National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

IN THIS ISSUE:

 1 From the Chief Historian

 1 Women and Work: In the Shoes of

Rosie the Riveter

10 News from Headquarters and the

Centers

18 Armstrong’s Flight Loads

Laboratory’s 50th Anniversary

20 An Online Pictorial History of

Tech Transfer: The NASA Ames 

Technology Transfer Historical 

Image Gallery, 1976–2012

21 Other Aerospace History News

23 Recent Publications and Online

Resources

27 Upcoming Meetings

28 Obituaries

30 Images in NASA History

FROM

THE CHIEF 

HISTORIAN

From time to time, we get complaints 

about low-quality 

print versions of our NASA history books; 

whenever we do, it always turns out that the 

book is not one of ours, but a cheap knockoff. Some of you inveterate online shoppers 

may also have noticed copies of NASA history 

books with odd-looking covers for sale by your 

favorite electronic bookshop. Perhaps you’ve 

also wondered why there are copies of our free 

e-books for sale at rather ridiculous prices on 

these same sites. These odd “editions” exist 

because our books are not copyrighted—they 

are in the public domain. After all, you have 

already paid us to produce them with your 

taxes, so our publications are free of any charge 

beyond the Government Publishing Office’s 

(formerly the Government Printing Office’s) 

practice of recovering costs on printed books. 

They are also free to be reused or repurposed 

as people see fit. 

The upside of the no-copyright policy is that 

you can still find hard copies of our books 

even if they are long out of print. For example, 

continued on next page

WOMEN AND WORK:

IN THE SHOES OF ROSIE THE RIVETER

By Mary Gainer, Historic Preservation Officer at NASA Langley Research Center

THE NATIONAL ADVISORY 

COMMITTEE FOR 

AERONAUTICS WORK 

ENVIRONMENT

I

t was 1943, and the country was at 

war. This meant huge changes in life 

at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical 

Laboratory (LMAL), the premier theoretical research facility during World 

War II (WWII).1

Numbering a mere 426 employees in 

1938, the staff swelled to over 3,000 by 

1945. It was also during this time of 

expansion that the National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) 

began acquiring land in what is now 

known as the West Area.

1 Marilyn M. Harper, World War II and the 

American Home Front: A National Historic 

Landmarks Theme Study (Washington, DC: 

National Park Service, 2007), available 

at http://www.nps.gov/nhl/learn/themes/

WWIIHomeFront.pdf.

continued on page 3

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
2

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

From the Chief Historian (continued)

Dover Publications has worked with us in the past to 

produce reprints, with new introductions, of some of 

our most popular NASA histories. Other individuals 

and printers, seeing the demand, will off er our books 

for sale and, when they get an order, take our online 

PDF, slap a cover on it, and send it 

to a print-on-demand shop. Th ese 

are usually the ones that we get 

the complaints about. I need to 

emphasize that this practice is 

perfectly legal, but the unfortunate result is that some readers 

get a book that is far below our 

exacting production standards.

While the occasional low-quality 

book is frustrating, to me the 

most signifi cant downside of the 

no-copyright approach is what has 

been happening with our e-books. 

Th e marginal cost of producing an 

e-book version of a print book is 

tiny, and the distribution cost is 

nearly zero. Th is is why we make e-book versions of 

all of our new publications—and why we make them 

downloadable for free. Copies of our books now reach 

many times more people than was ever possible before. 

Unfortunately, some enterprising folks were downloading our e-book fi les and immediately uploading 

them to sites like Amazon.com and charging for them. 

While this too is perfectly legal, we were frustrated 

to see that people were actually paying for an e-book 

that they could get for free from the NASA Web site. 

We are still working to get our e-books onto those 

commercial sites, but doing so is a much more complicated issue than I ever imagined. In the meantime, 

we’ve added a prominent marking on the cover of our 

e-books featuring the phrase “FREE DOWNLOAD.” 

At a minimum, either buyers will be aware that they 

are about to pay for something that they could get 

for no charge, or the uploaders will have to do a little 

graphic manipulation to earn their fees.

As you probably already know, we have an electronic 

version of just about every NASA history book, 

plus a few other NASA publications of historical 

interest, available on our publications page: http://

history.nasa.gov/series95.html. Many of these were 

formatted by volunteers in the 

early days of the Internet as 

HTML pages. (If you were one 

of those volunteers—thanks!) 

To make all of that content 

more readily available, we 

are in the process of creating 

PDF versions of the books that 

currently are available only in 

HTML. This will probably 

cause some increase in the sales 

of low-quality knockoff print 

copies and e-books that should 

be free. Th e only reliable way 

to prevent the legal but, to my 

mind, reprehensible activity of 

a few is education. If people 

interested in NASA history 

books knew they could get high-quality hard copies 

from the NASA Headquarters Information Center 

at a reasonable price or could download e-book 

versions for free from the NASA e-book site, there 

would be no market for low-quality, overpriced 

books. Want to help? Tell your friends who are interested in NASA history publications to go to http://

www.hq.nasa.gov/offi ce/hqlibrary/ic/ic2.htm for books 

and http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/index.html#.

VOP2m969WMV for e-books.

Happy Reading and Godspeed,

William P. Barry

Chief Historian

WHILE THE OCCASIONAL 

LOW-QUALITY BOOK IS 

FRUSTRATING, TO ME 

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT 

DOWNSIDE OF THE NOCOPYRIGHT APPROACH 

IS WHAT HAS BEEN 

HAPPENING WITH OUR 

E-BOOKS.
3

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

Women and Work: In the Shoes of Rosie the Riveter (continued)

Virtually all military aircraft were tested in the wind 

tunnels at Langley. Business at the Center increased; 

women had been hired in the past but never numbered 

more than 100 at any given time. And they served in 

such stereotypical roles as secretaries, stenographers, 

typists, file clerks, and receptionists. But with the war, 

women were being sought for many nontraditional 

roles. An August 1943 LMAL Bulletin, the Center’s 

newsletter, advertised:

Two HUNDRED new employees are being 

sought for work as Minor Laboratory 

Apprentices at LMAL, where they will perform duties similar to those of Mrs. X operating a planer in the West Area Machine Shop. 

A memorandum, issued to the staff, describes 

the need for additional non-draft[-]eligible 

personnel, especially women shop workers.

This was not the first time that rapidly expanding 

war industries dipped into the labor pool of women. 

During World War I, nearly three million women 

were employed in food, textile, and war industries. 

After that war, though, the majority of these women 

returned to their homes, where they have been referred 

to as an invisible workforce, relegated to the roles 

of housewives and stay-at-home mothers. Prior to 

WWII, most working women were single, deserted, 

or economically disadvantaged. A working wife was 

seen as a negative reflection on her husband’s ability to 

provide. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, though, 

the government reclassified 55 percent of its jobs to 

facilitate the hiring of women.

There was a social stigma associated with women who 

went to work—they were viewed as less feminine than 

those who stayed home. Propaganda rapidly dominated print, film, and the radio, glamorizing the role 

of female factory workers and encouraging women 

to take over jobs for the duration of the war. Rosie 

the Riveter (real-life Geraldine Hoff Doyle as painted 

These women are at work at a planer. (LMAL 33031)

by Norman Rockwell)2 is still a recognized icon, 

wearing her coveralls and bandanna and confidently 

proclaiming, “We Can Do It!” In the first great exodus 

of women from the home to the workplace, virtually 

all single women were employed and married women 

also were allowed to work.

