PATH OF A WARRIOR Alumni Spotlight
Russel and his wife, Janice, stand next to an oil pipeline in Fairbanks, Alaska. Russel helped the company that installed the pipeline determine how it should be insulated to properly function during cold Alaskan winters.
FROM SOYBEANS TO THE STARS BY J U S T I N A . CO H N
Russel Rhodes, who grew up on an Indiana farm never having seen an airplane in flight, was embroiled in a bit of a disagreement with some of the world’s greatest minds when it came to aeronautics. His Indiana Tech education in tow, Rhodes was at Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of the NASA group attempting to launch a Saturn I rocket, when a liquid oxygen fill-and-drain valve did not register as being closed, leading to an initial decision to abandon the early 1960s launch.
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hodes spoke up, famed aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun listened and took Rhodes’ advice, and the launch was saved. “They called a scrub and I said, ‘I don’t know why you’re scrubbing.’ It wasn’t just a few seconds and von Braun was standing in front of me wanting to hear my proposals,” Rhodes, 85, recalled. “So I said, ‘Well, here’s what I propose to do.’ All my associates were standing around and they were shaking in their boots. They said, ‘You’re going to blow this.’ I told them I knew what I was doing.” Rhodes’ workaround included setting up a manual component panel to match the automatic configurations of the time, saving the launch. It was just one great moment from a career with NASA that spanned 52 years—though he’s still active in some roles, such as with the Space Propulsion Synergy Team that promotes better communication between technology users and developers in the industry. Not bad for a guy from Tippecanoe High School, who had grown up working in the fields and milking cows after school, then graduated 38
Winter 2022
from Indiana Tech with a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering in 1958. “The most amazing thing, and the gratifying aspect of Indiana Tech, was that (before) I went there I didn’t have any money. My father had allowed me to plant 20 acres of soybeans and … he told me whatever you make off that you can have to start your schooling,” Rhodes said. “I made $600 to start. It doesn’t sound like much today, but it was pretty good for a start. However, I had to find work right away (when I started school) and I found that was pretty difficult, even in an industrial town like Fort Wayne. Then I heard an announcement over the PA one day that they wanted students for part-time work.” Rhodes worked in the research and development lab and, through various opportunities given to him as an Indiana Tech student, began getting equal parts classroom and real-world experience in Fort Wayne. Among his duties were testing magnet wire equipment for local companies, maintaining the Allen County Courthouse clock and repairing equipment for the electrical engineering department. “The memorable aspect was all the experience I got from all the jobs they gave me there, and the process was highly valuable,” Rhodes said. “I learned more from that than I would have just from classwork. So, it couldn’t have been more ideal.” All the while, he knew he wanted to get into aeronautics. “I don’t know why. Growing up on a farm, I’d never seen an airplane,” he said. “But I had it fixated in my mind that I wanted to work with airplanes, I wanted to be an airplane designer,
