- John Hodge (engineer)
John Dennis Hodge (born 1929) is a British-born aerospace engineer. He worked for the
Avro Arrow project in Canada; when it was cancelled in 1959, he became a member ofNASA 'sSpace Task Group . During his NASA career, he worked as aflight director and as a manager on the cancelledSpace Station Freedom project. He also served as an administrator at theUnited States Department of Transportation .Early life
Hodge was born in
Leigh-on-Sea , Essex in 1929, and attended a grammar school. He studied at theUniversity of London , graduating in 1949 with a first-class degree in aeronautical engineering. From 1950 through 1952 he worked as an engineer at Vickers-Armstrong inWeybridge .Avro Arrow
In 1952 Hodge took a job at the
Avro Arrow project in Canada, where he was head of the air loads section.NASA career
.
During
John Glenn 's historic mission, the first orbital flight by an American, Hodge was serving as the flight director at NASA's tracking station inBermuda .The final flight in the Mercury program,
MA-9 , was scheduled to last long enough that a second flight director was needed inMission Control . Thus, in 1963, Hodge became a flight director, choosing blue as his team color. The missions that he worked includedGemini 8 , where he was on-shift when a stuck Gemini thruster brought a rapid end to the mission. He was also on-duty during the launch test that resulted in theApollo 1 fire.Hodge retired as a flight director in 1968, and became head of
Johnson Space Center 's advanced program office where, among other things, he ran a large space station design study project.Post-NASA career
After leaving NASA, Hodge served as an administrator at the
United States Department of Transportation .Fact|date=December 2007References
*
*cite web
title = Hodge, John D.
work = NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Biographical Data Sheet
url = http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/HodgeJD/JDH_BIO.pdf
format = PDF*
*
* cite book
last = Swenson, Jr.
first = Loyd S.
coauthors = James M. Grimwood and Charles C. Alexander
title = This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury
publisher = NASA
date = 1989
url = http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4201/toc.htm
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