Episode 205 we decided to feature in our monthly famous Utahn segment, Senator Jake Garn. By the end of the episode we realized he is one of the FEW Utahn’s (famous and infamous) that is still alive!
Born in Richfield, Utah, on October 12, 1932, Jake Garn would spend the majority of his life in Utah. Garn attended the University of Utah where he achieved a Bachelor of Science in business and finance. He did go on to join the US Navy and the National Guard as a pilot. He served on the Salt Lake City Commission and became Mayor in 1972.
Mr. Garn was a member of the Republican Party, and served as a U.S. Senator representing Utah from 1974 to 1993. At the time of his second election he earned, to this day, the highest amount of votes in a statewide race in Utah. That was 74%. During his time in office he was chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and served on three subcommittees: Housing and Urban Affairs, Financial Institutions, and International Finance and Monetary Policy. He also was a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and served as Chairman of the HUD-Independent Agencies Subcommittee. Garn also served on four other Appropriations subcommittees: Energy and Water Resources, Defense, Military Construction, and Interior. Garn served as a member of the Republican leadership from 1979 to 1984 as Secretary of the Republican Conference.
So, how did Senator Garn become an American senator payload specialist astronaut 1984-1985? That was the official title of his astronaut mission. Senator Garn was asked to take part in his particular NASA flight because he was head of the appropriation committee that handled NASA. Oh, also he had extensive flight experience. Senator Garn was the first member of Congress to fly into space. This happened in 1985. Rumor had it that when training to do the mission that the the space sickness he experienced during the journey was so severe that a scale for space sickness was jokingly based on him, where “one Garn” is the highest possible level of sickness. Senator Garn has said that he wasn’t actually that sick. According to PeoplePill.com, “Astronaut Charles F. Bolden, however, described Garn as “the ideal candidate to do it, because he was a veteran Navy combat pilot who had more flight hours than anyone in the Astronaut Office.”
Senator Garn retired in 1992 and continues to speak about politics and America’s space program. We have attached a local news segment with Bob Evans, of Fox13, asking Jake Garn 3 questions. This interview was done in 2018.
Some of the resources we used for our research this episode:
www.astronautix.com / geni.com / peoplepill.com / NASA
Music By: Folk Hogan; Bootleggers Dance