National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Volume 35, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2018

Taken aboard Apollo 8 by Bill Anders, this iconic picture 

dubbed “Earthrise” shows Earth peeking out from 

beyond the lunar surface as the first crewed spacecraft 

circumnavigated the Moon.

CELEBRATING THE 

APOLLO 50TH

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS 

AND THE CENTERS

PAINTING THE MOON FOR APOLLO

NASA–UNIVERSITY RELATIONS 

IN THE AGE OF APOLLO

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
2

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

IN THIS ISSUE:

3 From the First Chief Historian

4 News from Headquarters and the Centers

12 Other Aerospace History News

13 From “One Giant Leap for Mankind” to a Set of 

Amazing Web Resources

16 The Hero’s Journey In The Films Star Wars And 2001

20 Hand-Painted Moons, Rollercoasters, and Apollo

22 NASA’s University Relations in the Age of Apollo

25 Recent Publications

30 Upcoming Meetings

31 Moment in NASA History

The instrument unit for the Saturn V 

launch vehicle, AS-506, used to propel 

the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, is lowered 

into place atop the third (S-IVB) stage in the vehicle assembly 

building at the NASA Kennedy Space Center on 5 March 1969. 

The instrument unit, designed at the NASA Marshall Space Flight 

Center, served as the Saturn V’s “nerve center,” providing guidance and control, command and sequence of vehicle functions, 

telemetry, and environmental control. (Credit: NASA.)
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Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

FROM THE FIRST CHIEF HISTORIAN

For this Apollo 50th Anniversary special edition, we thought we’d share the thoughts of NASA’s first chief historian, Dr. Eugene Emme. The unedited note below is from his introduction to the history newsletter 

written at the end of 1969.

NASA HISTORICAL NEWSLETTER

Historical Division (EH) 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Washington, D. C. 20546 

Gene Emme, NASA Chief Historian

January 1, 1970 Number 11

Portrait of Eugene M. “Gene” 

Emme, NASA’s first chief 

historian, who served from 

1958–1978. (Credit: NASA)

July 20, 1969, may come to be regarded as the day of the greatest single human event of the twentieth century, the day when man first set foot upon an 

extraterrestrial body. While the impact of man’s first landing upon the surface 

of the Moon may also be of high interest to historians after the year 2001, the 

voyage of Apollo 11 was at least the most visible and vicarious event to date 

in world history. Over a half-billion people around the world were estimated 

to have witnessed the lunar walk of astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin live via 

television. Americans who did not witness this event as it happened now appear reluctant even to admit it. The full consequences of this instant historical 

experience remain in the domain of prophets and posterity. 

This moment in NASA’s twelfth year offers a challenging perspective from which to view the contemporary history of science, technology, and public policy. The dynamic and detailed story of 

the recent past deserves in-depth attention to seminal documentation, timely interviews of the key 

people, and dispassionate scholarship. Disciplined attention to this important chapter in the full 

history of mankind must proceed, be it noted during a challenging era of great problems as well 

as of visions of unlimited future prospects. Many of these visions are notable consequences of the 

swift and wholesale impact of space exploration and exploitation. Ready explanations of limited 

depth and breadth have quickly appeared; the flood of beautifully illustrated publications with 

caption-style chronology has just started. Spokesmen of thought and action rooted in traditional 

assumptions regarding science, technology, and all echelons of political and social affairs have 

been critically vocal. The aerospace-minded community in our pluralistic society, preoccupied 

with the next decades of technological opportunities, is yet assessing the scientific harvest and 

utilitarian payoffs of the past decade. It appears even more clear that there are but few workers 

in the historical vineyard of the history of astronautics and aeronautics. 

Without dwelling upon the intellectual discipline of history as it is challenged by man’s first step 

beyond his planetary homeland I by the concept of “spaceship Earth,” of the “global village,” this 

newsletter offers recent notes upon what has so far been done under the aegis of NASA. It covers 

items not covered in previous newsletters.
4

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

By Bill Barry

As noted in the September edition of News and Notes, we expected fall 2018 to be busy—and it 

certainly has been! We were taxed by anniversary work, 

pushing our new history directive through the system, planning a workshop, doing interviews, speaking 

requests, tons of questions from the media and the 

public, and getting books into print. In the midst of 

all of this, tragedy struck our team.

On the morning of Sunday, 14 October, Chief 

Archivist Robyn Rodgers’ 21-year-old daughter Beth 

passed away unexpectedly. This was a heavy blow. I 

was, however, heartened to see the outpouring of support from the history and archival team across the 

Agency and our colleagues here in the Headquarters 

Office of Communications. On behalf of Robyn, let 

me pass along her thanks for your continuing help 

and concern. 

In more mundane matters, the good news on the anniversaries is that the 60th anniversary of NASA events 

are done and that we can concentrate now on Apollo 

50th anniversary activities. Unfortunately, the extra 

help—both personnel and funding—that we had been 

expecting last summer has failed (so far) to materialize. 

So, anniversary work has been a matter of dashing 

from one crisis to the next. Fortunately, much of the 

NASA anniversary activity has been online or based 

on partnerships. NASA’s tremendous digital teams 

(especially the folks at NASA.gov and NASA TV) 

have done a great job of leveraging limited resources. 

We also have some really great partners, most notably 

our colleagues at the Smithsonian National Air and 

Space Museum, who have carried the anniversary ball 

for us. The marking of the Apollo 8 anniversary is a 

good case in point. The museum initiated the “Spirit 

of Apollo” event at Washington National Cathedral 

on 11 December and invited NASA to join in. We 

broadcast that event live both on NASA TV and 

online. NASA’s Apollo 8 story was also told at the 

annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall 

Meeting in Washington, D.C., that same week (10–14 

December), largely through the efforts and funding of 

our colleagues in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. 

Unless there is a dramatic change in support, I expect 

that this is the model we will follow throughout 2019 

for the other Apollo mission anniversaries. 

A particular bright point in the anniversary effort has 

been planning for the “Apollo Dialogues Workshop: 

New Perspectives on Spaceflight in Society,” held on 

7 December at the Smithsonian Institution’s Ripley 

Center here in Washington, D.C. We expected that 

we might get as many as 100 applicants for the 80 

or so slots that we thought we could accommodate. 

Instead, we were flooded with 30 percent more than 

we expected! This made for some very tough choices, 

but we think that the combination of established 

scholars in aerospace history, plus an interesting mix 

of those from other historical disciplines, as well as 

interested people from outside the historical community will make for some very fertile conversations. The 

workshop was not planned as a conference, but as a 

place to foster assessment and discussion of Apollo 

history and the future directions of inquiry in this 

field. We have great hopes that this event will serve 

as an incubator that will kick off further work—from 

conferences to publications—on that amazing Apollo 

decade in the middle of the 20th century. 

This fall we also finished the review of a new NASA 

Policy Directive (NPD) for the history program. In 

the late 1990s, the Headquarters policy guidance document for the history program (as well as a number 

of others) was abolished in a whirlwind of deregulation. In lieu of stated policies, the program continued 

much as before. But, after two decades and much 
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Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

change, there was clearly a need to re-establish history policy guidance for the Agency. Fortunately, the 

draft NPD prompted few critiques during the review 

cycle, and we are dispositioning those as I write this. 

You should soon see NPD 2700 – The NASA History 

Program published. 

With the combination of the NASA 60th anniversary 

and the Apollo 50th anniversary, the Headquarters 

history program has been 

swamped with questions 

from the press and public. From kids working 

on National History Day 

projects on the space 

program, to documentary filmmakers, to those 

with questions about the 

feature film First Man, 

the team here has been 

busy every day. I have 

been spending a lot of 

time giving talks on the 

anniversaries and talking 

with the press about Neil 

Armstrong. While I get 

far more time in front of 

a microphone or camera 

than I would like, it is 

important to note that I would not be able to do that 

sort of work effectively without the awesome support 

of the history team here at Headquarters and across 

the Agency. My thanks to everyone for making us all 

look so smart. 

While anniversaries only roll around every few years, 

one of the constants of history program life is the 

production of quality NASA histories. I’m particularly 

proud of our latest release: Beyond Earth: A Chronicle 

of Deep Space Exploration, 1958–2016 by Asif Siddiqi. 

This is an update of the essential reference document 

Deep Space Chronicle. Much has happened in planetary exploration since Dr. Siddiqi wrote Deep Space 

Chronicle in 2001. This new book not only fills in 

the missions over the last decade-and-a-half, but also 

updates and corrects the entries from the original 

work. Much of what you see on the Internet about 

planetary missions was directly lifted from Deep Space 

Chronicle and I fully expect that Beyond Earth will 

become the new essential reference source for planetary missions. Not only is it a great resource, but 

the cover design, donated by artist Ariel Waldman, is 

unique and exciting. We could only afford to print 

1,000 copies, so if you feel 

the need for flipping pages 

when finding data let us 

know soon. Those of you 

who like the convenience 

of computer searching, 

the PDF and two e-Book 

versions are available for 

d ow n l o a d — f re e — o n 

the NASA e-Books site 

at http://www.nasa.gov/

ebooks. I know that you 

will find Beyond Earth 

both beautiful and useful. 

And we have more books 

coming your way in 2019.

WHILE ANNIVERSARIES ONLY 

ROLL AROUND EVERY FEW 

YEARS, ONE OF THE CONSTANTS 

OF HISTORY PROGRAM LIFE 

IS THE PRODUCTION OF 

QUALITY NASA HISTORIES. I’M 

PARTICULARLY PROUD OF OUR 

LATEST RELEASE: BEYOND 

EARTH: A CHRONICLE OF DEEP 

SPACE EXPLORATION, 1958–2016

BY ASIF SIDDIQI. Finally, I can’t finish this 

without taking a few lines 

to sing the praises of our 

interns. This fall Will McCormick, a Ph.D. candidate 

at Oklahoma State University, juggled a job and his 

beautiful family in Oklahoma while serving here as a 

member of our team. I’m not sure when he slept, but 

it certainly wasn’t on the job. His internship with us 

was relatively short, but he made major contributions. 

Rachel Carollo, a senior at the University of Colorado 

Boulder, brought boundless enthusiasm and some 

killer organizational skills to bear this fall. Her spreadsheet skills made easy work for the rest of us in organizing the Apollo Dialogues workshop in December. 