The transition to the workplace was not always an easy 

one. Boeing worker Helen Nelson remembered that 

there was a lot of male chauvinism and that women 

were considered too stupid to know how to do much. 

Since organized labor did not have a place for women, 

working conditions were often inferior. In September 

1943, Lenore Hulcher was hired as the first women’s counselor at the Laboratory. Her duties were to 

handle the typical problems facing female employees: 

2 Gwen Perkins, “Women’s Roles: Who Was Rosie the Riveter?” 

Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices (Washington State Historical 

Society), available online at http://washingtonhistoryonline.org/

suffrage/Times/workers.aspx.
4

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

The inscription on back of this 1948 Christmas party photo reads, “technical illustrating and reproduction departments with bosses 

and the ‘big chief’ Mr. Mixon” (head of department, in suit on the left). Lankes appears in the upper right. (Photo courtesy of 

Jean Lankes)

orienting them in their work, making work more 

pleasant, and assisting women in “assuming their place 

in the important war program under way here.”3

Well-known artist Julius Lankes was hired by the 

NACA in 1943 as the head of technical illustrating. 

The July issue of the LMAL Bulletin announced that 

he would be instructing college graduates to prepare 

figures for use in technical reports. The graduates were 

described as all women who majored in art, coming 

from a handful of schools.

3 “Mrs. Hulcher Is Women’s Counselor,” LMAL Bulletin 2, no. 

21 (11–17 September 1943): 1, available online at http://crgis.

ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/1/19/Airscoop1943.pdf.

New contracts continued to outpace the available employees. A new 

recruiting strategy was implemented 

early in 1944, when postcards were 

provided to employees to send to 

friends and acquaintances interested 

in employment. By April, 40 replies 

had been received; 23 of those applicants were women. Of those, one was 

seeking a professional rating—very 

uncommon at the time. The remainder included 12 clerks and 1 each 

as a woodworker, a draftsman, and 

a mechanic.

By September 1944, the lack of 

employees was deemed serious. The 

front of a special two-page LMAL 

Bulletin was a letter from director 

H. J. E. Reid pleading for names of 

potential workers “of either sex who 

would like to do more important 

work toward winning and shortening the war.” The backside was a 

combination of photos and employment opportunities. By the end of 

the year, 955 women were employed 

at LMAL, making up nearly a third 

of the employees. They were almost equally divided 

between married and single women. Women filled the 

roles of typists, stenographers, computers (mathematicians), mail sorters, payroll clerks, telephone operators, machinists, sheet-metalsmiths, seamstresses, 

and woodworkers.

The “Computer Pool” started at Langley in 1935 with 

five women. The term “computer” was a title, designating a woman who performed mathematical equations 

and calculations by hand and then plotted the data. 

A 1942 report stated the computing sections relieved 

engineers of this essential but time-consuming work. 

While the engineers were free to devote their attention 

to research projects, the women received praise for 

calculating data “more rapidly and accurately” in half 
5

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

the time of that taken by the engineers.4 By 1946, 

the ranks had swollen to about 400 women placed in 

sections across the Center. These women played an 

integral part in aeronautical and aerospace research 

into the 1970s. Although they were considered paraprofessionals (SP-3 through SP-8 in government 

position classifications), some of the women gained 

recognition in their fields. For example, Margaret 

Steiner was a coauthor on two publications on the 

ditching of B-25 aircraft.

An interesting job that some of the women had was 

in the Dynamics Tunnel Operation Shop, where they 

were busily engaged in making rag dolls. Four women 

were assigned to making 1⁄24-scale models of a 6-foot, 

200-pound man. The dolls were dynamically balanced 

for use in determining where a pilot should bail out 

of a spinning airplane—toward the inside or outside 

of a spin.

Dress

The 1930s and the Depression following the Wall 

Street crash seemed to bring an end to the style of 

the flappers. There was a dramatic drop in hemlines. 

The stylish woman was seen in clothing with a more 

angular look. Padded shoulders, cork-wedged shoes, 

and hats worn at an angle were in vogue and emulated looks popularized by celebrities such as Joan 

Crawford, Carol Lombard, and Myrna Loy.

Longer, upswept hairdos and the Victory Roll became 

popular. This hairstyle has been linked to the pattern 

of the exhaust roll left in the sky after fighter plane 

maneuvers and to the fact that everyday life was all 

about victory at war. The rationing of metal bobby 

pins resulted in the use of pipe cleaners by resourceful women to achieve the style’s effect. The style also 

worked well for women entering the workforce, who 

were often required to keep their hair off their faces.

4 R. H. Cramer to R. A. Darby, “Computing Groups 

Organization and Practice at NACA,” 27 April 1942.

With the entrance of the United States into the war, 

and the resulting clothing rationing, women’s fashion 

took on a more utilitarian look. Clothing had to be 

practical, last a long time, and serve for a variety of 

occasions. The withdrawal of the new nylon stockings 

led to the popular practice of painting seams on a 

friend’s legs in preparation for a dance, while bobby 

socks were popular for day-to-day wear. Women’s hats 

were often patterned after the men’s trilby style featured in the hit movie Casablanca.

In February 1943, shoes made with leather or rubber 

soles were added to the list of rationed goods, which 

already included coffee, sugar, and gasoline. The ration 

allowed three pairs per person per year and outlawed 

any extravagant flourishes like colors, high heels, and 

decorative embellishments.

Perhaps the biggest change in fashion happened when 

women began working in coveralls and traditional 

male clothing. Women’s work clothes were sometimes 

offered for sale through the NACA exchange. In 1944, 

women could purchase a uniform for $4, available in 

sizes 14 through 44. Caps were available for $1.10. 

The latest safety caps sported a “completely ventilated 

felt crown with large visor and porous rayon snood, 

all in dark blue, the cap is considered as not only 

This photo from 1943 shows diversity in women’s clothing. (LMAL L-35045)
6

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

flattering to the wearer, but comfortable as well.”5

Women were instructed in proper attire promoted by 

the safety board with wording designed to highlight 

the visual appeal of the new clothing. A pamphlet 

was issued describing the approved apparel for female 

shop workers.

Special directions for wearing a turban were included 

in a 1944 edition of the LMAL Bulletin. Although 

it was stated that the safety cap, when worn properly, was recommended for women who worked on 

machinery, the turban was found to be satisfactory for 

most purposes. A review of photos of female workers 

at LMAL shows that the turban was more popular 

than the cap.

5 “Safety Cap: New LMAL Millinery Note,” LMAL Bulletin 2, 

no. 16 (7–13 August 1943): 6, available online at http://crgis.

ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/1/19/Airscoop1943.pdf.

This illustration from a 1943 pamphlet shows approved apparel for shop workers. (“LMAL Fashion Show,” LMAL Bulletin 2, no. 17 [14–21 August 1943]: 4)

Five steps to properly securing a turban are illustrated. (“Combination of Safety 

and Style,” LMAL Bulletin 3, no. 41 [30 September–6 October 1944]: 5)

Women work while sporting their turbans. (LMAL 33026)

This woman is wearing a safety cap with snood. Note that the cap is pushed 

back on her head and not worn as prescribed. (L-33962)
7

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

Housing and Services

The number of employees at the NACA grew rapidly 

during the time leading up to American involvement 

in the war. The 450 staff members in 1939 had swollen 

to 2,163 by June 1943. New engineers arrived from 

the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), 

the Indiana Institute of Technology (Indiana Tech), 

and Tri-State of Indiana. Many women came from 

such schools as the Women’s College of the University 

of North Carolina, the College of William and Mary, 

Mary Washington College, and Randolph Macon 

Woman’s College. The rapid increase in employees led 

to a housing shortage. During this period, several new 

developments sprang up, primarily to provide living 

arrangements for the families moving into the area. 

