John Dennis Hodge is a British-born aerospace engineer. He worked for the CF-105 Avro Arrow jet interceptor project in Canada. When it was cancelled in 1959, he became a member of NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's Space Task Group

Space Task Group

The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth andbased at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F...

, which later became the Johnson Space Center. During his NASA career, he worked as a flight director

Flight director

The term flight director can refer to any one of the following:* the flight controller of a space flight* the flight director of an aviation navigation system...

 and planner. When he returned to NASA in the 1980s, he worked as a manager on the Space Station Freedom

Space Station Freedom

Space Station Freedom was a NASA project to construct a permanently manned Earth-orbiting space station in the 1980s. Although approved by then-president Ronald Reagan and announced in the 1984 State of the Union Address, Freedom was never constructed or completed as originally designed, and after...

 project, which later became the International Space Station

International Space Station

The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

. He also served as an administrator at the United States Department of Transportation

United States Department of Transportation

The United States Department of Transportation is a federal Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with transportation. It was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967...

.

Early life

Hodge was born in Leigh-on-Sea

Leigh-on-Sea

Leigh-on-Sea , sometimes called Leigh, is a civil parish in Essex, England. It is part of Southend-on-Sea for administrative purposes. It became a civil parish in 1996. The council tax was increased to support it. A town council was formed. Leigh is the only parish in Southend...

, Essex in 1929, and attended Minchenden Grammar School

Minchenden Grammar School

Minchenden School was a mixed secondary school situated in Southgate, North London, established in 1919 with 90 pupils.-History:The school was established in 1919 in Tottenhall Road as a mixed secondary school. In 1924, it moved to Southgate House, where it remained until 1987, and was renamed...

 in Southgate, London. He studied at the Northampton Engineering College at the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, graduating in 1949 with a first-class degree in engineering. From 1950 through 1952 he worked as an engineer at Vickers-Armstrong in Weybridge

Weybridge

Weybridge is a town in the Elmbridge district of Surrey in South East England. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the River Wey, from which it gets its name...

. Upon graduation, Hodge worked as an engineer for the Aerodynamics Department of Vickers-Armstrongs. In 1952 Hodge took a job at the Avro Arrow project in Canada, where he was head of the air loads section.

NASA career

When the Avro Arrow project was cancelled in 1959, 32 Avro engineers including Hodge followed the lead of Jim Chamberlin

Jim Chamberlin

James A. "Jim" Chamberlin was a Canadian aerodynamicist who contributed to the design of the Canadian Avro Arrow; and NASA's Gemini spacecraft and the Apollo program...

 and migrated to join NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's Space Task Group

Space Task Group

The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth andbased at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F...

. The group, based at Langley Research Center

Langley Research Center

Langley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...

 in Hampton, Virginia

Hampton, Virginia

Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...

, was responsible for America's manned space program, Project Mercury

Project Mercury

In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...

. 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

Flight director

The term flight director can refer to any one of the following:* the flight controller of a space flight* the flight director of an aviation navigation system...

.

During John Glenn

John Glenn

John Herschel Glenn, Jr. is a former United States Marine Corps pilot, astronaut, and United States senator who was the first American to orbit the Earth and the third American in space. Glenn was a Marine Corps fighter pilot before joining NASA's Mercury program as a member of NASA's original...

's historic mission, the first orbital flight by an American, Hodge was serving as the flight director at NASA's tracking station in Bermuda

Bermuda

Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

.

The final flight in the Mercury program, MA-9

MA-9

MA-9 may refer to:* Massachusetts Route 9* Mercury-Atlas 9, a spaceflight of Project Mercury...

, 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

Gemini 8

-Backup crew:-Mission parameters:* Mass: * Perigee: * Apogee: * Inclination: 28.91°* Period: 88.83 min-Objectives:Gemini VIII had two major objectives, of which it achieved one...

, where he was the first person other than Kraft to be lead flight director for a mission. Hodge 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

Apollo 1

Apollo 1 was scheduled to be the first manned mission of the Apollo manned lunar landing program, with a target launch date of February 21, 1967. A cabin fire during a launch pad test on January 27 at Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral killed all three crew members: Command Pilot Virgil "Gus"...

 fire.

Hodge retired as a flight director in 1968, and became head of Johnson Space Center's advanced program office where he worked on preparing for the last three Apollo lunar landings and programs to follow Apollo. He left NASA in 1970 but returned in 1982 to run a large space station design study. When Space Station Freedom began in 1984, Hodge was named NASA’s Associate Administrator for Space Station, a post he held until leaving NASA in 1987.

Career outside NASA

After leaving NASA in 1970, Hodge worked for the Transport Systems Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Urban Transportation Development Corporation in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, before serving five years as an administrator at the United States Department of Transportation

United States Department of Transportation

The United States Department of Transportation is a federal Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with transportation. It was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967...

. After leaving NASA in 1987, Hodge then formed his own firm, J. D. Hodge and Company, which was an international management and aerospace consultanting company.

In Film

Hodge was portrayed by Jim Piddock

Jim Piddock

James Anthony "Jim" Piddock is an English actor, writer, and producer who began his career on the stage in England, before emigrating to the U.S. in 1981.-Life and career:...

 in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.