Jeffrey Alan Hoffman (born November 2, 1944) is an American former NASA astronaut and currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Hoffman made five flights as a Space Shuttle astronaut, including the first mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, when the orbiting telescope's flawed optical system was corrected.

Background

Hoffman was born November 2, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York, but considers Scarsdale, New York, to be his hometown. He graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1962. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree (summa cum laude) in astronomy from Amherst College in 1966, a Doctor of Philosophy in astrophysics from Harvard University in 1971, and a Master of Science degree in materials science from Rice University in 1988. Dr. Hoffman instructed a course in systems engineering on the space shuttle that is available for free in video format from academic earth.

NASA experience

thumb|Hoffman and the [[Dreidel he brought into space]]

Selected by NASA in January 1978, Hoffman became an astronaut in August 1979. During preparations for the Shuttle Orbital Flight Tests, he worked in the Flight Simulation Laboratory at Downey, California, testing guidance, navigation and flight control systems. He worked with the orbital maneuvering and reaction control systems, with Shuttle navigation, with crew training, and with the development of satellite deployment procedures. Hoffman served as a support crewmember for STS-5 and as a CAPCOM (spacecraft communicator) for the STS-8 and STS-82 missions. He also worked on EVA, including the development of a high-pressure spacesuit, and preparations for the assembly of the Space Station. Hoffman was a co-founder of the Astronaut Office Science Support Group. In 1996 he led the Payload and Habitability Branch of the Astronaut Office.

Among the Jewish items he took into space were a Dreidel, which he spun for an hour, a Mezuzah, which he attached to the space station bunk bed he and fellow Jewish astronaut Scott J. Horowitz alternately used, and a Hanukkah menorah.

Hoffman left the astronaut program in July 1997 to become NASA's European Representative in Paris, where he served until August 2001. His principal duties were to keep NASA and NASA's European partners informed about each other's activities, try to resolve problems in US-European cooperative space projects, search for new areas of US-European space cooperation, and represent NASA in European media. In August 2001, Hoffman was seconded by NASA to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is engaged in several research projects using the International Space Station and teaches courses on space operations and design.

With the completion of his fifth space flight, Hoffman has logged more than 1,211 hours and 21.5 million miles in space.

After NASA

Since 2002, he has been a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since 2008 he has also been a visiting professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester.

He is the author of a book titled An Astronaut's Diary (June 1986) which is accompanied by a cassette tape. The audio tape contains excerpts of the original recordings he made with a pocket tape recorder.

Hoffman is a visiting lecturer at the International Space University.

Awards and honors

  • Amherst College 1963 Porter Prize in Astronomy
  • 1964 Second Walker Prize in Mathematics
  • 1965 John Summer Runnells Scholarship Prize
  • 1966 Stanley V. and Charles B. Travis Prize
  • Woods Prize for Scholarship
  • Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1965 and Sigma Xi in 1966
  • Woodrow Wilson Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 1966–67
  • National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 1966–1971
  • National Academy of Sciences Post-Doctoral Visiting Fellowship, 1971–72
  • Harvard University Sheldon International Fellowship, 1972–73
  • NATO Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 1973–74
  • NASA Space Flight Medals (5)
  • NASA Exceptional Service Medals (2)
  • NASA Distinguished Service Medals (2)
  • V. M. Komarov and the Sergei P. Korolev Diplomas by the International Aeronautical Federation in 1991 and 1994
  • Inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2007

See also

  • History of the Jews in Houston

References

  • BBC World Service Discovery programme with Jeffrey Hoffman on the Shuttle, needs Real Audio player
  • Spacefacts biography of Jeffrey A. Hoffman