Victor Head, 92; engineer helped with lunar missions

Victor Page Head, 92, of Hatboro, a retired mechanical and space engineer and community activist, died of cancer Jan. 1 at Abington Memorial Hospital.

Mr. Head grew up in California and New Hampshire. He earned a bachelor's degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he ran cross-country on the track team. He met his future wife, Florence Lawler, at Troy Baptist Church.

During World War II, he was a jet-propulsion test engineer for General Electric in Lynn, Mass. After the war, he was an engineer designing flow measurements for water systems for Fischer & Porter Co. in Warminster.

In 1961, he joined the lunar mission design team at the RCA Space Center in Hightstown, N.J. His research predicted that the moon's surface was like a firm, wet beach, his daughter Marilyn said. He also determined that there were many craters, too small to appear on photographs, that needed to be considered in preparation for landing, she said.

After 10 years at RCA, Mr. Head returned to Fischer & Porter. He retired as senior scientist in 1980.

He contributed to scientific journals and was a member of several professional organizations, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

An avid amateur astronomer, Mr. Head photographed comets and sunspots using a homemade telescope, his daughter said. He performed magic tricks at work functions and church socials; sang bass in church choirs; and played the recorder, ukulele, and harmonica.

After retiring, he took art classes with his wife and became a proficient watercolorist. The couple were active in the Peace Task Force of the Philadelphia Baptist Association and the antinuclear movement, and they delivered Meals on Wheels.

For 11 years, Mr. Head helped organize the annual CROP walk in Hatboro to raise money for disaster victims and the poor. He told an Inquirer reporter in 1995 that he supported the walk because he understood what it was like to be hungry. "During the Depression, in the '30s, my mother and I lived on split pea soup for a week," he said.

In recent years he wrote articles about his early childhood in Alpine, Calif., and in 2009 the Alpine Historical Society published a collection of his work. He also contributed articles to Grist, a publication of the Millbrook Society of Hatboro.

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Head is survived by a son, David; daughters Nancy Watson and Kathleen Franks; nine grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren. His wife of 61 years died in 2002.

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow at Hatboro Baptist Church, 32 N. York Rd.