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[i]Ward: Getting back to the Apollo science program: At least my own perception is that Apollo didn’t begin as a scientific program the way [President John F.] Kennedy outlined it, sold it to the public, to the Congress. It was not perceived as a science program. And yet after Apollo 11, that really became the strong thrust of it. McDivitt: Yeah. I remember sitting down at the Cape with General [Samuel C.] Phillips, who was the [NASA Headquarters Apollo] Program Director, and somebody else, I don’t remember who it was, I think it was near the time that we were flying Apollo 10. And the subject came up that, if we landed Apollo 11 where we thought we were going to land it, where should we land Apollo 12? Nobody had ever focused on the second landing! And so, we started talking about that. And we already had this ALSEP [Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package] thing. It was being designed, but it wasn’t really included much in the Apollo Program. It was sort of being designed over here on the side. And the stuff that was going to go on the lunar surface and what we were going to do with it was sort of a big question mark. And so, as he and I were chatting about that—I was already the Deputy Program Manager, or whatever we called it, for Lunar Surface Exploration—he said, “You know, we’d better start figuring out how we’re going to do this stuff and what comes next!” And so, that’s—we really were sort of getting our wheels ground up, rotating. But up until Apollo 11, the mission was, as the President said, it was to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. And that didn’t say anything about science. Ward: So, it really was impressive the way that whole science program came together. McDivitt: Indeed. Yeah.[/i]
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