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the both of them 

for a great fall 2018. Thanks and good luck in the 

future—although neither of you will need luck with 

the dedication and skills you demonstrated here. 
6

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By Layne Karafantis and April Gage

In the midst of celebrating 60 years since the creation 

of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 

the Ames History Office and the Center’s Office of 

Communications have been gearing up to pay tribute 

to Project Apollo, which landed the first people on the 

Moon in 1969. Research at Ames in support of Apollo 

was wide-ranging, and included theoretical and practical work on the teardrop shape of the Apollo command module and its thermal protection system, key 

elements of the Apollo guidance computer, and Moon 

sample analysis that yielded insights about Earth’s only 

permanent natural satellite.

Ames’ contributions to the American 

spaceflight program began more than 

a decade before the first crewed Apollo 

missions, and even well before the creation of NASA in 1958. Aeronautical 

engineer (and later Ames Center 

Director) Harvey Julian Allen pioneered the “blunt body concept,” which 

enabled the successful atmospheric 

reentry of orbiting spacecraft. In the 

early 1950s, some rocket engineers were 

focused on creating the launch vehicles 

necessary to send an object, such as a 

ballistic missile, out of our atmosphere. Others, such 

as Allen, concentrated their efforts on determining 

how these projectiles might safely return from these 

heights, given the intense heat caused by atmospheric 

friction that they are subjected to as they race back 

toward Earth. While his contemporaries attempted 

to break the sound barrier, Allen and others at Ames 

considered how we might cross the thermal barrier. 

It had long seemed intuitive that a pointy nose cone 

on a vehicle would best mitigate aerodynamic drag 

and avoid heating due to friction, but in 1951 Allen 

suggested that the amount of extreme heat that would 

be absorbed by a returning craft could be lessened if 

its nose were blunt, which would strengthen the bow 

shock wave and increase the pressure drag.

AMES’ CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE 

AMERICAN SPACEFLIGHT PROGRAM 

BEGAN MORE THAN A DECADE BEFORE 

THE FIRST CREWED APOLLO MISSIONS, 

AND EVEN WELL BEFORE THE CREATION 

OF NASA IN 1958.

When Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, which had been 

operating since 1939 as a part of the National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), became part 

of NASA in 1958, new facilities were built at Ames 

Research Center that would validate the thermal and 

aerodynamic components of Allen’s blunt body theory. 

The hypervelocity research laboratory used tunnels 

that tested the effects of extreme speeds from Mach 10 

to Mach 25. Research efforts increased in the 1960s, 

in support of NASA’s mission to send humans to the 

Moon and return them safely to Earth. The Ames 

Hypervelocity Free-Flight Facility (HFF) opened in 

1965, which is where every vehicle in America’s space 

program has since been tested for flight stability at 

reentry velocities. The Center soon complemented 

this facility with a number of arc jets, a type of 

wind tunnel in which ablative materials are tested 

to determine melting characteristics (among other 

aspects) found during atmospheric reentry. Research 

conducted in these arc jet tunnels informed the design 

of an ablative heatshield that was used on the Apollo 

command module capsules. Today’s Ames Arc Jet 

Complex continues to provide testing facilities for 

research in thermal protection materials, vehicle structures, aerothermodynamics, and hypersonic entry.

The design of Apollo spacecraft systems also benefited from the work of Ames scientists and engineers. 

Stanley Schmidt extended the Kalman linear filter—a 

statistical technique for correcting trajectories—by 

combining this approach with optical measurements 
7

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

of stars and data about the motion of a spacecraft. 

Schmidt’s contribution provided the accuracy needed 

for NASA to place a capsule into orbit around the 

Moon. Later called the Kalman-Schmidt filter, this 

innovation was embedded in the Apollo guidance 

computer and eventually became part of all air navigation systems. Ames would go on to serve as the peer 

reviewer and primary internal critic for the Apollo 

guidance computer. Human factors research at Ames 

also assisted the Apollo missions. Work in flight simulators led to the development of backup methods 

that Apollo astronauts would use if systems failed. The 

Ames navigation simulator showed how an astronaut 

might use a sextant to navigate using the stars, while 

research with a five-degrees-of-freedom simulator and 

centrifuges demonstrated how an astronaut might 

manually navigate a reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Once the Apollo astronauts began returning with lunar 

samples, Ames scientists analyzed the composition 

of these materials. Upon determining their carbon 

chemistry, they concluded that the samples did not 

contain life, which led to their further discovery that 

the Moon was being constantly bombarded with solar 

wind and micrometeorites, allowing for a better understanding of lunar weather and the Moon environment. 

Ames space scientists studied the Moon’s composition 

and the properties of its magnetic fields with special 

magnetometers to learn about the Moon’s geophysics 

and geological history. NASA used this magnetometer 

data to develop a satellite, Explorer 35, which mapped 

permanent lunar magnetic fields. Applications of this 

technology extended well beyond the Moon, enabling 

exploration of magnetism in other planets and moons 

in our solar system.

The History Office at Ames looks forward to continuing to share stories from the Apollo era. We also 

hope to engage local institutions and support other 

commemorative efforts. For one example, the USS 

Hornet Museum in Alameda, California, is planning 

a number of events in celebration of the Apollo 11 

Moon landing, as part of a program they have labeled 

Splashdown 50. A critical decision that shaped the 

entire Apollo Program was NASA’s choice to recover 

space capsules from water landings, which allowed 

for reduced weight and complexity of spacecraft. The 

USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier now docked at the 

former Naval Air Station Alameda, had a long and distinguished naval career between 1943 and 1970, but 

one of its proudest accomplishments came at the tail 

end of its service, when it was designated the Prime 

Recovery Ship (PRS) for the Apollo 11 and 12 command modules. The Hornet and its U.S. Navy crew 

not only retrieved the modules and their astronauts, 

but supported the quarantine process by devising disinfecting agents and providing Biological Isolation 

Garments (BIG suits) that encased astronauts during 

the trip from a recovery helicopter to the ship (during 

Apollo 11, after which NASA switched to flight suits, 

respirators, and special sneakers). They also furnished 

a Mobile Quarantine Facility that housed astronauts, 

soil samples, personal items, and other equipment 

while in transit from the splashdown site in the 

Pacific to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Johnson 

Space Center. This facility, a 1969 Airstream trailer, 

is currently on display at the USS Hornet Museum. 

We look forward to coordinating our efforts with 

this neighboring institution and assisting with its 

Splashdown 50 events.

GLENN RESEARCH CENTER (GRC)

Cleveland, Ohio

By Anne Mills

Glenn Research Center is pleased to announce the 

publishing of our new historic facility Web site! It can 

be found at the following link: https://www1.grc.nasa.

gov/historic-facilities. Information about Glenn’s facilities that have been part of historic mitigation projects 

is now consolidated into one site. Visitors can learn 

more about the Altitude Wind Tunnel, the Propulsion 

Systems Laboratory, the Plum Brook Rocket Systems 

Area, and the Special Projects Lab. There is also 

information about the GRC History Office and the 

Historic Preservation Program. Many thanks go to 

archivist Bob Arrighi for making this project a success!
8

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

First Man director Damien Chazelle (left) and Mark Armstrong (center) review a flight log 

book from the NASA Glenn Research Center archives where Neil Armstrong’s early flights 

were recorded.

The History Office has supported several special events 

surrounding the premiere of the Neil Armstrong 

biopic First Man. Glenn Research Center has a special 

connection with Neil Armstrong as the place where 

he first started his NASA career. At that time, GRC 

was known as the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics Lewis Flight Propulsion Center. 

Armstrong worked here from February to July of 1955 

as a research pilot, flying icing research missions. Also 

prominently featured in the film was the infamous 

“gimbal rig”—a facility located at Lewis. Space history 

buffs may already know that only Mercury astronauts 

trained in this facility—not Gemini or Apollo crews. 

While not entirely historically accurate, it certainly 

made for great entertainment! GRC participated in 

two special sneak-previews of First Man. History 

Officer Anne Mills made a presentation on the GRC 

connection to Neil Armstrong. Also making a special 

appearance were film director Damien Chazelle, and 

Mark Armstrong—son of Neil Armstrong. Chazelle 

and Armstrong also toured the NASA Glenn Visitor 

Center at Great Lakes Science Center, where they 

were shown the flight log from the Glenn archives that 

included Armstrong’s flights. 

JET PROPULSION LABORATORY (JPL)

Pasadena, California

By Julie Cooper

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has played a significant 

role in the robotic exploration of Earth, the Moon, 

our solar system, and beyond, including operation 

of the Deep Space Network. However, it’s not widely 

known that JPL also supported the Apollo program, 

contributing to the collection of scientific and technical information that made it possible for astronauts to 

journey safely to the Moon and successfully explore it.

In December 1964, hearing tests were conducted in the acoustic reverberation chamber of JPL’s Environmental and Dynamic Testing Laboratory. 

The tests verified that Apollo astronauts could hear an audio warning tone 

above the noise generated by the huge Saturn C5 launch vehicle.

Groups of Apollo astronauts periodically visited JPL to 

look at photographs of the lunar surface. In July 1966, 

the head of the Materials Research Section provided 

images recently received from Surveyor 1. This information reduced concerns about rocks, dust, or terrain 

that might make it impossible to safely land, walk, 

drive, or take photographs on the surface of the Moon. 

The Solar Wind Spectrometer (SWS) was designed and 

tested by JPL. It detected and measured solar plasma 

that reached the surface of the Moon and transmitted 

the data to Earth. The first one was deployed during 

Apollo 12 on 19 November 1969. The next day, after 

the Lunar Module (Intrepid) left the Moon to rejoin 
9

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

Left to right: Dr. Leonard Jaffe; tour guide Barney Huber; and astronauts Al 

Worden, Ken Mattingly, and Jack Swigert.

In this 1967 photo, an astronaut practiced removing the Solar Wind 

Spectrometer from its container and deploying it.

the Command Module and the dust had settled, the 

SWS was turned on and sensor covers opened. It was 

not turned off until 15 January 1977.

