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. Biography Abbey was born in Seattle, Washington in 1932 to Sam and Brenta Abbey. His father was born in London but had emigrated to Canada, returning to Europe to serve in the First World War. After being injured in France, Sam returned to London to recuperate where he met Bridget, later changing her name to Brenta, who had moved to the capital from the village of Laugharne in Wales. Sam and Bridget married and their first child, a boy, was born in Wales before the couple moved to Canada before settling in Seattle. 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. 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. While in the Air Force, he served in the Air Force Research and Development Command and was involved in the early Air Force manned space activities, including the Dyna-Soar Program. 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 would select the crews that flew during the early years of the Space Shuttle. As director of flight operations, he put America’s first woman in space when he assigned Sally Ride to the crew of 1983′s STS-7. 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