered a change of plan when the computer failed in the mission's final stages. Rather than the lifting bank-angle atmospheric entry the computer was designed to guide, McDivitt performed a rolling entry of the type the earlier Mercury astronauts had used. A stuck thruster complicated the descent. The spacecraft overshot its landing point by 80 km.

  President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Houston to congratulate the crew and promoted both men to the rank of lieutenant colonel. The following week, Johnson presented them with the NASA Exceptional Service Medal at the White House. McDivitt and White received a ticker tape parade in Chicago. At the 1965 Paris Air Show, they met cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

  On the 21st of March 1966, NASA announced that McDivitt would command the backup crew for AS-204, the first crewed Apollo mission.

• 6. Spider and Gumdrop

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  McDivitt's backup crew for AS-204 included Astronaut Group 3 members David Scott and Rusty Schweickart. The prime crew was commanded by Mercury Seven astronaut Gus Grissom, alongside Ed White and Group 3 rookie Roger Chaffee. Their task was to test the Apollo command and service module in Earth orbit. By December 1966, the spacecraft was running behind schedule, and NASA shifted McDivitt's crew off the backup role entirely. They became the prime crew of a new second mission that would fly both the command service module and the lunar module.

  On the 27th of January 1967, a cabin fire on the launch pad killed Grissom, White, and Chaffee during a ground test. All crew assignments were suspended. During the Congressional hearings that followed, McDivitt expressed confidence in NASA's management and safety measures.

  On the 20th of November 1967, NASA officially announced that McDivitt's crew would fly the crewed lunar module test as the program's second crewed flight. By the summer of 1968, it was clear that the lunar module would not be ready for December's planned mission. Deke Slayton summoned McDivitt to his office.

  Slayton explained the situation and gave McDivitt a choice. He could stay with the Lunar Module mission, which would be redesignated Apollo 9 and fly in 1969. McDivitt later said the story of that meeting had grown beyond the truth. People had come to assume he was offered a flight to the Moon and turned it down. "Not quite," he said. He believed that if he had pushed hard enough, Slayton would probably have let his crew take the Moon-orbit mission. But the offer was never explicitly made. McDivitt stayed with Apollo 9.

  Apollo 9 lifted off on the 3rd of March 1969. McDivitt's crew named their lunar module "Spider" and the command module "Gumdrop." David Scott docked the command service module with the LM, and McDivitt and Schweickart crawled through the tunnel connecting the two spacecraft. This was the first time astronauts had transferred from one spacecraft to another while in flight.

  On the mission's fourth day, Rusty Schweickart donned the Primary Life Support System backpack. This was the same type that astronauts would later wear on the lunar surface. Schweickart exited the lunar module while Scott simultaneously opened the command module hatch. The two men photographed each other across the gap between spacecraft. McDivitt then flew the LM in a full test of its descent and ascent engines, separating from the CSM and then docking again. Apollo 9 splashed down safely in the Atlantic after 151 orbits and 10 days in Earth orbit.

  In May 1969, before the first astronauts reached the Moon, McDivitt moved from the cockpit into management.

• 7. Management and Exit

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  McDivitt became Manager of Lunar Landing Operations in May 1969, leading a team that planned the lunar exploration program. In August 1969, he moved into the larger role of Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager. He oversaw Apollo 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 in that role. On the 17th of February 1972, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.

  When Gene Cernan was selected to command Apollo 17, McDivitt confronted flight director Chris Kraft. He had not been consulted, and he threatened to resign unless Cernan was removed. Kraft went to Deke Slayton for information. Slayton gave an account that McDivitt's version describes as less than frank. The matter involved a helicopter accident in January 1971. According to the same account, Cernan had confessed to flying the helicopter into the water, but Slayton did not reveal this to Kraft. Kraft told McDivitt that Cernan's selection stood. McDivitt resigned. He stayed on through the end of the Apollo 16 mission. In June 1972, he left NASA and retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general.

• 8. After the Moon

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  His first civilian role was Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs at Consumers Power Company. In March 1975, McDivitt joined Pullman, Inc., as Executive Vice President and a director. By October of that year, he had become President of the Pullman Standard Division. In January 1981, he joined Rockwell International, where he served as Senior Vice President for Government Operations. He retired in 1995.

  McDivitt married Patricia Ann Haas in 1956 and had four children: Michael, Ann Lynn, Patrick, and Kathleen. He and Haas later divorced. In 1985, he married Judith Ann Odell and gained two stepchildren from her previous marriage.

  McDivitt died in his sleep on the 13th of October 2022 in Tucson, Arizona. He was 93 years old.

  In 1974, McDivitt appeared as himself on an episode of The Brady Bunch called "Out of This World." He played a talk show guest discussing his UFO experience, signing autographs for the characters Peter Brady and Bobby Brady at the episode's end. In the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, he was portrayed by Conor O'Farrell. McDivitt was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2014.