JPL also developed a rock-breaker/can-sealer to handle 

lunar rocks. A glove box operator would put the lunar 

sample in place and the device’s rock-breaker attachment could apply up to 16 tons of pressure to split the 

rock into a manageable size. With a change to the cansealer attachment, the device could then seal the sample in a round metal can. The samples were then sent 

to scientists around the United States for analysis. The 

rock-breaker/can-sealer device needed to be self-contained, hand operated, and have no power source 

or hydraulic components. It had to fit in a 12-inch 

cube, be easily moved and disassembled, and made 

of aluminum and stainless steel so that it would not 

contaminate the lunar samples. Two of these devices 

were delivered to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at 

the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space 

Center) so that tests could be run before the launch of 

Apollo 11 in July 1969.

JPL developed a prototype rock-breaker/can-sealer to handle lunar rocks. 
10

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By John Uri

For three days in August, the JSC History Office 

hosted the 2018 Annual NASA History Program 

Review at the White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, 

New Mexico. We want to especially thank our hosts 

at White Sands for all their efforts in planning for the 

meeting and their outstanding support and hospitality 

during the event. The venue, the great speakers, and 

informative tours made the review a great success.

We continue to expand our extensive oral 

history collection. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal 

and Sandra Johnson completed all the 

planned interviews in fiscal year (FY) 

2018 for three projects: the JSC Oral 

History Project, NASA Headquarters, and 

the NASA Science Mission Directorate. 

They also conducted a series of interviews 

with members of the team who performed 

the cryogenic thermal-vacuum testing of 

the James Webb Space Telescope here at 

JSC in 2017. 

Early in FY 2019, they will close out an 

interview series with several key NASA 

leaders: Lesa Roe, Robert Lightfoot, Mike 

Hawes, and Scott Hubbard. The transcripts of the interviews will be uploaded 

to the JSC History Portal once the subjects have approved them for release.

Sandra responded to a series of ongoing requests for oral history audio from 

filmmakers working on projects for the 

National Geographic Channel, the 

Smithsonian Channel, C-SPAN, and 

a variety of other independent film and 

production companies, as well as a playwright working on a production about 

former NASA computer and mathematician Annie Easley. Most of these requests 

are related to projects in work for upcoming Apollo 

anniversaries.

JSC Historian Jennifer Ross-Nazzal presenting a lecture at Rice University as part of the 

Women in Space lecture series (top). Image credit: NASA/John Uri. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal 

during a Q&A session with film producer Rory Kennedy after a showing of her film Above 

and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow at JSC (bottom). (Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford)

Our JSC Historian, Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, supported 

the recently released motion picture, First Man, by 

providing answers for historical accuracy as the filmmakers worked through the filming and final editing 

process. Also, in recognition to the amount of time she 

spent with the support effort, her name appears in the 

credits at the end of the film. Jennifer was also asked 

to participate in two recent events. On 25 September, 

she gave the opening lecture of an eight-lecture series 
11

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

titled “Women in Space,” sponsored by the Glasscock 

School of Continuing Education at Rice University in 

Houston. During the invited lecture, Jennifer spoke 

about the experiences of women at JSC. On 4 October, 

Emmy-winning filmmaker Rory Kennedy (daughter 

of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy) was at JSC for 

a showing of her Discovery Channel film Above and 

Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow. Jennifer led the 

Q&A with Rory after the showing.

In recognition of upcoming significant space anniversaries, the JSC History Office is working with 

the JSC External Relations Office on a continuing 

series of articles posted on the nasa.gov Web site and 

JSC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Abstracts of 

the articles appear online in JSC’s Roundup Today. 

The features highlight the anniversaries of less celebrated events and people that were nevertheless crucial to achieving the Moon landing within President 

Kennedy’s timetable. We recently passed a milestone 

by publishing the 100th Web article since the series 

began in August 2017.

The JSC History Office continues its effort to publish Ross-Nazzal’s book Making Space for Women, 

in collaboration with the JSC University Research, 

Collaboration and Partnership Office. The manuscript 

is currently undergoing peer review at Texas A&M 

University Press.

John Uri attended the 79th annual meeting of the 

American Association for State and Local Historians 

(AASLH), held 26–29 September in Kansas City, 

Missouri. Although the conference was not geared 

toward space history, several of the breakout sessions 

provided useful information for JSC History Office 

activities, such as social media outreach. It was also an 

excellent networking opportunity.

The History Office team is working to relocate the current JSC History Portal and the heritage Shuttle-Mir 

Web site to space on another server, where they will 

be supported and protected for the foreseeable future. 

Also, over the last year, a series of interns have been 

tasked with upgrading the look and feel of the History 

Portal, and the changes will provide the History Office 

with easier control over content updates as well as 

a more modern format. We hope to complete both 

projects look soon. 

STENNIS SPACE CENTER (SSC)

Stennis Space Center, Mississippi

By Jessica Herr

In 1966, Mississippi’s Stennis Space Center (SSC) 

started the impossible: testing the rockets that would 

send humans to the Moon. In 1969, the first humans 

stepped onto its surface. Then, in 1975, SSC took 

the knowledge and expertise from the Apollo era and 

brought it to the reusable, efficient Space Shuttle Main 

Engine. In 1981, Space Shuttle Columbia launched. 

The Shuttle missions expanded our time in space, 

allowed us to study the effects of long-duration space 

travel on people and equipment, and supported the 

experiments on the International Space Station about 

how humans can live and work in space. 

Closeup of RS-25 engine testing. (Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne)
12

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

In 2015, SSC fired up the RS-25 engines 

for the Space Launch System (SLS). These 

rockets will propel humans beyond the 

Moon and into deep space. The first test 

of the RS-25 occurred on 9 January 2015. 

Four engines will be in the SLS core stage. 

These engines will run at a higher pressure 

and the propellant will be cooler than on 

the engines of the Space Shuttles. NASA is 

on its way back to the Moon and onward 

to Mars—something that once was thought 

as impossible as putting human footprints 

on the Moon. 

THESE ENGINES WILL RUN AT 

A HIGHER PRESSURE AND THE 

PROPELLANT WILL BE COOLER THAN 

ON THE ENGINES OF THE SPACE 

SHUTTLES. NASA IS ON ITS WAY 

BACK TO THE MOON AND ONWARD TO 

MARS—SOMETHING THAT ONCE WAS 

THOUGHT AS IMPOSSIBLE AS PUTTING 

HUMAN FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON. 

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS

AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY 

(AAS) HISTORY COMMITTEE

Michael Ciancone, Chair

2018 Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in 

Spaceflight History 

The Ordway Award is named in memory of Frederick I. Ordway III (1927–2014), a human 

spaceflight advocate and chronicler of the history 

of rocketry and space travel. The award recognizes 

exceptional, sustained efforts to inform and educate 

on spaceflight and its history through one or more 

media, such as (1) writing, editing, or publishing, (2) 

preparation and/or presentation of exhibits; or (3) 

production for distribution through film, television, 

art, or other non-print media. The award is managed 

by the History Committee of the AAS.

The recipients of the 2018 Ordway Award are as 

follows:

• Dennis R. Jenkins is recognized for sustained excellence in documenting aviation and space history 

and in making U.S. aerospace achievements accessible to the public.

• Ron Miller is recognized for sustained excellence 

in the field of space art and offering a tantalizing 

glimpse of the future. 

• Miles O’Brien is recognized for sustained excellence 

in journalism through his coverage of spaceflight 

activities. 

THE AAS EMME SELECTION PANEL 

Don Elder, Chair

2017 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature 

The AAS Emme Selection Panel has been busy this 

past summer reviewing titles submitted for this award. 

After careful consideration, the panel has selected 

the following recipient of the 2017 Emme Award as 

follows:

Neil M. Maher, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

2017).
13

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

FROM “ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND” TO A SET OF 

AMAZING WEB RESOURCES: THE APOLLO LUNAR SURFACE 

AND FLIGHT JOURNALS 

by Stephen Garber, Colin Fries, Ken Glover, and David Woods

On the occasion of the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, it is worth calling 

attention to a set of special resources that the NASA 

History Division proudly maintains: the Apollo Lunar 

Surface Journal (ALSJ) http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/

and the Apollo Flight Journal (AFJ) http://history.

nasa.gov/afj/. Almost 30 years ago, while working at 

the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Eric Jones began 

poring over air-to-ground transcripts from the Apollo 

missions and sat down with Jack Schmitt of Apollo 17 

to correct, annotate, and generally understand what 

these technical conversations signified. After a number 

of sessions, Schmitt agreed that the ALSJ promised 

to be worthwhile and wrote to the other moonwalkers urging their participation. All but two joined the 

project. From these humble roots, the ALSJ has grown 

into an encyclopedic, authoritative record of what 

happened while 12 astronauts walked on the Moon. 

In 1996, the NASA History Division began hosting 

the ALSJ on our Web site, with Eric as the editor. Over 

time, Ken Glover in Canada joined Jones as co-editor 

of the ALSJ. Eric Jones retired to Australia in 1999 

and kept up his ALSJ work without missing a beat. 

Amazingly, Jones and Glover have overseen the work 

of hundreds of volunteers who have contributed to 

the report in myriad ways. 

And this is the crux of the journals: teamwork. Jones 

has kept the focus on the missions and on being as 

thorough and accurate as possible. This has led to a 

virtuous cycle, in which so many of the relevant astronauts and so many dedicated volunteers from around 

the world have joined forces to make the journals 

so outstanding. 

In the mid-1990s, after volunteering to scan and format some hard-copy NASA History books for our 

nascent NASA History Web site (this was before 

the advent of pdfs!), David Woods in Scotland was 

inspired by the ALSJ to come up with the idea of 

a companion site covering what happened on the 

Apollo astronauts’ journeys to and from—rather than 

on the surface of—the Moon. Thus, the AFJ was born. 

The ALSJ and AFJ have proved to be invaluable 

resources for both NASA employees and the general 

public to learn about the historic Apollo program. 

They are consistently top-ranked among the many 

NASA Web sites, tallying millions of visitors each 

month. The amount of data they comprise can be 

staggering: tens of thousands of pages and untold 

gigabytes of text, audio, and video files. Even before 

the concept of knowledge management became widespread, the journals and their editors were incredible storehouses of raw data and analysis regarding 

the who, what, where, when, how, and why of the 

Apollo missions.

