Ole Philip Palludan was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 3/26/57 to his parents, Ole and Elizabeth. Phil’s father was Danish, and his mother was from New Jersey.
When Phil was just 4 weeks old, they sailed to the US, landing in New York on May 1st, 1957. Phil grew up in New Jersey along with his younger brother and sister.
While in high school, he participated in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and learned to fly. He did his first solo flight on 25th August 1974 at Millville Airport in New Jersey.
After graduating from high school, he joined the Air Force. He did his missile maintenance and operation training at Sheppard Air Force Base, and Titan Rocket Systems & launch operations training at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
After graduating from basic training, he was stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base, where he served on a 4-man Titan 11 strategic missile crew. He achieved the rank of NCO Sergeant on 1/4/1977. He was honorably discharged on 24th November 1978.
After leaving the Air Force, he stayed locally, married, and had his son Kristoffer and daughter Neva. He later joined Honeywell as an instrumentation engineer and worked for them for many years.
Phil and I met on March 25th, 1990, and we had a whirlwind romance that changed the course of my life. I had moved from the UK to Arkansas in October 89 to work for a year as a pediatric nurse at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, but had already made my plan to leave early. Phil changed all of that on the night that we met. We got married in England on May 3rd, 1991; had our daughter Katherine on October 30, 1992, and our son Ryan on May 12th, 1995. We lost Ryan tragically on August 18th, 2013, from a ruptured aorta, and Katherine passed away on August 17th, 2014, following open heart surgery.
These tragedies brought us even closer to each other.
He was such a loving, kind, thoughtful, generous person. His intelligence, curiosity, and extent of knowledge never ceased to amaze me. He loved all things science-related, had always been fascinated by space, and talked about how much he would love to go to space someday. One of his favorite books was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He loved trivia and reading, especially science fiction, history, and thrillers. He was fascinated with rocks and meteorites, and never failed to bring a couple home with us from our many vacations.
We were in Arizona 2 months before his passing, so that he could take me to the Titan Missile Museum. While there, we drove to the Grand Canyon, and as the sun was setting, we saw the comet-like tail in the sky left by one of the SpaceX rockets that had launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base. It was a truly beautiful sight, and Phil talked about going to space again if the public were ever able to ride a passenger rocket.
We are now able to make his dream come true.
Phil has left such a huge hole in our lives. He leaves behind his wife Deborah, son Kristoffer, daughter Neva, 7 grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren, brother Peter, sister Kirsten, and his good friends.
