the previous crews had been the missilemen, the test pilots i'd known when i was back working with mcdonnell. but jim was, i think, the first astronaut who really made an effort to reach out and work with the controllers. he had established a game plan for the mission and one of the key elements in the game plan was to make sure that the controllers here in mission control had exactly the same procedures that would be used by the crews on board. now, this sounds like a very simple change to the process, but at the time of the earlier apollo program, we still had not quite come together. we hadn't fully come together as a team. and deke slaten's troops guarded their checklists and flight plans very jealously and it was very difficult to get one of the crew copies. the exact copy. and at times we would find minor discrepancies between what the crew was carrying on board in previous missions and what the procedures we had in mission control. so mcdivitt said finally, enough's enough. people in mission control are going to have exactly the same copies of the flight plan and procedures that we're