ERIC JONES

I grew up in the 1950s, reading a great deal of science fiction, starting with the Tom Corbett series but 

soon graduating to Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and 

others. I was also fascinated by the von Braun articles in Collier’s magazine and by the Disney TV programs based on them. Later on, I became interested 

in the question of how a lunar science base might 
14

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

evolve into a permanent lunar settlement and, in 

1986–87, embarked on a two-part sabbatical from Los 

Alamos, spending time in Melbourne, Australia, and 

Anchorage, Alaska, reading economic history in search 

of insights. British explorer Captain James Cook is 

an important historical link between Australia and 

Alaska, and I read 20th century editions of his journals 

created by New Zealand historian J.C. Beaglehole. At 

some point after my return from Anchorage, I realized 

that I needed to understand what was involved in getting work done on the Moon. I visited NASA Johnson, 

where I was introduced to the transcripts of the air-toground communications between the Apollo crews 

and the flight controllers in Houston. 

Excerpt from the annotated Apollo 16 transcript showing astronaut Charlie Duke talking with 

Ground Control following wake-up procedures on the day of the mission’s second extravehicular 

activity. The page can be accessed at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal at https://www.hq.nasa.

gov/alsj/a16/a16.eva2wake.html.

Then, because Apollo 17 scientist-astronaut Jack 

Schmitt lived in Albuquerque—only 2 hours away 

from Los Alamos—and was a frequent visitor to the 

Laboratory, I was able to arrange a bit of time with 

him to ask about his lunar experience and to talk to 

him about my first ideas about what would become 

the ALSJ. He was interested, and, after I acquired 

both audio tape copies of the air-to-ground communications and photocopies of the transcripts, we began 

meeting at his office in Albuquerque to talk about 

what was going on during Apollo 17 lunar surface 

operations. He was very patient in the face of my 

ignorance and has been very supportive over the years.

As an additional note: During the mission review sessions for Apollo 15 that Dave Scott and I did in the 

early nineties, we had fun talking about some of the 

names he, Jim Irwin, and Capcom Joe Allen chose 

for craters and other features at the Hadley landing 

site—names honoring the work of some of the science fiction/fantasy authors I had read: Durin’s Bridge 

(Tolkien), Rhysling (Heinlein), Earthlight (Clarke), 

and Dune (Frank Herbert).

KEN GLOVER

I’ve been fascinated by Apollo ever since I was a small 

boy, in the same era that the lunar missions took place. 

I would voraciously read anything about Apollo that I 

could get my hands on, continuing right through into 

adulthood, when the Internet joined books, newspapers, and magazine articles as a source of information 

about Apollo. In about 1995 I discovered the Apollo 

Lunar Surface Journal Web site and began devouring 

all that it had to offer. Eric Jones—who, in spite of our 

geographical separation, would eventually become my 

very close friend—very kindly and patiently responded 

to my initial correspondence, answered my questions, 

and encouraged me to submit lists of comments, suggestions, and typos. Ever since those first days, I am 

proud to have contributed to both the ALSJ and the 

AFJ, and to have had the opportunity to interact with 

many dedicated journal contributors from around this 

increasingly small world.

DAVID WOODS

As each major anniversary of Apollo 11 came around, 

my childhood fascination with the program was 

reignited and fanned. Twenty, then twenty-five years 

arrived, each bringing new sources of information and 

greater tales to tell. Just prior to the 25th anniversary, 

the Internet arrived in my house, and, like everyone 

who uses this modern marvel, I gravitated to what 

interested me. A Usenet group, sci.space.history, was 

a common haunt and I lurked there, amazed at the 

breadth of knowledge to be found. One day, someone 

posted about a Web site that held much of the transcript of Apollo 17’s exploration of the lunar surface, 
15

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

and so I was introduced to the rapidly expanding 

Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. I could barely believe 

that such a rich resource would be available for free, 

especially considering that the core text was annotated 

with well-written explanations from its author and 

comprehensive recollections from most of the crewmen who visited the Moon.

The ALSJ’s editor, Eric Jones, proved to be a tactful, 

patient, and engaging man who welcomed the input 

of outsiders if he considered it useful to the journal’s 

mission. I threw my oar in, slowly cranking up my 

involvement to the point that I scanned NASA History 

books for the Web. But the journal lacked something I 

craved. I wanted to know about the flying portions of 

the Apollo missions, not just their time on the surface. 

I suggested to Eric that I attempt an “Apollo Flight 

Journal.” To my astonishment, he put me in touch with 

David Scott, commander of the Apollo 15 mission, 

who proved eager to help with the accurate dissemination of Apollo’s history.

I chose to tackle a flight journal for Apollo 15 first, 

partly because of Scott’s contributions, but also 

because Apollo 15 was as good an example of an 

advanced Apollo mission as you could hope to find. 

If I only ever got to do one mission for the AFJ, this 

was a good one to do. In 1998, its first pages began to 

trickle out and soon I began to see the same volunteering spirit be attracted to the AFJ as had assisted with 

the ALSJ. People from around the world offered help 

and sent lists of typos. Some folk took their involvement far, creating complete journals of some of the 

flights which came via me to the site.

The most astonishing aspect of the AFJ for me has 

been its use as a reference across a much wider cultural 

spectrum than I ever imagined. I’ve seen it being credited in books, television documentaries, rock music 

albums, and, most recently, a major motion picture. 

It is for this reason that although the journal helped 

to divert me into being an author, my energies have 

returned to working to advance its content as far as 

I can.

I COULD BARELY BELIEVE THAT SUCH A 

RICH RESOURCE WOULD BE AVAILABLE 

FOR FREE, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING 

THAT THE CORE TEXT WAS ANNOTATED 

WITH WELL-WRITTEN EXPLANATIONS 

FROM ITS AUTHOR AND COMPREHENSIVE 

RECOLLECTIONS FROM MOST OF THE 

CREWMEN WHO VISITED THE MOON.

STEVE GARBER AND COLIN FRIES, 

NASA HISTORY WEB CURATORS

The journals are remarkable in multiple ways. What 

other Federal agency utilizes the incredible capacity 

of volunteer “citizen scientists” (even before this term 

became in vogue) and “citizen archivists,” let alone 

people literally oceans away? How many other such 

volunteers manage the efforts of hundreds of other 

volunteers in turn? What Government-hosted Web 

sites are comparable in terms of the sheer breadth 

and depth of their scope on a particular topic, while 

remaining accessible to lay researchers, technical specialists, journalists, and historians? 

While NASA has accomplished great technical achievements, it’s always been about the people. Fittingly, in 

the case of the journals, it’s been a true privilege for 

us to work with Eric, Ken, and David and we hope 

to continue this partnership for many years to come. 

We have no compunctions about referring difficult 

Apollo questions to these three gentlemen, who are 

true experts. More importantly, they are unfailingly 

easygoing, cooperative, polite, helpful, generous, and 

grateful for whatever help we can provide, while 

they do the enormous lion’s share of the work. They 

embody the best of both teamwork and leadership. 

They make us realize the possibilities of what can be 

accomplished with the right people with amazing 

skills and terrific attitudes. 
16

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

THE HERO’S JOURNEY IN THE FILMS STAR WARS AND 2001

By Colin Fries, NASA HQ Archivist

The Millennium Falcon with C3PO running in the background (Credit: From the collection of Frederick I. Ordway, III.)

The labels hero, antihero, and superhero are tossed about loosely in our popular culture, but what 

is the essence of heroism really? The landmark study, 

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, 

who lived from 1904 to 1987, provides us with an 

answer that has influenced many creative artists 

including film directors Stanley Kubrick and George 

Lucas. Campbell was a professor of literature at Sarah 

Lawrence College in New York and specialized in 

comparative mythology and comparative religion. 

According to Campbell, all myths are rooted in shared 

archetypal energies or the collective unconscious 

throughout human cultures and times. These archetypes manifest in myths that represent templates for 

how to live an “authentic” life. To achieve this, to 

reach one’s true potential and expand consciousness, 

the individual must avoid the distractions that plague 

everyone who dwells on this plane of existence, e.g., 

fame, power, enslavement of 

will to others, and the lure of 

materialism. 

The hero’s journey is the 

“monomyth” with elements 

common to all the others. It 

begins with a call to adventure, 

which yanks the individual 

from the ordinary world into 

the supernatural or contact 

with a higher power. He or 

she may at first be reluctant, 

feeling that he or she is not up 

to the task. Then a mentor or 

guide provides the inspiration 

to accept the challenge. The 

individual then crosses the 

threshold and is tested by 

enemies, traps, or dangers that 

must be overcome to return 

with the boon for the ordinary world. He or she may 

be physically resurrected as a result of trials or perhaps 

be cleansed and psychologically reborn from a close 

encounter with death or with the supernormal. The 

prize may be a magical talisman, a solution to a problem (such as freedom for the hero’s people), or it may 

be a new perspective. Whatever it is, the hero’s society 

will never be the same.

One of the obstacles to becoming an authentic human 

being is an oppressive government. One of Campbell’s 

favorite myths, Theseus and the Minotaur, is a case in 

point. In order to solidify his power as king, Minos of 

Crete was required to sacrifice a bull to pay homage 

to the gods. Poseidon, his patron god, provided one 

from his own herd, but Minos, in his hubris, kept 

the divine animal and substituted a bull from his 

own herd for the sacrifice. As punishment, Poseidon 

cursed Pasiphaë, Minos’s wife, to fall in love with the 

bull. The result of this union was the Minotaur, a 
17

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

monster with the head of a bull and the body of a 

man. The labyrinth, built by the architect Daedalus, 

became its home. The horror was magnified as Minos 

decreed that the Minotaur would be fed young men 

and women from Athens as tribute. Minos’s tyrannical 

rule dragged on until the Athenian hero Theseus heard 

the call to slay the monster. With the help of Daedalus 

and the king’s daughter Ariadne, Theseus freed his 

people from the evil tyrant and also got the girl!

According to Campbell, ancient kings followed the 

practice of sacrificing themselves after seven years 

or at the end of their rule. By defying tradition and 

displaying hubris before the gods, Minos became the 

tyrant that Campbell terms “Holdfast.” The Holdfast 

is the prototype for all future despots—Galactic 

emperors included.

