Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 331
White
We would have been flat out of luck!
[4-52]
McDivitt
We would have been in deep trouble! I’m not sure we wouldn’t have been able to
get the hatch closed, because we had put that canvas strap on there and I might
have been able to pull you down that way. But I had about all the pull I had in me
on that last –
White
I know you did.
McDivitt
--on that last thing and I had a lot of mechanical advantage over it. When we went
to that canvas strap we would have had to go with no mechanical advantage – as a
matter of fact, a mechanical disadvantage.
White
This is one thing that didn’t fail, but I recommend that it be made stronger.
McDivitt
Stronger anyway!
White
I think so.
McDivitt
For nothing else than a psychological purpose.
White
Right. I’d like to take the spacecraft now and see if I could break it, because I had
the feeling that I never had been confident that the attachment nor the bar nor
the lanyard were strong enough.
McDivitt
When I say I was really pulling as strong as I could, I really had some pull left in
me, but I guess what I should have said is that I was pulling about as hard as I
dared pull at the time. I guess I could have pulled another few pounds, but I hated
to apply more than was needed on there because of the lack of confidence in the
strength of it.
White
Everything I had was in it over there. I was pulling down with my legs as hard as I
could and operating. I was pulling on the handle. I remember one time you said,
“Hey don’t pull on that handle so hard! You’re going to break it!”
McDivitt
I was cautioning you to take it easy, which you don’t usually have to do.