Cavalier Court in Fox Hill and Sussex in Hampton, 

Virginia, are two examples. The 128-unit development 

in Fox Hill promised the Laboratory’s personnel first 

consideration, calling it an “ideal situation because 

it is possible to establish a new community made up 

entirely of NACA employees.”6

As discussed previously, women were heavily recruited, 

and the need soon arose for a nursery for the young 

children of mothers working at the NACA. A former 

nurse from the Laboratory, along with her sister, purchased a home at 103 North King Street in Hampton 

and turned it into a 24-hour nursery. Two nurses were 

on duty during the day to supervise the children, and 

one was there during the night. This was needed not 

only due to the number to shifts running at that time, 

but also since mothers often opted to board their children there for $10 a week.7

The new single-family homes did not help the many 

single women who were recruited. It was not unusual 

to see notices in the Laboratory’s LMAL Bulletin

requesting rooms. In June 1943, it was reported 

6 “NACA Housing Project Started,” LMAL Bulletin 1, no. 2 (11 

December 1942): 1, available online at http://crgis.ndc.nasa.

gov/historic/Scoops,_News,_and_Phonebooks.

7 “Nursery May Open Dec. 1,” LMAL Bulletin 2, no. 31 

(20–26 November 1943): 1, available online at http://crgis.

ndc.nasa.gov/historic/File:Nursery.jpg.

Anne Wythe Hall was built at Bay Avenue and Lombard Street in Hampton. 

(Photo courtesy of Mary Caroline Boerner)

that the most challenging personnel job was finding 

housing for the large number of women being hired. 

Anne Wythe Hall was opened late that year to house 

368 unmarried women engaged in defense work. The 

small community consisted of three dormitories, two 

of which had double rooms, a community building, 

an infirmary, and a cafeteria. Each dormitory boasted 

a large bath and laundry room on each floor, with a 

lounge on the first floor where dates could call on the 

residents.8 All this was available for $3 per person per 

week for a double room or $5 for a single.

Many of these women did not have their own transportation, so a special bus service was started. Those 

working the day shift left from the community building at 6:05 a.m. and then were picked up at the end 

of the shift at 4:50 p.m. by building 587. This allowed 

the “girls plenty of time to get to work in the West Area 

and give those in the East Area time to eat breakfast.”9

Carpooling was another popular option at this time. 

The Laboratory Transportation Committee urged all 

to give their fellow workers a lift. A survey in 1943 

showed an average number of 4.6 passengers in sedans 

and 3.7 in coupes. Even with those numbers, it was 

8 “Anne Wythe Hall Will Open Soon,” LMAL Bulletin 2, no. 28 

(30 October–5 November 1943): 4, available online at http://

crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/File:AnneWytheHall1.jpg.

9 “Special Bus Accommodates Ann Wythe Hall Residents,” 

LMAL Bulletin 3, no. 11 (4–10 March 1944): 4, available 

online at http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/File:BusService2.jpg.
8

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

reported that rides were still desperately needed for 

the night shift. By 1944, the popularity of carpooling 

seems to have declined. On 27 June, women were 

posted at all gates to observe which cars had vacancies. 

Owners of vehicles discovered to have vacancies were 

requested to take on more passengers. Carpool rides 

were desperately needed in the Wythe neighborhood, 

where many female workers lived at Anne Wythe Hall.

Advancement

With the employee shortage, the NACA began offering training to women. In 1943, the high school 

apprentice program was under way for boys. The 

classes for the spring 1943 term were opened to female 

mechanical workers, if space permitted.

Classes directed specifically toward women continued to be offered. Computers in the Research 

Department were urged to attend a course in beginning and advanced mechanical drawing.10 There was 

also a special pre-engineering physics course offered 

to female computers.11 The hopes were that women 

would be able to take over some of the work done by 

junior engineers. The Administrative Office usually 

held classes in typing and shorthand for women desiring employment advancement or more “congenial 

employment.” In 1945, a course in the fundamentals 

of aeronautics was added. It was designed to help secretaries and stenographers learn elementary aeronautical terms to assist them in taking dictation, preparing 

reports, and filing.12

10 “School Days Are Here Again,” LMAL Bulletin 3, no. 2 (8–14 

January 1944): 4, available online at http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/

crgis/images/7/7f/AirScoop1944.pdf.

11 “Computers Attend Physics Classes,” LMAL Bulletin 2, no. 

10 (28 June 1943), available online at http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/

crgis/images/1/19/Airscoop1943.pdf.

12 “Here’s an Opportunity,” Air Scoop 4, no. 2 (12 January 

1945): 2, available online at http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/

images/0/09/LARC1945.pdf.

Working as a computer, despite its paraprofessional 

status, paid much better than the majority of jobs 

available to women in the 1940s and 1950s. It also 

provided an entry for women into the field of aeronautical research at a time when most simply were not 

being hired as engineers, and it offered another career 

option besides teaching for those with degrees in the 

sciences. Teaching in North Carolina, Rowena Becker 

made $550 a year before joining the LMAL computers in 1942. As a computer, she started at $1,440 

per year.13

During the 1940s, Langley began recruiting African 

American women with college degrees to work as 

computers. Initially grouped in a segregated section, 

the “West Area Computers” processed data sent to 

the pool and also joined sections on a temporary 

basis when additional help was needed. According to 

Beverly Golemba’s unpublished study of early computers at Langley, many women were not aware of 

the West Area Computers, although both the black 

and white women she interviewed reported that when 

computers from the different areas did do a project 

with each other, “everyone worked well together.”14

The first black computers did the same work as their 

white counterparts, but in a period when segregation 

was policy across the South and in the U.S. Armed 

Services, they also encountered segregated dining and 

bathroom facilities, along with barriers to other professional jobs.15

13 “Panel Discussion with Women Computers,” NASA Langley 

videotape, 13 December 1990; Marilyn Heyson, interview 

by Langley Research Center (LaRC) intern Sarah McLennan, 

8 April 2011.

14 Beverly E. Golemba, “Human Computers: The Women 

in Aeronautical Research” (unpublished manuscript), pp. 

42–44. Along with Golemba’s manuscript, a LaRC videotape entitled “Panel Discussion with Women Computers,” 

13 December 1990, contains interviews with early African 

American computers.

15 President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to desegregate 

the armed forces on 26 July 1948.
9

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

Social Expectations

It was said that the war effort asked a woman “to give 

up her jewels for motors, instruments, and bullets; her 

stockings and silk dresses for parachutes; her rouge for 

bombsights and her bobby pins for landing mats. Her 

girdle is wanted for life rafts and tires and her shoes 

and handbag for belts and flying suits.”

But even without those accessories, women were 

still often viewed as adornments. When several 

men were asked about the presence of women at 

LMAL, Melvin Butler, Head of Personnel Division, 

responded, “My only complaint is that there aren’t 

enough of them. As I sit here in my luxurious office 

watching the dear things flit about, I sometimes am 

conscience-stricken for accepting a salary for a job 

that is such a constant pleasure.”16

Further evidence of a concern at the Laboratory about 

female employees’ appearance and social graces—not 

just their ability to do their jobs—comes from an 

announcement in the November 1942 LMAL Bulletin

that ran, “Girls, do you sit at home nights? Are you 

a wallflower? Do you lack that certain something? 

