George Abbey |
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| Born | George William Samuel Abbey August 21, 1932 Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Nationality | USA |
| Occupation | former director of the Johnson Space Center |
George William Samuel Abbey (born August 21, 1932) is a former director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Fellow in Space Policy at the Baker Institute of Rice University.
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Born in Seattle, Washington, Abbey attended Lincoln High School there. He received his bachelor’s degree in general science from the United States Naval Academy in (Annapolis, Maryland) in 1954; and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in 1959.[1]
A pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Abbey had more than 4,000 hours in various types of aircraft before being detailed to NASA.
Abbey joined NASA in 1964 as an Air Force captain assigned to the Apollo program. In December 1967 he left the Air Force and was named technical assistant to the Johnson Space Center director. In January 1976, he was named director of flight operations, where he was responsible for operational planning and for the overall direction and management of flight crew and flight control activities for all human spaceflight missions.
In 1983, he became director of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate, where he continued to be responsible for all space shuttle flight crews and JSC aircraft operations. Abbey was appointed deputy associate administrator for space flight at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. in March 1988. In July 1990, he was selected as deputy for operations and senior NASA representative to the Synthesis Group, charged with defining strategies for returning to the Moon and landing on Mars.
In July 1991, Abbey was appointed senior director for civil space policy for the National Space Council in the Executive Office of the President. In 1992, he was named special assistant to the NASA administrator. In 1994 Abbey was named deputy director of the Johnson Space Center and was subsequently selected as the JSC director in 1996.
In 2002, Abbey was selected as a distinguished alumnus of the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology. His honors and awards include the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, three NASA Distinguished Service Medals and the 1970 Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented by President Richard M. Nixon for his distinguished civilian service in peacetime. In addition, he was the recipient of the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement's National Space Trophy in 1997.