After George Lucas finished reading Campbell’s Hero

in early 1977 he typed up a nine-page treatment for 

what he first called The Empire Strikes Back. It was a 

tighter version than his first attempt at outlining Star 

Wars: “Intimate that a rewarding, good life is within 

one’s reach despite adversity, but only if one does not shy 

away from the hazardous struggles without which one 

can never achieve true identity,” he wrote in his notes.1

Campbell, in conversations with journalist Bill Moyers 

in the series The Power of Myth, which aired on PBS 

a few months after his death in 1988, explained how 

the universal hero’s journey could still be relevant to 

modern daily life and culture:

Lucas and Campbell had become good friends 

after the filmmaker, acknowledging a debt to 

Campbell’s work, invited the scholar to view 

the Star Wars trilogy. Campbell reveled in 

the ancient themes and motifs of mythology 

enfolding on the wide screen in powerful 

contemporary images. On this particular visit, 

having again exulted over the perils and heroics of Luke Skywalker, Joe grew animated as 

he talked about how Lucas ‘has put the newest 

1 Brian J. Jones, George Lucas: A Life, (New York: Brown and Company, 2016), 263.

and most powerful spin’ to the classic story of 

the hero.

“And what is that?” I [Moyers] asked.

“It’s what Goethe said in Faust but what Lucas 

has dressed in modern idiom– the message 

that technology is not going to save us. Our 

computers, our tools, our machines are not 

enough. We have to rely on our intuition, our 

true being.”

“Isn’t that an affront to reason?” I said. “And 

aren’t we already beating a hasty retreat from 

reason, as it is?”

“That’s not what the hero’s journey is about. It’s 

not to deny reason. To the contrary by overcoming the dark passions, the hero symbolizes 

our ability to control the irrational savage 

within us...and Luke Skywalker was never 

more rational than we found within himself 

the resources of character to meet his destiny.”

“...The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the 

wisdom and power to serve others.” One of the 

many distinctions between the celebrity and 

the hero, he said, is that one lives only for self 

while the other acts to redeem society.

AFTER GEORGE LUCAS 

FINISHED READING CAMPBELL’S 

HERO IN EARLY 1977 HE TYPED 

UP A NINE-PAGE TREATMENT 

FOR WHAT HE FIRST CALLED 

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
18

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

“...the Force moves from within. But the force 

of the Empire is based on an intention to overcome and master. Star Wars is not just a simple 

morality play, it has to do with the powers of 

life as they are either fulfilled or broken and 

suppressed through the action of man.”2

In a later discussion with Bill Moyers, Lucas explained 

Campbell’s influence on his work:

Well, when I did “Star Wars” I consciously 

set about to recreate myths and the—and the 

classic mythological motifs. And I wanted to 

use those motifs to deal with issues that existed 

today...Joe Campbell, who asked a lot of the 

interesting questions and exposed me to a lot 

of things that made me very interested in a lot 

more of the cosmic questions and the mystery. And I’ve been interested in those all my 

life, but I—I hadn’t focused it the way I had 

once I got to be good friends with Joe...Well, 

there’s a—again, a mixture of all kinds of—of 

mythology and religious beliefs that have been 

amalgamated into the movie, and I’ve tried 

to take the ideas that seem to cut across the 

most cultures, because I’m fascinated by that 

and I think that’s one of the things that I really 

got from Joe Campbell, was that—what he 

was trying to do is find the common threads 

through the various mythology, through the—

the religions.3

When Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker is unmasked, 

he is no more than a machine man. Despite formerly 

wielding immense power, he is in essence no more 

than an unformed being:

“He has not developed his own humanity. He’s a robot. 

He’s a bureaucrat living not in terms of himself, but in 

2 Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (New York: Anchor, 1991), xiii-xiv, 179.

3 BillMoyers.com Staff, “The Mythology of ‘Star Wars’ with George Lucas,” June 18, 1999, https://billmoyers.com/content/mythology-of-starwars-george-lucas/, accessed November 21, 2018.

4 Campbell and Moyers, 177–178.

5 Michael Benson, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 3.

terms of an imposed system.”4 If you cannot find a way 

to use the system to attain your human purpose, the 

system will smash you. All tyrannical regimes operate 

this way. It is King Minos once more. 

Mythology is also the underpinning of the film, 2001: 

A Space Odyssey. When Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley 

Kubrick began their collaboration in 1964, they 

sought to incorporate parallels to the Homeric epic. 

Odysseus was the famed Greek bowman who was the 

only living mortal able to string his bow, the bow of 

Apollo. After his ordeal, which included defeating the 

Cyclops Polyphemus, he returned home to Ithaca to 

dispatch his wife’s suitors, who presumed him dead. 

So, in a nod to the epic, the protagonist of 2001: A 

Space Odyssey was named Dave Bowman. His nemesis 

was the computer HAL 9000, which had a Cyclopean 

single glowing eye. Designed to be the crew’s guide 

and benefactor, its initial working name was Athena, 

the patron goddess of Odysseus. 

Kubrick and Clarke also intended to examine the 

nature of all human myths in their film. This invariably led Kubrick to delve into the influential The Hero 

With A Thousand Faces. He quoted a passage to Clarke 

about the nature of the hero’s journey that Campbell 

had outlined as “separation-initiation-return.” They 

also referenced Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra, in 

which humankind is referred to as a transitional species. They viewed mythology as a template. The entire 

species was on a hero’s journey from “ape to angel” as 

Clarke expressed it.5

The plot points of the film shifted slightly as the years 

stretched on, but the core ideas remained. Kubrick’s 

perfectionism dominated the creative process and 

Clarke contributed from time to time. The finished 

work can be interpreted as mainly Kubrick’s take on 

late-20th century human progress. The alien monoliths 
19

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

at the end of the “Dawn of Man” sequence provided 

the spark that led to advanced tools: machine marvels 

such as Space Stations, Space Shuttles, computers, 

and lunar bases. Nevertheless, something was missing 

in the mix; the recipe lacked a key ingredient. The 

species had hit a dead end and they knew it. To express 

this idea, Kubrick limited the dialogue in the film 

to a bare minimum. When we do hear it, it sounds 

flat and matter-of-fact. Human behavior had become 

routinized and attuned to the cosmic dance tempo of 

its sophisticated tools. The species was compelled to 

seek the next evolutionary step and that necessitated 

investigating the alien signal emanating from Jupiter. 

So what did they do? They built a better machine to 

manage the mission and the human crew. HAL 9000 

was their greatest achievement—and, ironically, their 

greatest failure:

The new name Kubrick and Clarke ultimately 

settled on compounded two terms, signifying a Heuristically programmed Algorithmic 

computer. The terms behind the acronym, 

and possibly the acronym itself, were originally suggested by Marvin Minsky, cofounder 

of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. 

“Heuristics are, of course, rules of thumb, 

tricks or techniques that might work on a 

problem or often work, but aren’t guaranteed,” 

Minsky commented in 1997. “Algorithmic 

implies inviolate rules, such as, If A, then B, 

and A, therefore B. HAL was supposed to have 

the best of both worlds. This duality between 

algorithms and heuristics—between dogmatic 

rules and interactive, and trial-and-error paths 

to a solution—already hints at the core conflict that HAL would experience when asked 

to keep the mission’s true purpose from the 

waking astronauts.6

HAL, though artificial intelligence, was also attempting to become an “authentic” entity and achieve a level 

of creative thought and self-actualization, but because 

of his rigid algorithmic programming, he suffered 

6 Ibid, 127.

what in human terms would be called a psychotic 

break. Here again we see the tension between the 

demands of the state (algorithmic) versus the individual’s reach for his true potential (heuristic). HAL 

became the symbol of the limitations of his creators. 

Remember how Campbell advised us not to rely on 

our machines but to shut them down? That is exactly 

what Dave Bowman did to HAL. Bowman used his 

intuition to survive HAL’s attack. Then and only then 

was he able to complete his and humankind’s mission 

to become the transcendent being that became known 

as the “Star Child.”

A 1966 photograph from a set during filming of “2001: A Space Odyssey” at the MGM-British studios 

in Borehamwood, England. (Credit: NASA)

Of course, there have been many other classic and 

not-so-classic literary works, not directly influenced 

by Campbell, in which we can see the hero’s journey 

at work. Richard Adams has privately and publicly 

thanked Campbell for inspiring his fiction. The rabbit 

hero in his novel Watership Down owes his mythic 

journey to Hero. David Byrne, co-founder of the band 

the Talking Heads, wrote in a 2007 post on his blog: 

“Seems to me, as with myths and fairy tales, we marvel 

and get sucked into minor but infinite variations of 
20

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

the same limited set of tales; the Joseph Campbell 

‘hero with a thousand faces.’ How those narratives 

resonate in our own hearts and minds seems almost 

genetically predetermined. It’s that strong.”7

The Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer George Miller is another professed disciple 

of Campbell. He is fond of telling about how an 

Aboriginal Australian tribe agreed to grant permission 

to film one of his Mad Max movies at one of their 

sacred sites. Kata Tjuta is a rock formation sacred to the 

native peoples of the Outback. When Miller described 

the story of Max, ”a hero who sacrifices his self-interest 

to gain redemption and renewal,” they recognized the 

story as similar to their own traditional stories. 

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead acknowledged his 

debt to Campbell the mythologist, and his bandmates, guitarist Bob Weir and drummer Mickey Hart, 

7 https://davidbyrne.typepad.com/db/page/28/

8 Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (DVD and viewer’s guide), (Silver Spring, MD: Acorn Media Group Inc.: 2012), 2–4. 

9 Campbell and Moyers, 41.

became friends with Campbell. As a tribute, the band 

performed the Hart composition, “The African Queen 

Meets the Holy Ghost” at a conference they attended 

with him.8

Campbell realized that mythology, too, needs to adapt. 

It is a guidebook that explains to us who we are as 

people. We live in a global village with almost instantaneous communication capabilities to anywhere 

on this planet. In today’s world, that mythology is 

sadly lacking. Campbell speculated on what that new 

mythology might be:

When you see the earth from the moon, you 

don’t see any divisions there of nations or states. 