Would you like to be glamorous, alert and magnetic? If 

you would, your troubles are over. See Bill Thompson 

and let him explain all about our course on ‘From 

Droop to Debutante’ in ten easy lessons.”

The year 1944 saw the selection of the first Miss LMAL. 

She was to be selected by popular vote, with a caution 

that “[w]e all want our Miss LMAL to look really good 

on display and to make us feel proud that she belongs 

to us. Base your choice, therefore, on personality and 

posture as well as on good looks.” Pictures of the top 

16 candidates would be sent to “some renowned judge 

of feminine beauty.” Their photos were published in 

the June issue of the newsletter. It was announced later 

that film director Cecil B. DeMille served as judge.

16 “What Is Your Candid Opinion of NACA Women?,” Air 

Scoop 3, no. 52 (15 December 1944): 5, available online at 

http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/crgis/images/7/7f/AirScoop1944.pdf.

There are many romantic stories involving women at 

the NACA during the war. Every issue of the LMAL 

Bulletin had wedding or engagement announcements. 

Elva May Nixon was a computer in the 1940s when 

she met Joe Boyle, a model maker. Hilda “Chick” 

Singleton worked in the sheet metal shop and met her 

future husband, David L. McCraw, at work. David 

had relocated to Hampton from Maryland. Afterward, 

the family moved to Houston, Texas, where David 

became the Assistant Chief of the Technical Services 

Division at the Manned Space Center (later to become 

Johnson Space Center).

Conclusion

Women working at LMAL found jobs that offered 

both challenges and opportunities. Starting out with 

limited options for promotion, many of the women 

proved that they could successfully do the work and 

sought out opportunities for advancement. Some 

ended up making a long-term career out of what they 

thought would be a temporary job, while others gradually moved into other careers at the Center. Often 

overlooked in histories of Langley Research Center, 

these women were at the forefront in challenging the 

status quo of women in the workforce.

Scholars disagree on whether the working women of 

WWII had any lasting impact on women’s roles in life. 

Some think that the war accelerated the movement 

of women into the labor force, while others take the 

stance that there was no lasting impact. All concede, 

though, that many forces worked against the retention 

of the changes that occurred during the war period. 

Living through the Depression and war produced 

a desire for stability and the reversion of Rosie the 

Riveter to Margaret Anderson in Father Knows Best. 

For the NACA/NASA, the real changes for women 

did not come until the 1970s.
10

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

History Program Office

By Bill Barry

J

ust after our last newsletter was published, we 

received the bad news that the contractor who 

provides our archival support staff had to reduce the 

staff from three to two. Although this possibility had 

loomed for some time, we were fortunate to have 

all three archivists through the renovation. But with 

the move completed, the contractor’s plan to operate 

with two full-time archivists, supplemented by other 

staff on an as-needed basis, was implemented. As a 

result, John Hargenrader was let go at the start of the 

year. John has been a stalwart of the Headquarters 

archival program for over a dozen years. His depth 

of knowledge about so many aspects of space history, 

his good humor, and his focus on the practical (not to 

mention the mechanical skills he’d honed in his wood 

shop) were powerful assets. I know that many of you 

will miss him, just as we do. We’ll be happy to forward 

any e-mails you might want to send with your thanks 

and well wishes to John.

Despite the hard start to 2015, we all took great 

pride in our accomplishments of 2014. Not only did 

we move back into our beautifully updated archival space late in the summer last year, but we also 

had a very productive year of publications. While 

we had only one full-size book go to print last year 

(the amazingly popular Archaeology, Anthropology, and 

Interstellar Communication), it was a good year for 

monographs and, most importantly, a banner year 

for the annual Aeronautics and Space Report of the 

President (a.k.a. President’s Report). NASA is responsible for producing this Executive Branch report that 

is required by the Space Act. However, a variety of 

coordination problems led to a backlog. An incredible 

amount of work by Steve Garber and Giny Cheong 

greatly reduced the backlog, which resulted in the 

release in 2014 of the President’s Reports for FY 2009, 

FY 2010, and FY 2011. Not only will the FY 2012 

and FY 2013 reports probably be in print by the time 

you read this, but the new processes Steve and Giny 

have instituted mean that the report for FY 2014 is 

also well advanced and will be in print in May. We’ve 

also been hard at work on several major book projects 

that will be released later this year. These include the 

third volume in our Societal Impact series, a centennial history of the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics (NACA) and NASA, volume 3 of the 

Wind and Beyond series, and a major update to Deep 

Space Chronicle. This year promises to be a great one 

for reading NASA history.

Getting all of these books (and some more monographs) ready for publication this year meant a lot of 

work last year (and this) for our chief editor, Yvette 

Smith. Yvette has been working with us on detail for 

quite a while, but at the start of this year, we were able 

to get her position in the History Program Office formalized. In addition to serving as our editor and interface with the NASA Headquarters Communications 

Support Services Center (printing and design) folks, 

she has used her Web savvy to help improve our visibility on the NASA flagship Web site, www.nasa.gov. 

Yvette also serves as our “intern wrangler.” She’s a great 

(and now permanent) addition to the team.

Speaking of interns, we were really sad to see Amy 

Wallace and Nolan Lott leave us last December. Nolan 

is back at Nebraska Wesleyan University finishing up 

his senior year, playing some baseball, and getting 

ready for another year at school to complete his teaching credentials. (Based on the mail we’ve been getting, 

I think he misses us a bit too.) We are also happy to 

report that, after graduating from the University of 

Mary Washington this spring, Amy will be heading 

to the University of Glasgow to study in their digital 

archives program. If you have been appreciating our 
11

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

social media output (and a number of other things) this 

spring, you can thank our spring interns, Shelby Jirikils 

(rhymes with “miracles,” as she says) and Rachael 

Kirschenmann. Shelby studies at the University of 

California, Irvine, where, unfortunately for us, they 

work on a quarter system. The good news was that she 

was able to start in early January, but the bad news is 

that she’ll be interning with us only until the winter 

quarter is over in the middle of March. Rachael is from 

the same school as Nolan Lott (Nebraska Wesleyan 

University); she started in February and will be with 

us until the middle of May. It is a busy spring, so we 

are happy to have such great help.

Historical Reference Collection (HRC)

By Jane H. Odom

In the Headquarters Archives, the staff continues to 

stay busy providing reference services and processing 

projects. During the last quarter, we hosted visitors 

from NASA Headquarters, the History of Science 

Society, the Planetary Society, the Advisory Council 

on Historic Preservation, the Georgia Institute of 

Technology (Georgia Tech), Auburn University, and 

the Free University of Berlin.

Recently, we completed a number of archive projects that researchers will find of interest. The processing (arrangement, description, and preservation) 

of the John Naugle Collection is complete. Naugle 

was Associate Administrator for the Office of Space 

Science and the Agency’s Chief Scientist before his 

retirement in 1981. The collection consists of 19 cubic 

feet dating from ca. 1950 to 2002. It includes seven 

series or broad types of material: journals, diaries, and 

appointment books; chronological correspondence 

files; subject files; biography files; trip files; articles and 

books; and microfiche of 1970s correspondence.

