Jack Garman Quotes
You don’t realize until years later, actually, how doing the wrong thing at the right time could have changed history.
In the1969 mission to the moon, the lunar module control computer flashed a Program Alarm warning message, and the Mission Control officer Steve Bates, with less than 30 seconds to go, had to make a decision whether to abort the module landing or continue. He spoke to Garman, who concluded that since the message did not repeat, that the message was most likely a spurious message—a false alarm. German told him to go ahead when most others wanted to abort. As Garman was the most familiar staff member with the software, Bates followed his lead and continued the landing. Garman was right and he became known as “The Man who saved the Moon Landing”.
Obituary for Jack Garman The New York Times, September 25, 2016
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Hartman and the other few advisors who Ford had consulted had opposed the idea of a Nixon pardon. However, Ford went ahead with it, and it probably cost him the reelection. Most people two decades later tended to agree with Hartman’s later view in this quotation.
She was arguing with David Gergen about the impact of the ‘first’ female, religious or ethnic candidate for a particular office as making history. Crowley maintains that usually nothing really fundamentally changes as a result of the ‘first’ history making event.
John Royer "Jack" Garman was a computer engineer, former senior NASA executive and noted key figure of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. As a young specialist on duty during the final descent stage on 20 July 1969 he dealt with a series of computer alarms which could have caused the mission to be aborted.