This might be, the symbol, really, for the new 

mythology to come. That is the country that 

we are going to be celebrating. And those are 

the people that we are one with.9

HAND-PAINTED MOONS, ROLLERCOASTERS, AND APOLLO

By Rachel Carollo, Fall 2018 NASA History Intern

Since the founding of NASA in 1958, astronaut training has been a crucial part of operations, 

making sure they are prepared for advanced spaceflight. In the 10 years leading up to the Apollo 11 

Moon landing, much of NASA’s resources were 

allocated toward astronaut training, which includes 

microgravity training, underwater spacewalk simulations, and the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (which 

Neil Armstrong crashed in 1967... oops). In a way, 

the Gemini missions were NASA’s training for the 

Apollo missions, giving the Agency crucial experience and opportunities to troubleshoot problems with 

the advanced space operations needed to reach the 

Moon. One lesser-known training program was built 

at the Langley Research Center in the early 1960s, 

and was known as Project LOLA (Lunar Orbit and 

Landing Approach)

This large-scale training model was designed to teach 

astronauts to maneuver the lunar lander around the 

Moon and eventually land. It simulated guiding the 

spacecraft through the Moon’s thin atmosphere, which 

is one-sixth of that of Earth. This rollercoaster-like 

apparatus took the collaboration of hundreds of specialists and $2 million to complete. Together with 

artists, cartographers, and geologists, NASA engineers 

shaped, built, and shaded geologically accurate scale 

models of the Moon based on satellite and telescope 
21

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

images of its surface. The LOLA artists filled in the 

details on the huge models by hand, and used a special 

airbrush technique to create the illusion of depth and 

three-dimensional lunar features. 

However, the detailed models were just the beginning, 

as the apparatus itself had to convincingly simulate 

the landing procedure in microgravity. In a makeshift 

cockpit with a closed-circuit television system and 

various controls, the pilot would maneuver past the 

four large-scale models that simulated the view from 

different altitudes upon approach. Familiarity with 

the surface of the Moon was crucial for navigation to 

the module’s landing site. In addition to the unfamiliar atmosphere, scientists were also concerned that the 

harsh light reflecting from the Moon’s surface could be 

disorienting for the astronauts. As a result, the simulation took place in a dark room and the models were lit 

from below with harsh light so that astronauts could 

experience these conditions. The rollercoaster-like 

nature of the simulation, coupled with the harsh light, 

made it a disorienting experience for many astronauts 

and the program was dismantled a few years into the 

Apollo missions.

It is estimated that more than 400,000 people were 

involved in some capacity with the shared goal of 

landing American astronauts on the Moon, but not 

all of them were engineers and scientists. Projects like 

LOLA show how a myriad of professionals contributed to this goal and how people from a diverse spread 

of backgrounds and careers made it possible to successfully and safely fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s 

vision of landing astronauts on the Moon. 

Every person that worked with NASA in those 10 

years had an essential role in the historic Apollo missions. Every person who has worked for NASA in the 

50 years since then has contributed to the knowledge, 

innovations and discoveries that bring us closer to 

understanding our place in the universe. So, here’s to 

50 more years of discovery for NASA—and hopefully 

some more space-themed rollercoasters for the rest 

of us!

Artists used paintbrushes and airbrushes to recreate the lunar surface on each of the four models 

comprising the LOLA simulator. (Credit: NASA)

Project LOLA. Test subject sitting at the controls. (Credit: NASA)
22

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

NASA’S UNIVERSITY RELATIONS IN THE AGE OF APOLLO

By William McCormick, Fall 2018 NASA History Intern

1 John F. Kennedy, “Address to Joint Session of Congress May 25, 1961,” https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/

address-to-joint-session-of-congress-may-25-1961, accessed November 21, 2018.

2 W. Henry Lambright and Edwin A. Bock, Launching NASA’s Sustaining University Program (Syracuse, NY: Inter-university Case 

Program, 1969), VII–3.

When looking back at Apollo it is easy now to think of Neil Armstrong’s small step and 

humanity’s giant leap as inevitable. We know the end 

of the story and its epic heroes are part of American 

lore. However, when President John F. Kennedy stood 

before Congress on 25 May 1961 and committed 

this nation “to achieving the goal, before this decade 

is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning 

him safely to the earth” the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration (NASA) was only a little more 

than 2 years old. Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 suborbital 

flight, which made him the first American in space, 

had occurred only 20 days before Kennedy’s speech. 

On that day, a successful result was far from inevitable 

and would require an effort of immense scope. As 

Kennedy put it, “...in a very real sense, it will not 

be one man going to the Moon—if we make this 

judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For 

all of us must work to put him there.”1

President John F. Kennedy meets with NASA Administrator James E. 

Webb in the Oval Office at the White House. (Credit: Abbie Rowe/White 

House Photographs/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.)

The shared work of Apollo would require that America 

utilize an aerospace infrastructure that did not have 

the necessary capacity in 1961. NASA administrator 

James Webb saw a robust relationship between the 

Agency and American universities as a crucial driver in 

expanding that capacity. In explaining NASA’s universities relationship to the Bureau of the Budget (BOB) 

in December 1961, Webb wrote:

Space science and technology represent frontier areas not now taught as such in universities... NASA needs people highly trained 

in these areas. These people are needed not 

only within the NASA organization, but also 

in the industrial concerns participating in 

the NASA program... In order to obtain the 

needed personnel NASA must help provide 

the universities with resources needed to produce them.2

Webb’s vision for NASA-university relations was in 

some ways as revolutionary as Apollo itself. Throughout 

the decade of the 1960s this relationship would not 

only support the American Moon race but would 

be an impetus for the expansion of research facilities 

across the country and would influence a generation 

of researchers in the space sciences through a widespread distribution of grants and contracts. Even with 

such successes as well as the ultimate success of Apollo, 

Webb’s “Sustaining University Program” (SUP) fell 

short of his even loftier ambitions.
23

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

NASA’s first administrator, T. Keith Glennan, established the environment in which NASA would pursue 

President Kennedy’s vision and Administrator Webb 

would establish the SUP. Glennan’s approach, one of a 

lean Federal staffing structure supported by contractors, 

continues to shape NASA to the modern day, but his 

focus was not on education relationships in particular. 

With Webb’s arrival and President Kennedy’s lunar 

landing directive, an intentional focus on external 

relationships with higher education emerged quickly. 

The Agency undertook a review of the scope of its university programs and determined that in order to meet 

the pace of scientific development necessary to reach 

the Moon within the decade that “it was essential that 

additional steps be taken to enhance the participation 

of the educational community in the space program.”3

From this period of self-reflection, the SUP took shape. 

For much of Webb’s tenure, though, it would include 

characteristics unique to his vision for the role of government and higher education in everyday American 

life. In the administration of the SUP, Webb cared not 

only about the impact of the program on Apollo but 

the philosophical role of universities in economic and 

social development. Apollo was viewed not just as an 

end but also as a means. “It served as an arena for a 

technological race with the Soviet Union for pride and 

prestige” but also as a mechanism for NASA to invest 

“in ways that would help the country, including having 

government work with universities and industry in 

terms of regional economic development.”4

The SUP developed along four core trajectories, laid 

out by Webb in his justification letter to the BOB:

1. project support for individual professors,

2. institutional support for interdisciplinary 

research projects,

3 T. L. K. Smull, The Nature and Scope of the NASA University Program (Washington, D.C.: Scientific and Technical Information Division, 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1965), 6.

4 John M. Logsdon, Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, vol. II, External Relationships 

(Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1996), 417–18.

5 Lambright and Bock, Launching NASA’s Sustaining University Program, VII–3.

6 Homer E. Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere : Early Years of Space Science, Dover ed. (Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2010), 226–27.

3. trainee programs, and

4. facility grants.5

The SUP endeared itself to the universities by providing funding in general areas of space science and 

leaving specific research problems to investigators. 

The program provided continuity of support with 

a creative step-funding model, another boon to the 

participating institutions. Members of Congress also 

appreciated the breadth of trainee programs, generating NASA trainees “in universities and colleges of 

almost every state of the Union.”6

This is a map of investments in Sustaining University Program research facilities as they existed 

on 1 March 1965. (Credit: NASA)

By 1965, NASA had also distributed grant funding in 

support of almost 30 facilities across the country in 

what would become a lasting legacy of the SUP. The 

memorandums of understanding that laid out the 

terms for these grants incorporated Webb’s socioeconomic vision. 

Where additional research facilities are urgently 

needed to conduct such research in support of 
24

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

the national space effort, and the institution 

involved has demonstrated its intent to seek 

ways in which the benefits of this research 

can also be applied to the social, business, 

and economic structure of the United States, 

NASA may supplement research support 

with funds necessary for the construction of 

such facilities.7

The language in many of these memos concluded 

that it was the university’s responsibility to seek ways 

that “such research can contribute to the economic, 

social, and general well-being of the nation.”8 Webb’s 

increasing frustration that higher education was happy 

to take NASA funding but then missing the mark 

with regard to larger societal impact ultimately led 

to the winding down of the SUP. He expressed such 

frustration as early as 1962, writing to Stanley Draper 

of the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce about 

his desire that there be an interdisciplinary approach 

to national programs in science and technology and a 

close relationship between business and universities to 

enable leaders to utilize resources to solve local problems. “Frankly, most of these university and business 

groups simply don’t seem to get the idea.”9

Following a surge of research and facilities grants in 

the early period of the Moon race, budget allocations 

for the SUP shrank in the mid-1960s, dwindling to 

a quarter of their high by fiscal year 1968. Staffing 

was reorganized as well and the creation of the Office 

of University Affairs along with the SUP budget 

scale down marked at least an unofficial end of the 

program as it was originally conceived.10 An internal 

study in 1968 concluded that the universities had not 

taken seriously the expectations of innovation and 

7 Smull, The Nature and Scope of the NASA University Program, 36–37.

8 Ibid., 37.

9 Lambright and Bock, Launching NASA’s Sustaining University Program, IX–8.

10 Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science, 236.

11 Task Force to Assess NASA University Programs, A Study of NASA University Programs (Washington, D.C.: Technology Utilization 

Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1968), 4–5.

multidisciplinary engagement and/or that these goals 

were often poorly understood.11

WEBB’S INCREASING FRUSTRATION THAT HIGHER EDUCATION 

WAS HAPPY TO TAKE NASA 

FUNDING BUT THEN MISSING 

THE MARK WITH REGARD TO 

LARGER SOCIETAL IMPACT 

ULTIMATELY LED TO THE WINDING DOWN OF THE SUP. 

