So he came back. Now, you have to realize that al shepard was the ultimate politician. Very well respected, first flight he did, so he talked nasa into giving him talked them into giving him the very next flight, which was apollo 13. After he started working 13 and i was getting my crew together for 14, i think that the nasa hierarchy had second thoughts. They said, look, al has been grounded for eight or nine years, and youre going to give him the very next flight . He only made a 15 minute suborbital flight . Lets get serious about this thing. So deke said, okay, ill slip him one. So one day when i was training for 14, deke came in and said, jim, how would you like to take 13 and well give shepard 14 . I was delighted. I said, yes. I mean, you know, i was backup on 11. And im all set to go. I mean, you know, i need the training, i need to know the experiments and things like that. But im ready. So thats how it came to pass. Can you put to bed or add to the story that one hears that y
When you were a little kid. You saw a rocket go off and said i want to do that. Is it that simple or that complex . I was interested in rockets in astronomy long before people get spell rocket. I was interested in it way back in high school. I went to try to build some rockets. I wanted to become a rocket engineer, as a matter of fact. Worked at the rocket society. I wanted to become a rocket engineer but essentially they said you have to go to mit or to caltech. I cannot afford either. So i took a secondary goal. I got an rotc appointment to wisconsin. From there i went to the Naval Academy. I got to the flight training. I became a naval air aviator. In 1958, nasa was formed and they were looking for astronauts. I was one of the original 110 people who were selected. Let me go back to the Naval Academy . That is right. This was right after world war ii. I got down to preflight. My mother, when i was at the university of wisconsin, told me to apply to the Naval Academy. 7z3 vi did it,
I enjoyed last night and i know theres a number of you in the audience who actually watch the full hollywood movie. I can barely see out there but i see a lot of people who have seen this movie. I was a little worried when they were gonna make this, you worry about hollywood might do. There were some things i may have done different, there was some language i would not have used but that gave it its pg13 rating. The one thing i thought carried it very well, ron howard did a good job, was to tell a basic story of people who were in trouble and we certainly were in trouble. There are problems on every mission we flew. If you could look at the entire apollo program, it is a book about that thick, it is in the archives so you could get it through. There is an appendix that lists the problems, we call them anomalies, some people call them funny, that happened on the flight and they listed them numerically by flight order. And apollo seven and eight, we had one spacecraft, apollo 13 had the
There i got into flight training. I became a naval aviator, and low and behold in 1958 nasa was formed and they were looking for astronauts. So i was one of the original 110 people selected to go for interviews. Lets go back to your Naval Academy days, you almost didnt go, is that right . That is right. I had two years at wisconsin. I informs a Naval Aviation program after world war ii. Have been the most important project in this century. I became the first alternate that usually doesnt make it, are and i got orders for the physical to be inducted into the academy if you so desired. And then i said should i go to the academy, they said dont do that, you two years of college, you have Naval Aviation, if you go back you have to start all over again, you might not get back in aviation, but there was an old captain there and he said if you want to make the navy your career, get yourself to the academy, that is what hatppened. I term paper, my first term paper, i wrote on the development o
Although there were problems on every mission we flew during the apollo program. If you could look at the entire report, it is a book about that thick. It is in the archives so you could get it through freedom of information. And as an appendix it lists the problems, we call them anomalies, some people call them funnies, that happened on the flights. And they listed them museum air cally by flight auditor and you ignore apollo 7 and 8, they only have one spacecraft, they didnt fly a landing aircraft. Apollo 13 had the second least number of problems of all of the flights. We almost aborted apollo 14 and apollo 16. They had pretty Serious Problems they were able to work around and allowed them to land. So that was the nature of the business. And as i said, the very theme of this movie that carried very well was the story of somebody in problem, with problems, with a challenge, challenges really to face. And showed a group of people, a team in this case of Mission Control and ourselves.