NASA – Johnson Space Center Engineer
FAVORITE CHILDREN’S BOOK:
“2001 A Space Odyssey” by Arthur C. Clark
FAVORITE CHILDREN’S FOLK-SONG:
“I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
LANGUAGES SPOKEN:
English, French, and German
John Connolly works at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. His current assignments are as an engineer in JSC’s Astronaut Office and as senior systems engineer in JSC’s Exploration Office. He is on science and engineering advisory boards including the Mars Program Systems Engineering Team, Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, and currently leads NASA’s effort to structure Mars robotic missions to serve as precursors to eventual human exploration of the red planet.
Connolly also serves as Chair of the International space University’s Space Systems Analysis and Design Department, and is an adjunct faculty member of Cleveland State University.
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*John was a good student in school – math and science were easy for him. He studied engineering at Penn State and the University of Colorado. NASA called him to ask if he wanted to work on human lunar and Mars missions and now he is part of these projects at Johnson Space Center where every so often people like Buzz Aldrin come in his office, sit down, and want to see what cool stuff they are working on. Connolly stated in an article for the Planetary Society, “All this has taught me that anything you can dream, you can do. And that dreams do come true.”
(* This information is from an article on the Planetary Society’s web site.)
His other interests are road racing, marathons, ice hockey, music, woodworking, and model rocketry.