We completed a review of more than 70 boxes—on 

loan to us from the Federal Records Center—that contain files pertaining to NASA-congressional relations 

regarding the Space Shuttle–Mir and International 

Space Station (ISS) programs. After an appraisal, 

hundreds of documents were copied and added 

to existing subject files in the Historical Reference 

Collection (HRC), making our human spaceflight 

collection that much richer.

Additionally, a two-year effort to capture born-digital 

aerospace congressional testimony and to digitize 

existing hard-copy congressional statements in our reference collection is complete. The result: just over 950 

PDFs have been uploaded to our internal database, 

where they will be used in answering reference questions. Eventually, this collection will be made available 

externally for research use at https://historydms.hq.nasa.

gov/. Stay tuned for details.

If you are interested in visiting the HRC to conduct 

research in these or other areas of interest, please contact us at 202-358-0384 or at http://history.nasa.gov/

contact.html to schedule an appointment.

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By Glenn Bugos

NASA Ames capped its 75th anniversary celebration with an open house on 18 October 2014. It 

was the first time since 1997 that Ames had opened 

its gates to the public, and more than 120,000 of 

NASA AMES CAPPED ITS 75TH 

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION 

WITH AN OPEN HOUSE ON 

18 OCTOBER 2014. IT WAS THE 

FIRST TIME SINCE 1997 THAT 

AMES HAD OPENED ITS GATES 

TO THE PUBLIC....
12

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

Pictured are scenes from the 75th anniversary open house at Ames.

our closest friends showed up. Center Director Pete 

Worden and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo opened the 

event with reflections on the long history of Ames and 

how Silicon Valley has grown up around it. The open 

house featured a 2-mile-long, self-guided walking 

tour past Ames’s key facilities, along roads ringed with 

exhibits highlighting the many Ames aeronautical and 

space missions, both past and present. A few facilities, 
13

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

like the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnels and Sustainability 

Base, opened their doors for special “backstage” tours. 

Attendees could visit with hundreds of Ames engineers 

and scientists proud to explain their work and could 

hear family-focused talks by Ames researchers about 

the latest in space science and exploration. Our industry and education partners in the NASA Research 

Park also opened their doors, and the California Air 

National Guard positioned airplanes for visitors to 

see up close. For most, it was the first time they could 

gaze up from inside the enormous expanse of historic Hangar One. Kay Twitchell of the Director’s 

Office organized the open house, with support from 

everyone at Ames. From there, we moved right into 

planning celebrations for the centenary of the NACA.

In archive news, the finding aid has been posted 

online for the Vernon L. Rogallo Papers, 1948 to 1992 

(PP14.02). The collection features technical publications, memoirs, photographs, and artifacts related 

to Rogallo’s employment as an engineer at Ames. He 

started in the 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel and then 

transitioned to the instrumentation division, where 

he invented a ballistocardiograph to measure ballistic 

forces on the heart. The collection also features materials on his family’s aerobatic kite-flying team, the 

Rockets, which was a vehicle to publicize the Flexikite. 

The Flexikite was based on a design by Vernon’s 

brother Francis, famous for the Rogallo Wing.

We bid farewell to Laura Langford, an archives intern 

from the San Jose State University School of Library 

and Information Sciences. Laura completed a project of 

scanning and developing finding aids for a series of transcripts and documents related to the Cosmos Bion program, as well as other projects related to Ames artwork.

We also bid farewell to Lewis S. Braxton III, who 

is retiring as Ames’s second longest-serving Deputy 

Center Director. Lew began his career with NASA in 

1975 as a co-op student and rose steadily through the 

ranks in finance and Center operations. He knew the 

history of Ames, he knew the value of that history, 

and he knew the value of a diverse and motivated 

workforce imbued with the cultural legacy of Ames.

ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH 

CENTER (AFRC)

Edwards Air Force Base, California

By Christian Gelzer

As a member of the Technical Advisory Panel for the California Science Center’s (CSC’s) Samuel 

Oschin Air and Space Center, Christian Gelzer 

attended a meeting in October to test hands-on exhibits and provide feedback to CSC employees and directors. CSC senior executives have visited almost every 

science center and aviation museum in the nation to 

see what exhibits and interactive displays there are 

in order to develop ones for the new Air and Space 

Center, and this was an initial trial run of what they’ve 

developed. He also continues to serve as a subject 

matter expert to Evergreen Exhibitions as they develop 

their three-part traveling exhibition on flight that 

opens at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum on 

the Mall in 2015. Meanwhile, he continues juggling 

four book projects, of which the closest to completion 

is the Flight Loads Lab monograph.

This spring, the Aeronautics Research Mission 

Directorate’s Office of Education and Communication 

will publish Peter Merlin’s Unlimited Horizons: Design 

and Development of the U-2 (NASA SP-2014-620). 

This was Peter’s last book done as a historian for the 

Center before he moved to the Public Affairs Office. 

The study documents the design and development 

history of the Lockheed U-2, initially proposed as a 

stopgap measure to provide reconnaissance capability 

during the early years of the Cold War. While other 

books have documented the airplane’s operational 

history, few have made more than a cursory examination of its technical aspects or its role as a NASA 

research platform. This volume includes an overview 

of the entire Lockheed U-2 family, construction and 

materials challenges faced by the builders, the aircraft’s 

performance and capabilities, its checkered early history with the NACA and NASA, the eventual use of 

several U-2 and ER-2 airplanes as research platforms, 

and technical and programmatic lessons learned. The 

book will also be available as an e-book from NASA.
14

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

GLENN RESEARCH CENTER (GRC)

Cleveland, Ohio

By Anne Mills

This year, the Glenn History Office and Imaging Technology Center will release an updated version of its iPad app entitled “NASA Glenn Research 

Center: The Early Years—a Pictorial History.” The 

user interface has been overhauled to work with 

iOS 8, and a slideshow capability has been added, 

as well as options for sharing images through social 

media. More images have been included, along with 

expanded overview information to provide more context about the history of GRC, as well as the history 

of scientific and technical photography at the Center.

The app includes over 300 photos spanning 1941–79. 

They are divided into six sections, each covering an 

era of research at the Center. Each photo is accompanied by in-depth historic information. “GRC: The 

Early Years” is like a virtual coffee-table book, offering 

a detailed history of the Center through a carefully 

curated collection of extraordinary photography. The 

app will be available for the iPad free of charge through 

the iTunes store. Don’t have an iPad? A Web-accessible 

version of the original content can be viewed online at 

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/portal/gallery/.

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By Rebecca Wright

A recently released book, Texas Women: Their Histories, Their 

Lives, includes a chapter written 

by JSC Historian Jennifer RossNazzal. Her featured topic was 

Dr. Mae Jemison, the first woman 

of color to be selected to fly as 

an astronaut for the nation. (You 

can read about the book at http://

www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/index/texas_women.) 

Jennifer was also featured as a subject matter expert/

commentator during a nationally televised documentary, Makers: Women in Space. Produced by PBS, the 

segment used many of the oral history transcripts 

from the JSC History Office as background research. 

Also during the past months, a significant amount of 

materials from the JSC Oral History Project were used 

in other broadcast presentations and/or publications.

“First Man on the Moon: Neil Armstrong” aired on 

the PBS program NOVA and featured audio from 

the Neil Armstrong interview conducted for the JSC 

Oral History Project in 2001. Darlow Smithson 

Productions, Ltd., which produced the show, included 

the name of the JSC History Office’s Production 

Coordinator, Sandra Johnson, in its closing credits to 

thank her for the assistance. Specific audio clips had 

been identified by the producers after they read the 

transcript online at the JSC History Portal.

