McDivitt's Apollo mission came in 1969, four months before the moon landing. Apollo 9 orbited Earth to test the first complete set of equipment to go to the moon.
WASHINGTON — James A. McDivitt, who commanded the Apollo 9 mission testing the first complete set of equipment to go to the moon, has died. He was 93.
Apollo 9, which orbited Earth and didn't go further, was one of the lesser-remembered space missions of NASA's program. In a 1999 oral history, McDivitt said it didn't bother him that it was overlooked:"I could see why they would, you know, it didn't land on the moon. And so it's hardly part of Apollo. But the lunar module was ... key to the whole program."
Unlike many of his fellow astronauts, McDivitt didn't yearn to fly from childhood. He was just good at it. McDivitt was picked to command the second two-man Gemini mission, along with White. The four-day mission in 1965 circled the globe 66 times.
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