From Ann Arbor to Orbit: Celebrating the Life of James A. McDivitt

Famed hockey coach Herb Brooks once told the 1980 men’s Olympic hockey team that “Great moments are born from great opportunities.” Astronaut James A. McDivitt could easily have been the inspiration for that statement. Born in Chicago but raised in the western Michigan city of Kalamazoo, a strong midwestern work ethic propelled McDivitt from junior college graduate to Korean War U.S. Air Force pilot, and then onward and upward to Earth orbit. His great moments in space were born of the opportunities McDivitt had as a military veteran to pursue a degree in aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan. Our shared status as Michigan alumni provided me a hook for requesting an opportunity to interview him in 2014 prior to his giving that year’s John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History. 

While I had high hopes for a useful quote from him to add to my nearly-completed dissertation on astronaut photography during the 1960s, what I got exceeded my expectations: a personal conversation about his time at our alma mater and how that shaped his future. As it happened, the university gave us both opportunities that facilitated great moments. And to honor his passing last week at the age of 93, I want to provide insight into what ties the National Air and Space Museum, and me, to two-time astronaut Gen. James A. McDivitt.

Every day for 16 years, I started my workday entering the Museum’s National Mall location and seeing the Gemini IV spacecraft, long displayed in Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall just inside the entrance with a floating astronaut outside of a wide-open hatch. I always thought about how the unseen person of this scene, the mission’s commander, must have felt while watching his crewmate do flips and turns in the vacuum of space. McDivitt had the only live view of the most significant accomplishment for NASA to that point in June 1965. The public eventually saw that moment recorded on a movie camera and in McDivitt’s still photographs, but that's not quite the same as witnessing it in person. McDivitt held the only seat for a live spacewalk (the first by an American astronaut) by mission pilot Ed White, with a stunning view of Earth as a backdrop. I have argued that the photographs that McDivitt took forced a significant shift in how people understood the activity of human spaceflight, a profound moment of realization that humans could indeed leave Earth.

The re-creation of that scene greeted Museum visitors for decades yet could not replicate fully the sublime experience. The partnership between those two men, McDivitt and White, intrigued me as much as the technology they used. What made these two people so well suited for this ultimate effort in teamwork?

Like many astronauts of the early NASA human spaceflight program, McDivitt’s career originated in a passion for flying. He flew 145 combat missions during the Korean War, having enlisted rather than having been drafted. His hours in F-80 Shooting Stars and F-86 Sabres led to post-war assignments around the country before he entered a University of Michigan program for Air Force pilots in 1957. A year into his time in Ann Arbor working on his Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering, McDivitt met Ed White, a West Point graduate and master’s program student. The two encountered each other frequently through courses and while maintaining their flight hours. After both graduated in 1959, they both moved on to test pilot school at Edwards Air Force Base in California, again overlapping in their ambitions and flight times. The friends and colleagues both applied and were selected for the second group of NASA astronauts in 1962, the group destined to fly Gemini missions in preparation for the lunar missions of Apollo. In an environment that requires absolute trust in a partner, strong interpersonal skills, and the willingness to share an extremely confined space (barely as big as the front seat of a small car) with another human for days at a time, McDivitt and White had a leg up on the competition to get an early mission assignment.

In my discussion with him in 2014, General McDivitt commented that their existing bond meant they didn’t need to build a relationship—allowing them to move on more quickly to the technical training. And on Gemini IV, they expertly carried out their rookie mission together, working problems that included an unwieldy umbilical line, a stubborn hatch, and a computer that failed prior to re-entry. The two “Michigan men” even visited Ann Arbor as part of their post-flight tour: they rode in a parade through the city, were treated to a luncheon at the Michigan Union, received honorary doctoral degrees during a special convocation at Michigan Stadium, participated in the opening of a North Campus space research building, and had a plaza near the old engineering buildings on the main campus named in their honor. The events were the talk of the town, and the city and state of Michigan declared June 15, 1965, as “McDivitt-White Day.” The mayor gave the astronauts ceremonial keys to the city and Governor George Romney personally escorted them during their visit. Talk even circulated that McDivitt might be a good candidate for Senate from the state. Although that talk passed, the success of the mission was far from the end of McDivitt’s relationship with his alma mater. He visited campus numerous times over the rest of his life: after commanding the first Apollo mission to test the lunar module design, Apollo 9; on occasions associated with Apollo management work; and for other University programs through the years. He even had his NASA Ambassador of Exploration Award put on display in the College of Engineering in 2006. When I arrived in Ann Arbor in 1995, graduating exactly 40 years after James McDivitt, I had no idea then that our shared love of the maize and blue would bring us together one day to talk about our fondness and appreciation for the University as the facilitator of great opportunities to later realize great moments in our lives.

Communities often have a call to their lost members. Pilots have the missing man formation flown over their burials. The military tradition includes the playing of “Taps” and a 21-gun salute rings from rifle barrels. In the spaceflight community, they say “ad astra” (Latin, meaning “to the stars”). For my fellow Michigan alumni, Gen. James McDivitt, I will quietly hum “Hail, to the Victors” and think of the block “M” that was invisibly etched on our hearts.