Hector Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark: The Untold 

Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the 

Miracle That Set Them Free, drew upon the accounts 

found in the oral history transcripts from the NASA 

experts who traveled to Chile for the chapter on the 

rescue. The book was chosen by NPR Radio as one of 

the Best Reads in 2014 and as its first book for the new 

program, Morning Edition Reads. (See http://www.npr.

org/2014/12/11/369409338/join-the-morning-editionbook-club-were-reading-deep-down-dark.)

‘GRC: THE EARLY YEARS’ IS 

LIKE A VIRTUAL COFFEETABLE BOOK, OFFERING A 

DETAILED HISTORY OF THE 

CENTER THROUGH A CAREFULLY CURATED COLLECTION OF EXTRAORDINARY 

PHOTOGRAPHY.
15

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

An article included on the NASA Knowledge 

Management Web site uses a quotation from the book 

NASA at 50: Interviews with NASA’s Senior Leadership

to illustrate the importance of sharing information to 

prevent repeating mistakes. The article’s writer, Dr. Ed 

Hoffman, who is NASA’s Chief Knowledge Officer, 

states: “It is only through the repetition of these stories, 

by keeping them in the forefront of our minds, that 

we will mitigate or even cease making the same mistakes. That’s why history and stories are important.” 

The NASA at 50 book includes edited transcripts from 

oral history interviews conducted by the JSC History 

Office, whose staff also edited the book’s contents for 

its publication. Hoffman’s full article is found online 

at http://km.nasa.gov/tale-of-the-saber-toothed-tiger/.

Quartz online magazine featured a lengthy article that 

extensively used information from the Commercial 

Orbital Transportation 

System (COTS) oral history 

project. The article was titled 

“The Right Stuff: What It 

Took for Elon Musk’s SpaceX 

To Disrupt Boeing, Leapfrog 

NASA, and Become a Serious 

Space Company.” At the end, 

the editor included a note: 

“We’re grateful for the oral 

history project at NASA’s 

Johnson Space Center, which 

provided much useful background material and several 

quotes for this article.” The 

COTS project and report 

can be found online at http://

www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/

oral_histories/c3po.htm.

Also, earlier this year, NASA 

Chief Historian Bill Barry 

asked the JSC History 

Office to gather as much oral 

history as possible from surviving NACA members 

in preparation for the centennial of the organization’s 

creation. The NACA Oral History Project transcripts 

are now posted online and reflect a significant contribution to the historical record for generations to come. 

The collection features those gathered this past year 

from individuals associated with the Langley, Glenn 

(Lewis), and Ames Research Centers, along with the 

memories captured in previous years. Currently, interviews are being conducted with some of the erstwhile 

NACAers who worked at the former High-Speed 

Flight Research Station (now named Armstrong Flight 

Research Center). To access the collection, visit http://

www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/naca.htm.

On the JSC History Portal, 

readers will find historical 

information provided by the 

U.S. Spacesuit Knowledge 

Capture Project. Cinda 

Chullen, manager of the 

project and manager of the 

JSC Portable Life Support 

System area, requested 

assistance from the JSC 

History Office in releasing 

the archived U.S. Spacesuit 

Knowledge Capture events 

via the JSC History Portal. 

Sandra Johnson from the 

JSC History Office prepared 

the information for uploading and created an accessible 

Web page with links to 14 

video recordings of subject 

matter experts, transcripts of 

the recordings, and PDF files 

containing the participants’ 

presentations or prepared 

information, all of which 

can be found online at http://

www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/

spacesuits/index.htm.

THE NACA ORAL 

HISTORY PROJECT 

TRANSCRIPTS ARE NOW 

POSTED ONLINE AND 

REFLECT A SIGNIFICANT 

CONTRIBUTION TO THE 

HISTORICAL RECORD FOR 

GENERATIONS TO COME. 

THE COLLECTION FEATURES 

THOSE GATHERED THIS 

PAST YEAR FROM 

INDIVIDUALS ASSOCIATED 

WITH THE LANGLEY, GLENN 

(LEWIS), AND AMES 

RESEARCH CENTERS, 

ALONG WITH THE 

MEMORIES CAPTURED IN 

PREVIOUS YEARS.
16

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER (LARC)

Hampton, Virginia

By Mary Gainer

We welcomed anew team member in December 2014. 

Mark A. Chambers has 

worked as a contractor, 

in various capacities, 

for the NASA Langley 

Research Center for over 

22 years. During his 

career, Mark has worked 

as a writer-editor for 

the NASA Langley

Office of External

Affairs, writer-editor for the Langley General Aviation 

Program Office, technical writer-editor for the NASA 

Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), and technical 

writer for the NESC Academy. Over the past seven 

years, Mark has worked as a technical editor both 

for the Langley Ares I-X Systems Engineering and 

Integration Office and for the Langley Aeronautics 

Research Directorate and Flight Projects Directorate. 

On 3 December 2014, Mark began work as a 

contract Cultural Resource Specialist (Straughan 

Environmental, Inc.) for the Langley Center 

Operations Directorate.

Mark A. Chambers

Over the years, Mark has been fascinated by Langley’s 

rich aerospace history and has authored or coauthored 

(with his father, Joseph R. Chambers) seven books, 

some published by NASA and others published by 

commercial publishers.

In his current job, Mark is assisting with the inventory 

and organization of the Langley Archives Collection as 

we make the move to more of an electronic format. An 

example of the type of collections being reviewed is the 

Robert L. Trimpi Collection, a vast archive of papers, 

notes, reports, and books dealing primarily with hypersonics research and Apollo 13 documentation. (See 

Trimpi’s obituary here: http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/

Robert_L._Trimpi.)

MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER 

(MSFC)

Huntsville, Alabama

By Michael Wright

The Marshall History Office has initiated two major archival projects: the digitization of the papers of 

David H. Newby and the cataloging of 16-millimeter 

films located at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New 

Orleans, Louisiana. Newby was sworn in as Marshall’s 

first official employee when the Center opened in 

1960. He was instrumental in the transfer of the core 

of the Army Ballistic Missile team from the Army to 

NASA in July 1960. After the transfer, Newby continued on in the Administration and Technical Services 

Office, serving for many years as director of that office. 

The bulk of the papers consist of penciled notes that 

he recorded during meetings with Dr. Wernher von 

Braun and other Marshall leaders concerning Saturn 

program management and organizational structure. 

The papers are currently on loan to Marshall from 

the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and 

Special Collections Department, headed by Anne 

Coleman. At the conclusion of the project, we will 

make the digitized papers available to researchers. A 

digital copy will be archived at Marshall. Another 

digital copy will be provided to the university archives, 

along with the original paper copies.

Another new project involves assessing and describing 

more than 350 16-millimeter films currently housed 

at the Michoud Assembly Facility. Brian Odom, the 

Marshall archivist, traveled to Michoud in December 

to assess the condition of the collection. It consists 

primarily of films from the Gemini, Saturn, and early 

Space Shuttle eras. A few of the films even predate the 

acquisition of Michoud by NASA in 1961. The films 

will be transferred to Marshall, where they will be 

archived and eventually digitized.

