Short answers, pulled from the story.
John Houbolt was an American aerospace engineer credited with leading the team behind the lunar orbit rendezvous mission mode, the flight plan NASA used to land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth. He worked as an engineer at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
John Houbolt championed lunar orbit rendezvous, the mission mode NASA formally adopted for the Apollo program in July 1962. The approach let a single Saturn V rocket complete the mission, saving NASA time and billions of dollars compared with rival flight plans.
NASA panels dismissed the concept as too risky, since a failed rendezvous in lunar orbit would leave no way to rescue the crew. At a panel on the 14th of December 1960, engineer Max Faget told Houbolt, 'His figures lie. He doesn't know what he's talking about.'
NASA formally adopted lunar orbit rendezvous for the Apollo program in July 1962, after Associate Administrator Robert Seamans and rocket designer Wernher von Braun came around to support it. A direct letter Houbolt sent to Seamans on the 15th of November 1961 helped drive that decision.
Ahead of the Space Shuttle's first flight, STS-1, in 1981, Houbolt co-wrote a letter with engineer Holt Ashley urging Johnson Space Center director Chris Kraft to delay the launch over fears of major thermal tile loss. The External Tank did show heat damage as feared, though the mission ultimately landed safely with only minimal tile damage.
John Houbolt died on the 15th of April 2014 at a nursing home in Scarborough, Maine, from Parkinson's disease. He was born on the 10th of April 1919 in Altoona, Iowa.