George S.W. Rocket Park is named after the engineer who became director of NASA's Johnson Space Center. Credit: collectSPACE.com
At the entrance to NASA's Johnson Space Center, George Abbey has more than a herd of longhorns.
The sign dedicating Johnson's Rocket Park to the Apollo-era engineer and former center director can be seen on the road past the 35-acre pasture established by Abbey for Texas Longhorn cattle. The first astronauts to the moon were launched from the George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park.
The dedication of the park will be made official during a ceremony on Friday, and will highlight the many contributions Abbey made to the space program and to the local Johnson Space Center community.
A photo tour of the Johnson Space Center.
The George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park is accessible to the public via the nearby Space Center Houston and its daily tram tours of Johnson Space Center.
Abbey's career with the space agency spanned five decades and he was described as one of its most influential leaders through the end of the 20th century.
The 50th anniversary of Apollo will be celebrated in the building that George Abbey is in at Johnson Space Center. The image is from the Isle of Man Stamps and Coins.
Abbey was assigned to the Apollo program, which was supposed to land the first humans on the moon. After leaving the service, Abbey became a civil servant and worked as a technical assistant to the Apollo program manager. He was involved in the accident investigation following the fatal Apollo 1 fire and the development and implementation of spacecraft design changes that led to 13 successful Saturn V and six human moon landings.
The Apollo 13 mission operations team, led by Abbey, earned the highest civilian honor in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for their dedication and work to safely return the crew home. Abbey received a NASA medal for his contributions to the Apollo program.
Abbey was the director of flight operations at Johnson, leading the planning and management of flight control. The first group of space shuttle astronauts were the first to include women and minorities.
After seeing the space shuttle take flight, Abbey was transferred to NASA Headquarters in Washington to serve as the deputy associate administrator for space flight, and was later named both as the National. Russia joined the International Space Station program after he helped negotiate a partnership with Rosaviakosmos.
Abbey became the seventh person to lead the Houston campus in January 1996 after returning to Johnson as its deputy director in 1994. Abbey wanted to open land to the Clear Creek Independent School District and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for a "hands-on" agricultural education facility known as the Longhorn Project.
The "George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park" is located at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The image is from NASA.
Abbey ended his NASA career in January 2003 after 40 years. He wrote an authorized biography, "The Astronaut Maker: How One Mysterious Engineer Took Human Spaceflight for a Generation", written by Michael Cassutt.
The George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park has more than one rocket engine and statue, as well as the only one of its kind that is comprised of all flight-certified hardware.
NASA said that the George W.S. Abbey Rocket Park is a place of wonder for visitors from all over the world.
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