A long-time employee, Dieter Grau (1913–2014), 

passed away on 17 December at the age of 101. Grau 

was a Peenemünde veteran and an original member 

of the German Rocket Team who joined Dr. Wernher 

von Braun at Fort Bliss in 1946. After transferring 
17

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

to Huntsville with the “Rocket Team” in June 1950, 

Grau worked in the Guidance and Control Laboratory. 

After the group transferred from the Army to NASA 

in 1960, he was named director of the Quality and 

Reliability Assurance Laboratory and served in this 

position throughout the Apollo program. Grau retired 

in December 1973.

STENNIS SPACE CENTER (SSC)

Stennis Space Center, Mississippi

By Daphne Alford

Stennis Space Center hosted its fi rst-ever NASA Social with more than two dozen social media 

enthusiasts from around the country. A team of representatives from NASA Headquarters, Marshall Space 

Flight Center, and Stennis selected the 26 fi nal participants, who traveled from 15 states—as nearby as 

Alabama and Tennessee and as far away as California, 

New Jersey, and Wisconsin. More than 300 people 

from across the country applied to participate.

On 12 September 2014, participants began with a 

morning visit to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility 

in New Orleans, then spent the afternoon touring 

Stennis facilities and learning about the rocket engine 

test work conducted at the site. They were joined 

by local media for a press conference with NASA 

Administrator Charles Bolden, who provided updates 

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (center, top photo) stands with social media 

enthusiasts from around the country who gathered at Stennis Space Center for 

the site’s fi rst-ever NASA Social. During the event, the social media visitors 

attended a press conference, at which Bolden provided an update on NASA’s 

deep space exploration efforts.

about the B-2 Test Stand and 

NASA’s “Journey to Mars.” 

They also visited the A-1 

Test Stand.

Participants learned about 

renovations to the Apolloera B-2 Test Stand from 

Rick Rauch, manager of 

the renovation project, with 

assistance from Tim Pierce, 

deputy of the Facility Services 

and Utilization Division of 

the Stennis Center of Operations Directorate. Both 

the A-1 and B-2 test stands are being prepared to test 

engines and rocket stages for NASA’s new Space Launch 

System, which will carry humans deeper into space.

The B-2 Test Stand was among 

the Stennis facilities the group

toured.

DIETER GRAU (1913–2014)... 

WAS A PEENEMÜNDE VETERAN 

AND AN ORIGINAL MEMBER OF 

THE GERMAN ROCKET TEAM 

WHO JOINED DR. WERNHER 

VON BRAUN AT FORT BLISS 

IN 1946.
18

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

ARMSTRONG’S FLIGHT LOADS LABORATORY’S 

50TH ANNIVERSARY

By Christian Gelzer

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Loads Laboratory celebrated its 50th anniversary in October 2014. 

This extraordinary facility was built to test and validate 

materials on and in the X-15, specifically to answer 

questions no one had anticipated when that aircraft was 

launched. At its opening, there were few laboratories 

like it in the world; the only peer in this country was 

the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson 

Air Force Base, Ohio. The Flight Loads Lab initially 

performed aero-thermo-structural 

testing related to hypersonic flight. 

It was not just that the testing temperatures were staggering; it was that 

the test articles were frequently subjected to flight loads at the same time 

as these remarkable thermal loads. 

Adding to the complexity, sometimes an entire wing of the X-15 

was subjected to thermo-structural 

loads simultaneously.

The facility was necessarily large: 

150 feet by 120 feet by 40 feet, 

with trenches in the floor to carry 

compressed air or water, as well as 

tie-down slots with a maximum 

load uplift capability of 15,000 

pounds. This capability shone like 

never before in the 1970s, when an 

entire Lockheed YF-12 (at a size of 

102 feet by 56 feet) was heated for 

hours on end (multiple times), some 

areas to 600°F, to reproduce Mach 

2.7 temperatures—while the aircraft 

was subjected to flight loads.

The Laboratory’s experience with 

hypersonic and supersonic test and 

calibration transferred easily to the 

Space Shuttle Program. Starting in 1979 and continuing almost through the end of the program, the Lab 

performed various thermal and loads studies. The Lab 

also performed critical work on materials and thermal 

properties related to the National Aero-Space Plane 

(NASP) program in the 1980s. It performed the first 

combined heating and loading tests of titanium matrix 

composites (TMC) structural panels for the X-30, 

work with relevance even though neither vehicle flew.

This 1968 photo shows the interior of the Flight Loads Lab with two X-15s and engineers/

technicians working near the closest aircraft (66670). The farthest X-15—lacking a vertical 

stabilizer or engine—has a rack of sorts beyond it. In that rack, lying horizontally, are two flat 

surfaces that look like wings. They are, in fact, two sets of heating elements, an array of quartz 

lamps that the engineers will roll up to and over the aircraft’s wings (above and below to envelop 

the wing). After closing off the ends and turning on the lamps, the engineers will be able to raise 

the temperature over the wing so that it reflects that of the aircraft on reentry and to do so in 

discrete sections of the wing so that the leading edge will be approximately 1,000°F because 

those lamps are on full blast. The next row of lamps will be on a lower setting and will raise the 

area further aft to only 800°F, and so on going aft over the wing. (NASA)
19

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

This photo, taken from almost the exact same spot as the first one (note the W for west and N for north in both images on the walls) shows one 

of the Center’s Gulfstream GIIIs, this one the test bed for the Active Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE) program. The aircraft rests on three air bags 

(pneumatic bags) in preparation for a loads test. Before an aircraft is modified from its factory configuration, the engineers bring the aircraft into the 

Loads Lab to establish a benchmark of the aircraft and its various parameters. After it has been modified, they return it to the Lab to test it again to 

see how it reacts to the same loads tests—how does it bend, what are the resonances and frequencies, and so on. At the time of the test in the 

photo, the landing gear was retracted and the aircraft floated only on those three air bags, a first as far as anyone knows when it comes to testing. It 

was important to separate the loads placed on the aircraft from those on the landing gear since the gear—when in contact with the ground—would 

distort the results of the test. Placing the aircraft on the air bags kept this from happening.

Running across the floor are the trenches that can carry water, power, or tie-downs. Near the north wall is a chamber with a slanted roof. This 

chamber protects the oven inside with further insulation and allows the Lab to purge the oven and surrounding area with an inert gas for a variety of 

reasons. It is necessary to do so when testing things at 1,500 to 2,500°F. If you have any amount of oxygen in the chamber at that temperature, 

the item you are testing corrodes in a second—not to mention other weird things that can happen. (NASA)

In recent years, the Lab has worked closely with 

Langley Research Center to take fiber-optic strain 

sensing (FOSS) technology out of the laboratory and 

into practical applications by optimizing algorithms. 

The technology was permanently embedded in the 

composite wings of Armstrong’s Ikhana, a science 

platform that has since flown on rockets and is being 

licensed for commercial applications. Additionally, 

in partnership with Glenn Research Center, the 

Lab is now working to develop flight applications 

for shape memory alloys. The Lab retains its longstanding connection to thermal testing, boosting its 

high-temperature oven capability to beyond 2,500°F.

The Flight Loads Laboratory is perhaps better known 

outside Armstrong than it is within the Center, likely 

because its remarkable capabilities have drawn so 

many customers from industry, government, and academia over the decades. The Lab melds research with 

aerospace testing and validation.
20

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

AN ONLINE PICTORIAL HISTORY OF TECH TRANSFER: 

THE NASA AMES TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 

HISTORICAL IMAGE GALLERY, 1976–2012

By Lois Rosson

While looking at images curated online might not have the same impact for viewers as strolling 

through an actual gallery, the expedience of digital 

platforms has unique advantages for those seeking 

to share historical materials with a wide audience. 

