Milt Heflin

Key takeaways

Milt Heflin belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Milt Heflin to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Milt Heflin from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

James Milton Heflin Jr. (born May 28, 1943 in Fairfax, Oklahoma) is a retired NASA official, who recently served as the associate director for technical activities at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Heflin also served as lead flight director for seven high-profile Space Shuttle missions, including the first to service and repair the Hubble Space Telescope and three that deployed inter-planetary probes.

Personal Heflin calls both Fairfax, Oklahoma and Edmond, Oklahoma home. He was born in Fairfax, and he moved with his family in 1956 to Edmond, where he lived from his eighth-grade year through college. He has been married to the former Sally Byler, a retired school teacher, since 1966. They have two sons – Daren and Matthew – and two granddaughters. He enjoys golf; vintage and amateur radio operating and collecting; and the Houston Texans NFL team. Heflin also plays trombone in an 18-piece big band that performs in the Houston area.

Education In 1966, Heflin graduated from Central State College (now known as University of Central Oklahoma) with a bachelor of science degree in physics and math.

NASA career Heflin began working at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center) on June 6, 1966. His initial role was as a ground test vehicle engineer and test conductor for the development and qualification of water recovery hardware and procedures for the Apollo command module. He was also a director for the command module's reaction control subsystem deactivation and pyrotechnic safing team. He was on the prime recovery ships during the splashdowns and post-landing activities of Apollo 8, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, Apollo 17, each of the three Skylab missions, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Heflin then worked as a flight controller for orbiter electrical and environmental systems for the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests as well as the Shuttle's first nine missions. Heflin progressed up the chain of command to work as a flight director, beginning with the April 1985 flight of STS-51D. He went on to oversee 20 Space Shuttle flights, with seven as lead flight director in charge of overall operations on the ground. Heflin was lead flight director for:

STS-30 (May 1989), which deployed the Magellan planetary probe to Venus STS-34 (October 1989), which deployed the Galileo probe to Jupiter STS-41 (October 1990), which deployed the Ulysses probe to the sun STS-44 (November–December 1991), a Department of Defense mission that also deployed the unclassified Defense Support Program Satellite STS-47 (September 1992), which carried the Spacelab payload STS-61 (December 1993), the first Hubble Space Telescope repair and servicing mission STS-65 (July 1994), the second flight of the International Microgravity Laboratory When the Space Shuttle Columbia broke up on February 1, 2003, Heflin was serving as chief of the flight director office. That same day, he took part in an emotional press conference in which he and Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore outlined the details of the accident as they knew them at that point. That job was followed by a stint as deputy director of the Mission Operations Directorate, an organization of approximately 3,000 government and contractor employees responsible for the planning, training and flying of humans in space. In 2007, he became associate director (technical) at JSC. At one time or another, Heflin has also been a charter member and deputy manager of the EVA (extravehicular activity) Project Office and served on the NASA Space Flight Safety Panel and as JSC's Ombudsman. He was also a member of the NASA Advisory Council Task Force on International Space Station Operational Readiness. On March 1 of 2013, Milt Heflin retired from NASA.

Team name Each NASA flight director is allowed to choose a symbol or color to represent his or her team. Heflin chose to call his team Sirius. It is the brightest star in the heavens, and is sometimes referred to as the "dog" star.

Recognitions Largely as a result of the successful Hubble servicing mission, Heflin was named Countdown magazine's 1993 Astronaut of the Year, despite the fact that he had never flown in space. The repair team as a whole received the nation's highest aviation award, the Robert J. Collier Trophy for "outstanding leadership, integrity and the renewal of public faith in America's space program." In 1997, Heflin was inducted into the Aviation Week & Space Technology Hall of Fame, and the following year, was named to the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Heflin is one of the few people whose career spanned the entirety of NASA's Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. Additionally, he is the only person who was present at the final landings of both the Apollo program in 1975 and of the Space Shuttle era in 2011.

Special honors and awards University of Central Oklahoma

Distinguished Former Student – 1984 Broncho Award - 1990 (One of 30 former students recognized from university's first 100 years) Professional

Johnson Space Center Certificate of Commendation – 1990 NASA Exceptional Service Medal - 1991 and 2006 NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal – 1993 Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Senior Executive – 2008 "Aviation Week & Space Technology" Aerospace Laurel – 1989 "Aviation Week & Space Technology" Aerospace Laureate – 1993 "Aviation Week & Space Technology" Laureates Hall of Fame Inductee - 1997

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Milt Heflin

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Milt Heflin claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Milt Heflin before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Milt Heflin ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Milt Heflin

In research: Milt Heflin appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Milt Heflin in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Milt Heflin is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1943 births, Living people, NASA flight controllers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Milt Heflin outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Milt Heflin in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Milt Heflin means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Milt Heflin out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Milt Heflin in simple terms?

James Milton Heflin Jr. (born May 28, 1943 in Fairfax, Oklahoma) is a retired NASA official, who recently served as the associate director for technical activities at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Why does Milt Heflin matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Milt Heflin?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Milt Heflin.