I am reading the autobiography of Gene Kranz, who was a flight controller at NASA during their early successes and failures, including the Apollo missions to the moon.
Kranz mentioned a funny quote by Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to go into space. When asked by a journalist how he felt sitting in the spacecraft, getting ready to leave the Earth, he said the following:
“I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts – all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”
I have similar thoughts when I am sitting on a budget airline as it is getting ready to take off.
And here was an interesting quote from Kranz about NASA’s success in landing men on the moon:
“Apollo succeeded at critical moments like this because the bosses had no hesitation about assigning crucial tasks to one individual, trusting his judgement, and then getting out of his way.”
Vocabulary:
the lowest
bidder – the company which offers to do some work or provide a product or
service for the lowest price
[eg., “The
contract to run the local bus service was won by the lowest bidder.”]
crucial –
involving an extremely important decision or result
[eg., “The
next test is the crucial test. If it is
failed, then we will cancel the project.”]
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