While NASA achieved many of its goals, including 

the success of Apollo itself as well as an enhanced 

bond between the Agency and American higher education that continues to this day, James Webb was left 

disappointed by the outcomes of the SUP because 

he did not see lasting and meaningful change in the 

universities’ relationship to the communities around 

them. A vast network of institutions worked in unison 

to support NASA in sending Apollo to the Moon but 

fell short of Webb’s larger goals to leverage space technology for economic, social, and cultural change at a 

local level. With the Sustaining University Program 

James Webb and NASA found it a more formidable 

leap, perhaps, to generate social change than to take 

steps on the Moon.
25

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Compiled by Chris Gamble

Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo, by 

Alexander C.T. Geppert (Palgrave Macmillan, April 

2018). This book propels the historicization of outer 

space by focusing on the post-Apollo period. After 

the Moon landings, space exploration lost much of 

its popular appeal, cultural significance, and political 

urgency. With the rapid waning of the worldwide 

Apollo frenzy, the optimism of the Space Age gave 

way to an era of space fatigue and planetized limits. 

Bringing together the history of European astroculture 

and American-Soviet spaceflight with scholarship on 

the 1970s, this volume examines the reconfiguration 

of space imaginaries from a multiplicity of disciplinary 

perspectives. 

Computer Simulations of Space Societies, by William 

Sims Bainbridge (Springer, June 2018). At the 

intersection of astronautics, computer science, and 

social science, this book introduces the challenges 

and insights associated with computer simulation of 

human society in outer space, and of the dynamics of 

terrestrial enthusiasm for space exploration. 

Chasing the Demon: Chuck Yeager and the Band of 

American Aces Who Conquered the Sound Barrier, 

by Dan Hampton (William Morrow, July 2018). At 

the end of World War II, a band of aces gathered in 

the Mojave Desert on a Top Secret quest to break 

the sound barrier–nicknamed “The Demon” by 

pilots. Chasing the Demon tells for the first time 

the extraordinary true story of humankind’s quest 

for Mach 1, the speed of sound. Here, of course, is 

24-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history 

flying the futuristic Bell X-1 faster than the speed of 

sound on 14 October 1947. Officially Yeager was the 

first to achieve supersonic flight, but drawing on new 

interviews with survivors of the program, including 

Yeager’s former commander, as well as declassified files, 

Hampton presents evidence that a fellow American—

George Welch, a daring fighter pilot who shot down 

a remarkable 16 enemy aircraft during the Pacific 

War—met “The Demon” first, although he was not 

favored to wear the laurels as he was now a civilian test 

pilot and was not flying the Bell X-1.

The Soviet Space Program: First Steps: 1941–1953

(The Soviets in Space Series), by Eberhard Rödel 

(Schiffer, July 2018). This concise history is the first 

book in a new series on the Soviet space program and 

features many rare photographs, diagrams, and charts. 

The story begins with the Soviet Union’s pre- and 

early-war developments in rocket technology, then 

covers the discovery and study of the V-2 rockets at 

Peenemünde, Germany. 

Space Law and Policy in the Post-Soviet States

(Essential Air and Space Law), by Nataliia Malysheva 

(Eleven International Publishing, July 2018). The 

intention of this book is to fill the gap of knowledge 

about law and policy in the field of exploration and 

use of outer space, which is being carried out by the 

new independent states that appeared on the world 

map after the dissolution of the USSR. In the focus 

of the book—the survey of state management of space 

activities, international space cooperation of the relevant countries, their national space legislations, etc. 

Space Law in the European Context: National 

Architecture, Legislation and Policy in France 

(Essential Air and Space Law), by Philippe Clerc 

(Eleven International Publishing, July 2018). This 

book provides a comprehensive study on space law 

and policy in France. Part I describes the role played 

by the law to build up the French Space Policy though 

the establishment of the Centre national d’etudes 

spatiales (CNES), the French space agency. It gives a 

historical overview of the functioning of CNES, how 

its public space projects are authorized, financed, and 

controlled by the government and parliament and 

how these projects are implemented in an international and national framework, especially in relationship with the private industry. The interactions with 
26

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

the European governance, the legal instruments and 

space programs of the European Space Agency (ESA) 

and the European Union (EU) are also discussed. Part 

II details the legal background: the law-making process among parliament, government, industry, experts, 

and CNES. It also reviews the current functioning 

of the French Space Operation Act of 2008 as a legal 

instrument, designed to regulate and promote the 

private space entrepreneurship under its jurisdiction. 

Uniquely, the annexes of this book contain the whole 

legislation in the French version and its English translation. Additionally they provide unpublished working documents: a comparison list of usual space law 

definitions and a table of concordance on different 

technical provisions between different FSOA texts and 

several international standards on space.

The Astronaut Maker: How One Mysterious Engineer 

Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation, by Michael 

Cassutt (Chicago Review Press, August 2018). The 

book takes readers inside NASA to learn the real story 

of how George W.S. Abbey rose to power, from young 

pilot and wannabe astronaut to engineer, bureaucrat, 

and finally director of the Johnson Space Center. 

During a 37-year career, mostly out of the spotlight, 

he oversaw the selection of every astronaut class from 

1978 to 1987, deciding who got to fly and when. He 

was with the Apollo 1 astronauts the night before the 

fatal fire in January 1967. He was in mission control 

the night of the Apollo 13 accident and organized the 

recovery effort. Abbey also led NASA’s recruitment 

of women and minorities as Space Shuttle astronauts 

and was responsible for hiring Sally Ride. Written by 

Michael Cassutt and informed by countless hours of 

interviews with Abbey and his family, friends, adversaries, and former colleagues, this book is an insider’s 

account of ambition and power politics at NASA.

Space Entrepreneurship: Facing the Next Frontier, 

edited by New York Times Company (New York Times 

Educational Publishing, August 2018). Spaceflight 

used to be something that only governments participated in, often in conjunction with military defense. 

Today, however, space is a new, wide-open frontier for 

entrepreneurs and corporations to develop and implement new kinds of space travel and habitats. What was 

once done just for exploration and advancing science 

is now a competition for companies such as SpaceX 

and Virgin Galactic, who seek to develop products 

that not only bring humans into space and allow them 

to live there, but also generate profits for the entrepreneurs who create them. These articles explore this 

phenomenon, including its advances and setbacks.

Deep Space Commodities: Exploration, Production 

and Trading, by Tom James (Palgrave Macmillan, 

August 2018). The author has brought together top 

professionals in academia, astropolitics, space engineering, and space law to explore the exciting opportunities and challenges businesses face in the new 

off-planet economy. With quadrillions of dollars of 

mineral wealth and frozen water within our reach, the 

stakes may be high, but so are the rewards.

Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between 

Astrophysics and the Military, by Neil deGrasse 

Tyson and Avis Lang (W. W. Norton & Company, 

September 2018). Spanning early celestial navigation 

to satellite-enabled warfare, Accessory to War is an 

examination of the intersection of science, technology, 

industry, and power. In this book, the authors examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have 

been enlisted in the service of war. 

The Penguin Book of Outer Space Exploration: NASA 

and the Incredible Story of Human Spaceflight, edited 

by John Logsdon (Penguin Classics, September 2018). 

Renowned space historian John Logsdon traces the 

greatest moments in human spaceflight by weaving 

together documents from NASA’s history with his 

expert narrative guidance. Beginning with Wernher 

von Braun’s vision for voyaging to Mars and closing 

with Elon Musk’s contemporary plan to get there, 

this volume traces major events like the founding of 

NASA, the first American astronauts in space, the 

Moon landings, the Challenger accident, the daring 

Hubble Space Telescope repairs, and more
27

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

How to Live in Space: Everything You Need to Know 

for the Not-So-Distant Future, by Colin Stuart 

(Smithsonian Books, September 2018). Grounded 

in space science, planetary biology, and rocket science, this guide propels readers through takeoff, life 

in orbit, terraforming, and the long-term effects of 

space on the human body. Infographics and full-color 

illustrations help How to Live in Space to answer your 

burning questions, including: How do you sleep in 

microgravity? How do you grow food without water? 

Will your muscles waste away out there? How do you 

protect yourself from radiation? This is a lighthearted 

yet informative guide to a life far from terra firma.

Spacecraft: 100 Iconic Rockets, Shuttles, and Satellites 

That Put Us in Space, by Michael H. Gorn and 

Giuseppe de Chiara (Voyageur Press, September 

2018). This illustrated aerospace history profiles 

and depicts spacecraft from Sputnik 1 through 

the International Space Station, and everything in 

between, including concepts that have yet to actually 

venture outside Earth’s atmosphere. Illustrator and 

aerospace professional Giuseppe De Chiara teams up 

with aerospace historian Michael Gorn to present a 

collection of profiles depicting and describing the 

design, development, and deployment of these crewed 

and uncrewed spacecraft. 

Facing the Heat Barrier: A History of Hypersonics, by 

T.A. Heppenheimer (Dover Publications, September 

2018; A reprint of NASA SP-4232 published in 2007). 

This volume from The NASA History Series presents 

an overview of the science of hypersonics, the study of 

flight at speeds at which the physics of flows is dominated by aerodynamic heating. The survey begins 

during the years immediately following World War 

II, with the first steps in hypersonic research: the 

development of missile nose cones and the X-15; the 

earliest concepts of hypersonic propulsion; and the 

origin of the scramjet engine. Next, it addresses the 

re-entry problem, which came to the forefront during 

the mid-1950s, showing how work in this area supported the piloted space program and contributed to 

the development of the orbital shuttle. Subsequent 

chapters explore the fading of scramjet studies and the 

rise of the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) program 

of 1985–1995, which sought to lay groundwork for 

single-stage vehicles. The program’s ultimate shortcomings—in terms of aerodynamics, propulsion, and 

materials—are discussed, and the book concludes with 

a look at hypersonics in the post-NASP era, including 

the development of the X-33 and X-34 launch vehicles, further uses for scramjets, and advances in fluid 

mechanics. Clearly, ongoing research in hypersonics 

has yet to reach its full potential, and readers with an 

interest in aeronautics and astronautics will find this 

book a fascinating exploration of the field’s history 

and future.

