INTERVIEW By the Dart INTERVIEW


JOHN ELLWOOD


ENGINEERING FOR THE STARS


J


ohn ellwood has spent his career helping to solve the massive


problems associated with sending rockets, satellites and scientific instruments into space. He has helped create and launch some of the most famous and most useful items ever to be fired from this planet. And he is one of the most unassuming and modest men you’ll ever meet. Sitting in his home overlooking


Warfleet creek – which he and his wife Lindsay designed and had built – he reflects on the life he has led grappling with the tough engineering challenges of sending large pieces of hardware into space. “I’ve been very lucky and had some amazing experiences,” he said. “I graduated a month before the moon landings in 1969 – at that time if you had any interest in science or engineering then Space was a


fascinating environment. It seemed like a natural step to work in the industry.”


John was born in Dartmouth in


1948, where his father, Tom, worked at the Britannia Royal Naval College and later became chairman of the local Magistrates bench. John went


“I helped create the


European part of the Hubble Space Telescope,”


away to school, but always enjoyed school holidays in Dartmouth, and he developed his love of sailing from his time on the river during summer holidays. Showing obvious talent, John won a scholarship to Cambridge from the UK Atomic Energy Authority – he went on to gain a PhD in the Structural Engineering of Spacecraft.


In 1974 he received a call that


would change his life – inviting him to work for the European Space Agency’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in Holland. “Initially, I worked on how to get the precision engineered instruments in satellites into space without getting damaged,” he told me. “Launching a rocket is awe inspiring in its power and brutality. If you are within half a mile of a launch it deafens you! I worked on how the vibrations caused by lift off could damage the cargo on a rocket and ways to minimize them. these were the first European satellites sent up and it was a very exciting time.” John not only helped in the creation of some remarkable satellites when he was in Holland – he also fell in love. “Lindsay was a teacher at the


British School of the Netherlands and, after mutual friends introduced us, we hit it off,” he said. “We were married in Devon in 1980 and had our reception at the Carved Angel in Dartmouth – I’ve always maintained a base here, and have loved coming back after I retired. Both our children love it here and I’m really glad we have Dartmouth as our home.” During his time in Europe - he spent most of his time in The Netherlands, but he also lived for four years working in Paris – John worked on a roll call of the most important and iconic projects in space. “I helped create the European part


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