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133:58:34 Reed: "If this damn PGNS gets in the way, I'm gonna raise hell!"

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Naraht:

--- Quote from: MadDogBV on October 31, 2023, 10:38:03 am ---I've regarded him as probably one of the most senior FIDOs in the Trench, particularly after Bostick and Shaffer became leaders of the Flight Dynamics branch. Jay Greene was brilliant, of course, but Reed had all the confidence in the world - a must when dealing with other members of his cohort.

--- End quote ---
No argument on "one of the most senior." You only have to look at the fact that Reed and Greene were the only two FIDOs ever to work a lunar descent. Their reputation must have been high indeed.

Of course there was a little bit of rivalry between Reed and Greene. As you may know already, Ed Pavelka assigned Greene to work descent on Apollo 11, and as he says: "Dave Reed was incensed. He could not stand it... I heard a lot of complaints over the years from Dave on that and I think it ended up frustrating him to the point where... he quit NASA." (Greene says the same thing in his own oral history; Reed denies it.)

It occurs to me that Reed might well have become a flight director if he hadn't left. Shaffer and Greene both did. (Bostick interestingly not.) The position of FIDO seems to have been a good launching pad, unsurprisingly.

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