Portrait of the Apollo 1 prime crew for first Apollo space flight. From left to right are: Edward H. White II, 

Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee. Their assignment to this crew was announced on March 

21, 1965. On January 27, 1967 at 6:31 p.m. EST during a routine simulated launch test onboard the 

Apollo Saturn I rocket, an electrical short circuit inside the Apollo Command Module ignited the pure 

oxygen environment and within a matter of seconds all three Apollo 1 crewmembers perished.

First Fleet: NASA’s Space Shuttle Program 1981–

1986, by John Chakeres (Daylight Books, September 

2018). First Fleet began more than 30 years ago with 

the launch of the first Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981. 

With special access to photograph the Shuttle operations at the Kennedy Space Center, John Chakeres 

began his multiyear project photographing the five 

original Space Shuttles. The images in First Fleet are a 
28

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

look at the sensational launch and landing operations 

of the Space Shuttles. In addition, the photographs 

Chakeres managed to capture represent a technical 

achievement as the photographer invented a special 

remote-trigger device in order to properly capture the 

action from a safe distance.

One of the first steps taken on the Moon, this is an image of Buzz Aldrin’s bootprint from the Apollo 11 

mission. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon on July 20, 1969. (Credit: NASA)

Safely to Earth: The Men and Women Who Brought 

the Astronauts Home, by Jack Clemons (University 

Press of Florida, September 2018). In this a one-of-akind memoir, Jack Clemons—a former lead engineer 

in support of NASA—takes readers behind the scenes 

and into the inner workings of the Apollo and Space 

Shuttle programs during their most exciting years.

Wally Funk’s Race for Space: The Extraordinary 

Story of a Female Aviation Pioneer, by Sue Nelson 

(The Westbourne Press, September 2018). In 1961, 

Wally Funk was among the an unsanctioned group of 

American pilots who went through a series of rigorous 

physical and mental tests. One of Funk’s scores beat 

all the male Mercury 7 astronauts’ scores, including 

that of John Glenn’s, the first American in orbit. But 

just one week before the final phase of training, the 

program was canceled. A combination of politics and 

prejudice meant that none of the women ever flew 

into space. Undeterred, Funk went on to become 

America’s first female aviation safety inspector, though 

her dream of being an astronaut never dimmed.

Laika’s Window: The Legacy of a Soviet Space Dog, 

by Kurt Caswell (Trinity University Press, September 

2018). The unforgettable story of Laika the Soviet 

space dog, the Cold War, and the Space Race between 

the United States and the Soviet Union. The author 

examines Laika’s life and death and the speculation surrounding both. Profiling the scientists behind Sputnik 

II, he studies the political climate driven by the Cold 

War and the Space Race that expedited the satellite’s 

development. Through this intimate portrait of Laika, 

we begin to understand what the dog experienced in 

the days and hours before the launch, what she likely 

experienced during her last moments, and what her 

flight might mean to history and to humanity. 

Columbus in Space: A Voyage of Discovery on the 

International Space Station, by The European Space 

Agency (Penguin Random House UK, September 

2018). In 2008, Europe’s first space laboratory was 

launched to the International Space Station. Ten years 

later the Columbus lab is still circling 400 kilometers 

above our heads at 17,500 mph and providing scientists a place to run out-of-this-world experiments. To 

celebrate a decade of European science and technology 

in space this book recounts the story of the Columbus 

laboratory: from vision to mission and from daily 

operations to science. Richly illustrated with graphics 

and statistics of life and research in space, the book 

offers a glimpse into the cutting-edge of humanity’s 

exploration of our universe.

NASA Operations Manual: 1958 onwards, by David 

Baker (Haynes Publishing UK, October 2018). 

The NASA Operations Manual tells the story of 

America’s civilian space agency, the facilities it operates, where they are and what they do. It explains 

how much NASA costs the American taxpayer and 

looks at what it returns to the taxpayer in benefits 

to the economy. With more than 300 photographs, 

line drawings, and charts, this book tours the United 

States, describing the Centers of excellence and the 
29

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

Facilities where rockets are tested, satellites are built, 

and humans prepare for space

Apollo: VII – XVII, by Floris Heyne, Joel Meter, 

Simon Phillipson and Delano Steenmeijer (teNeues 

Publishing Company, October 2018). This photobook 

features previously unpublished photographs from the 

NASA archives—now meticulously digitized—captured by the Apollo astronauts during their missions. 

From some 27,000 NASA images, the book’s authors 

have curated 225 of the most remarkable Apollo 

mission pictures, creating avivid document of one 

of the most seminal events of the 20th century. It 

includes a detailed foreword from NASA astronaut, 

Walter Cunningham. 

First Man—The Annotated Screenplay, by Josh Singer 

and James R. Hansen (Titan Books, Annotated edition, 

October 2018). This book is the official companion to 

the movie and features a wealth of stunning photography, alongside the full shooting script. Academy 

Award®-winning screenwriter Josh Singer (Spotlight) 

and James R. Hansen, whose book First Man is the 

only authorized biography of Armstrong, provide an 

in-depth commentary on the challenges of dramatizing a fact-based historical motion picture. Exclusive 

annotations separate those facts from the dramatic 

fictions the filmmakers utilized, as well as explain the 

overarching dramatic choices made in telling the story 

of the man behind the icon.

Spaceflight: A Concise History, by Michael J. Neufeld 

(The MIT Press, October 2018). In this book, the 

author offers a concise history of spaceflight, mapping 

the full spectrum of activities that humans have developed in space. The author begins with the origins of 

space ideas and the discovery that rocketry could be 

used for spaceflight. He then discusses the SovietU.S. Cold War space race and reminds us that NASA 

resisted adding female astronauts even after the Soviets 

sent the first female cosmonaut into orbit. He analyzes 

two rationales for the Apollo program: prestige and 

scientific discovery. He describes the internationalization and privatization of human spaceflight after 

the Cold War, the cultural influence of space science 

fiction, including Star Trek and Star Wars, space tourism for the ultra-rich, and the popular desire to go 

into space. 

Enceladus and the Icy Moons of Saturn (Space 

Science Series), edited by Paul M. Schenk, Roger N. 

Clark, Carly J. A. Howett, Anne J. Verbiscer and J. 

Hunter Waite (University of Arizona Press, 3rd edition, November 2018). With active geysers coating 

its surface with dazzlingly bright ice crystals, Saturn’s 

large moon Enceladus is one of the most enigmatic 

worlds in our solar system. Underlying this activity are 

numerous further discoveries by the Cassini spacecraft, 

tantalizing us with evidence that Enceladus harbors 

a subsurface ocean of liquid water. Enceladus is thus 

newly realized as a forefront candidate among potentially habitable ocean worlds in our own solar system, 

although it is only one of a family of icy moons orbiting the giant ringed planet, each with its own story. 

This book brings together nearly 80 of the world’s top 

experts writing more than 20 chapters to set the foundation for what we currently understand, while building the framework for the highest-priority questions to 

be addressed through ongoing spacecraft exploration. 

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATION

Apollo: The Mission to Land a Man on the Moon, by 

Al Cimino (Chartwell Books, April 2019). This is the 

story of the Apollo Missions with all of its ups and 

downs, including the 1967 cabin fire that killed the 

entire crew of Apollo 1 and the oxygen tank explosion that caused Apollo 13 to limp back toward Earth 

using the Lunar Module as a “lifeboat.” But despite 

the Apollo program’s many setbacks, 12 men walked 

on the Moon and their place in American history was 

assured forever.

Disclaimer: The History Division wishes to thank volunteers Mike Ciancone and Chris Gamble, who compiled 

this section for us. Please note that the edited descriptions 

here were written by Chris and Mike from promotional 

material and do not represent an endorsement by NASA.
30

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The annual meeting of the American Historical 

Association (AHA) will be held 3–6 January 2019

in Chicago, Illinois. Visit https://www.historians.org/

annual-meeting for more details.

The annual American Astronautical Society (AAS) 

Goddard Memorial Symposium will be held 19–21 

March 2019 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Visit http://

astronautical.org/events/goddard for more details.

The annual Spring Meetings of the International 

Astronautical Federation (IAF) will be held 26–28 

March 2019 in Paris, France. Visit http://www.

iafastro.org for more details.

The annual meeting of the National Council on Public 

History (NCPH) will be held 27–30 March 2019 in 

Hartford, Connecticut. Visit https://www.ncph.org for 

more details.

The annual meeting of the Organization of American 

Historians (OAH) will be held 4–6 April 2019. Visit 

http://www.oah.org for more details.

The semi-annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives 

Conference (MARAC) will be held 11–13 April 

2019 in Morgantown, West Virginia. Visit https://

www.marac.info for more details.

The annual meeting of the Society for History in the 

Federal Government (SHFG) will be held 25–26 

April 2019 in Washington, DC. Visit http://www.

shfg.org/Annual-Meeting for more details.

NASA HEADQUARTERS HISTORY DIVISION 

STAFF CONTACT INFORMATION

William Barry bill.barry@nasa.gov

Chief Historian 202-358-0383

Andres Almeida andres.almeida@nasa.gov

Editor 202-358-1319

Nadine Andreassen nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov

Program Support Specialist 202-358-0087

Colin Fries colin.a.fries@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0388

Stephen Garber stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

Historian 202-358-0385

Robyn Rodgers robyn.k.rodgers@nasa.gov

Chief Archivist 202-358-2798

Elizabeth Suckow elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0375

Rachel Carollo carollo.rachel@gmail.com

Fall Intern

Will McCormick wimccor@ostatemail.okstate.edu

Fall Intern
31

Volume 35, Number 4 4th Quarter 2018

MOMENT IN NASA HISTORY

Gerald D. Griffin, foreground, stands near his console in the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) during Apollo 15’s third extravehicular activity (EVA) 

on the lunar surface. Griffin is Gold Team (Shift 1) flight director for the Apollo 15 mission. Astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin can be seen on the 

large screen at the front of the MOCR as they participate in sample-gathering on the lunar surface. August 2, 1971. (Credit: NASA. Image ID: S71-41852) 

https://images.nasa.gov/details-S71-41852.html
CREATED AND PRODUCED BY:

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