The origins of "glitch"

The word "glitch" is now in common usage, used to describe any fault, applied to artistic products like glitch video and glitch music. It was firmly established as a genre of music circa 1994 when Autechre released the track "Glitch." 

An online discussion prompted me to look for the origins of this curious term. There are multiple places in which the source is cited incorrectly or the source quote is garbled. This post will set matters straight.

The Oxford English Dictionary is the definitive source for etymology. According to that reference, astronaut John Glenn introduced the word "glitch" in a book about the Mercury program. Here's the reference:

Glenn, John; Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Donald Slayton, Walter Schirra. 1962. Into Orbit. London: Cassell & Co.

This was also published as follows (but I've used the above for the citations):

Glenn, John; Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Donald Slayton, Walter Schirra. 1962. We Seven: The Classic Story of the Heroes Who Launched America into Space. New York: Simon & Schuster.

The term is important enough that it's used to label the chapter "Glitches in Time Save Trouble", written by John Glenn [Glenn et al. 1962, 85-91]. It also appears in the index and the glossary:

"a momentary change in voltage in an electrical circuit; (slang--a hitch)." [245]

Here's the longer description, from the main text:

"Another term we adopted to describe some of our problems was 'glitch.' Literally, a glitch is a spike or change in voltage in an electrical circuit which takes place when the circuit suddenly has a new load put on it. You have probably noticed a momentary dimming of lights in your home when you turn a switch or put on the television set. Normally, these changes in voltage are protected by fuses. A glitch, however, is such a minute change in voltage that no fuse could protect against it." [86] 

The description continues with the failed Mercury Redstone 1 test as an example.

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