{"73917":{"#nid":"73917","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Grad Helps NASA Engineer Safer Shuttle","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s the journey that matters,\u0022 the old maxim says, \u0022not the destination.\u0022 \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJohn Chapman, chief engineer for Space Shuttle Propulsion at NASA\u0027s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., would debate that idea. It\u0027s vital, he says, to have your destination in mind - to know where you\u0027re going, and why. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut Chapman acknowledges whether you\u0027re road-tripping across America, soaring in a glider held aloft by thermal air currents or working to put the most complex machine ever created - the space shuttle - into Earth\u0027s orbit, there\u0027s nothing like the journey. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs STS-114: Space Shuttle Return to Flight readies for launch, Chapman is thoroughly immersed in the latter of those journeys. \u0022What\u0027s always been most fascinating to me is the simple challenge of flight - persuading a chunk of metal anchored by gravity to fly into the sky,\u0022 Chapman says. \u0022Look at the solutions humanity has devised over the centuries to get off the ground, to fly through the air, to escape gravity and enter space. Look at the concepts we\u0027re developing today. Imagine the possibilities we\u0027ll think of tomorrow.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs a leader in the Marshall Center Office of Chief Engineers, part of the Engineering Directorate at Marshall, Chapman is adept at finding solutions, and imagining possibilities. He provides technical recommendations about flight hardware and program issues to the Shuttle Propulsion Program manager. He leads a team of engineering experts, endorsed by NASA Chief Engineer Rex Geveden at NASA Headquarters in Washington, who help solve issues associated with sending the nation\u0027s flagship space vehicle back to orbit. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor Chapman, a 25-year NASA veteran who has been involved with the STS-114 since its development and has held nearly every shuttle office manager, deputy manager and business manager post at Marshall, his current job is the culmination of a love affair with flight that reaches back as far as he can remember. An avid model builder even today, he quickly tired in his youth of purchasing tiny jars of model airplane paint, and inquired about bulk supplies of the real thing at a general aviation airport in his hometown of Spartanburg, S.C. \u0022I was looking for model paint,\u0022 he recalls. \u0022Somehow, I ended up with a job.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHe worked at the airport throughout his high school and college years, eventually learning about aircraft mechanics and electrical systems well enough to install hardware in private planes. He spent every spare moment - and most of his earnings - taking flying lessons. He earned his pilot\u0027s license on July 15, 1969, the day before Apollo 11 left Earth, carrying the first human beings to walk on the surface of the Moon. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFlying is integral to his life, Chapman says - over the years, he has owned a small plane and two unpowered lightweight gliders. He co-founded the Huntsville Soaring Club for glider enthusiasts, and even proposed to his wife Cindie, a chemist in the Materials and Processes Laboratory at Marshall, while soaring high over the green hills of east Tennessee. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EChapman earned a bachelor\u0027s degree in industrial engineering in 1973 from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Between 1973 and 1978, he performed engineering studies on the early development phases of the space shuttle, working first for Northrop Services and then for D.P. Associates, both of Huntsville. He spent the subsequent year field-testing laser-based missile guidance systems for the U.S. Army at Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville, and then joined NASA as an engineer in 1980. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWriting computer programs at the Marshall Center to analyze shuttle propulsion hardware, Chapman was once more drawn to the journey, and to a familiar destination. In 1981, NASA was preparing for STS-1, the shuttle\u0027s maiden space voyage. Chapman - who had road-tripped from South Carolina to the Florida Cape with his father 10 years earlier to watch the launch of Apollo 15, and had, with a college roommate, snagged VIP passes to the Apollo 16 launch in 1972 - convinced a group of fellow Marshall engineers they should witness the very first shuttle launch. They borrowed an old motor home from a local car dealer and hit the road. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESTS-1 climbed into history, and \u0022carried\u0022 Chapman\u0027s gang - and the country - along with it. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I\u0027ve never forgotten that experience,\u0022 Chapman says. He also remembers well the close group of friends who made the trip with him, including two young engineers named Sandy Coleman and Jim Kennedy. Today, Coleman is manager of the External Tank Project Office at Marshall, and Kennedy is director of NASA\u0027s Kennedy Space Center, Fla. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We\u0027ve all come a very long way since then,\u0022 Chapman says, his words encompassing not just three individuals, but an agency and a nation. \u0022But the journey isn\u0027t over yet.\u0022 \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhere to next? \u0022Pick a destination,\u0022 he says, and points to the sky.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"John Chapman, a Georgia Tech industrial engineering grad and chief engineer for Space Shuttle Propulsion at NASA\u0027s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is leading a group that helps solve issues associated with getting the nation\u0027s flagship space vehicle back into space.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"ISYE grad worked to get shuttle back in orbit"}],"uid":"27281","created_gmt":"2005-07-12 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:02:27","author":"Lisa Grovenstein","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2005-07-12T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2005-07-12T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"73918":{"id":"73918","type":"image","title":"John Chapman","body":null,"created":"1449178028","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:27:08","changed":"1475894681","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:41"}},"media_ids":["73918"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/returntoflight","title":"STS-114: Space Shuttle Return to Flight"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003ELisa Grovenstein\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications \u0026amp; Marketing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=lgrovenste3\u0022\u003EContact Lisa Grovenstein\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-8835\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["lisa.grovenstein@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}