John Hodge (engineer)

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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 of NASA's Space Task Group. During his NASA career, he worked as a flight director and as a manager on the cancelled Space Station Freedom project. He also served as an administrator at the United States Department of Transportation.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Avro Arrow 3 NASA career 4 Post-NASA career 5 References

[edit] Early life

Hodge was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex in 1929, and attended a grammar school. He studied at the University 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 in Weybridge.

[edit] Avro Arrow

In 1952 Hodge took a job at the Avro Arrow project in Canada, where he was head of the air loads section.

[edit] NASA career

When the Avro Arrow project was cancelled in 1959, many Avro engineers including Hodge followed the lead of Jim Chamberlin and migrated to join NASA's Space Task Group. The group, based at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was responsible for America's manned space program, Project Mercury. At Langley, Hodge became the assistant to Chris Kraft, who was the head of the Space Task Group's operations division and NASA's first flight director.

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 in Bermuda.

The final flight in the Mercury program, MA-9, was scheduled to last long enough that a second flight director was needed in Mission Control. Thus, in 1963, Hodge became a flight director, choosing blue as his team color. The missions that he worked included Gemini 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 the Apollo 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.

[edit] Post-NASA career

After leaving NASA, Hodge served as an administrator at the United States Department of Transportation.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

• Gainor, Chris (2001). Arrows to the Moon: Avro's Engineers and the Space Race. Collector's Guide Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-896522-83-1. 

• Hodge, John D. (PDF). NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Biographical Data Sheet.

• Hodge, John D. (PDF). NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project (April 10, 1999). Retrieved on 2006-10-31.

• Murray, Charles; Catherine Bly Cox (1989). Apollo: The Race to the Moon. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-61101-1. 

• Swenson, Jr., Loyd S.; James M. Grimwood and Charles C. Alexander (1989). This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury. NASA.