The example discussed here, Ames Research Center’s 

Technology Transfer Historical Image Gallery, was created by the Center’s New Media team, led by Yvonne 

Clearwater, to commemorate our Center’s 75th anniversary. The gallery can be found online at http://www.

nasa.gov/content/nasa-ames-tech-transfer-gallery/. It is 

composed of photographs shot for NASA’s Spinoff

magazine and features images of 50 technologies from 

the publication’s history as a celebration of technology 

partnerships at Ames.

The online gallery allows viewers to scroll through 

images either individually or by decade. Each photograph—a digitized scan of the original negative—is 

paired with a short excerpt from the original Spinoff

article and information about the partnership and 

products that evolved from it. Since no resources were 

expended on the archival preservation or treatment of 

the featured images, the costs of executing the project remained remarkably low. Equally symptomatic 

of curatorship in the “digital age,” the only physical 

contact made with the photographs was to plug in the 

thumb drive sent from the magazine’s editor.

In hindsight, one of the Tech Transfer Image Gallery’s 

most successful elements is its historical parallel with 

the magazine’s initial goals. Like the publication, the 

ultimate purpose of the image gallery is to attract new 

viewers unfamiliar with NASA technology transfer 

and Spinoff magazine. When Congress formed NASA 

in 1958, it mandated that the administration and its 

contractors report to industry any new, commercially 

significant technologies discovered in the course of its 

research and development. “Spinoff” products quickly 

sprouted from space technologies and into private 

industry, heightening NASA’s need for an annual 

report to make a cogent presentation of all this activity 

at congressional budget hearings.

By 1973, this requirement resulted in the creation of 

a Technology Utilization Program Report, a publication 

that soon caught the public’s attention. It stirred interest in the idea of tech transfer and was soon reworked 

into a nontechnical magazine. In 1976, the first fourcolor Spinoff was published.

The ubiquitous accessibility of the Internet was a 

motivating factor in the project’s conception, and the 

high production quality of Spinoff’s photographs made 

it an attractive candidate for the galley’s focus. The 

magazine’s 38-year history provides a rich archive of 

material documenting the technology transfer process, and the publication’s establishment as a bridge 

between technological innovation and public knowledge makes it inviting to audiences beyond the scientific community.

Lois Rosson is an intern with the Ames Technology 

Transfer Outreach team and a graduate of the University 

of California at Santa Cruz with degrees in history and 

art practice.

This image of an echocardioscope in 1976 comes from the NASA Ames 

Technology Transfer Historical Image Gallery, 1976–2012. 
21

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS 

NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM 

(NASM)

By Michael Neufeld

I

n preparation for the summer 2016 reopening of 

the renovated Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall, 

curated by Margaret Weitekamp and Paul Ceruzzi 

(Space History) and Bob van der Linden and Alex 

Spencer (Aeronautics), the museum has already begun 

moving artifacts. Because the exhibit is part of the 

main hall and entrance, it will remain open throughout the transformation, allowing the public to watch 

staff working on the artifacts and preparing the new 

displays. With a few exceptions, most of the artifacts 

in the hall will remain on display, although some of 

them will have to be moved or removed temporarily 

during the renovation.

Two artifacts found new display locations in the last 

months of 2014. The Breitling Orbiter, the pressurized balloon gondola that allowed Bertrand Piccard 

and Brian Jones to complete the first nonstop flight 

around the world with a free balloon in 1999, was 

moved to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, where 

it became the anchor of the lighter-than-air display. 

In addition, the Stardust return system that collected 

samples from Comet Wild 2 as well as interstellar dust 

before returning to Earth in 2006 was moved to its 

new display location in the museum’s “Exploring the 

Planets” exhibit.

Other artifacts have been removed or relocated to 

create the space needed to work on the new displays. 

The touchable Moon rock, on loan from NASA’s 

Johnson Space Center, will return to the Boeing 

Milestones of Flight Hall for the opening in 2016 but 

for now has been moved upstairs to the “Apollo to the 

Moon” exhibit on the museum’s second floor so that 

visitors can continue to touch the Moon even as the 

new setting for this valuable rock is being prepared. 

The display of a group of Goddard rockets has been 

removed for conservation; the May 1926 rocket, the 

oldest extant liquid-fueled rocket engine, will return 

to display in Milestones for the new configuration. 

Likewise, Gemini IV, from which Ed White made the 

first American spacewalk in 1965, has been removed 

from its plinth and is being displayed on a stand 

while it waits for its new custom case. John Glenn’s 

Friendship 7 Mercury spacecraft will follow. Finally 

and most notably, the Ryan New York–Paris Spirit of 

St. Louis was lowered to the floor so that conservation, 

cleaning, and inspection could be conducted before it 

was returned to its original position in the Milestones 

Hall. If you visit in the next few months, you’ll see 

how much work has been done.

During calendar year 2014, curators and scientists at 

NASM published seven books:

• Valerie Neal (Space History): Discovery: Champion 

of the Space Shuttle Fleet (Zenith Press).

• Ralph D. Lorenz and James R. Zimbelman (Center 

for Earth and Planetary Studies): Dune Worlds: 

How Windblown Sand Shapes Planetary Landscapes

(Springer Praxis).

• Roger D. Launius (Associate Director and Space 

History): Historical Analogs for the Stimulation of 

Space Commerce (NASA SP-2014-4554).

• Roger D. Launius and David H. DeVorkin (Space 

History), editors: Hubble’s Legacy: Reflections 

by Those Who Dreamed It, Built It, and Observed 

the Universe with It (Smithsonian Institution 

Scholarly Press).

• Michael J. Neufeld (Space History), editor: 

Milestones of Space: Eleven Iconic Objects of NASM

(Zenith Press).
22

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

• John D. Anderson (Aeronautics) and Richard 

Passman: X-15: The World’s Fastest Rocket Plane 

and the Pilots Who Ushered in the Space Age

(Zenith Press).

• Paul D. Ceruzzi (Space History): A History of 

Modern Computing (MIT Press, Japanese edition).

Also during the calendar year, seven exhibitions either 

opened or closed at NASM:

• “Views of Africa,” 15 October 2013–16 February 

2014: A collaboration with the National Museum of 

African Art that presents an exploration of diverse 

perspectives of Earth, focusing on the dynamic 

landscapes of Africa.

• “Spirit and Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across 

Mars,” 9 January–14 September 2014: A celebration of the amazing images and achievements of the 

two Mars Exploration Rovers on the 10th anniversary of their landings on the Red Planet.

• “Red Bull Stratos: Mission to the Edge of Space,” 2 

April–26 May 2014: An exhibition of the pressurized balloon gondola in which Felix Baumgartner 

ascended to an altitude of 127,852 feet—the 

edge of space—over Roswell, New Mexico, on 

14 October 2012, along with the pressure suit that 

he wore on a flight to 97,145 feet on 25 July 2012.

• “Repairing Hubble,” 23 April 2014–present: 

A display in the Space Race Hall that included 

the Hubble Wide-Field Planetary Camera and 

other artifacts from the servicing missions to the 

telescope.

• “The Great Picture,” 26 April 2014–present: A 

3,375-square-foot photograph, taken by the largest pinhole camera in the world, of an abandoned 

Marine Corps air station in Southern California.

• “Hawaii by Air,” 25 July 2014–present: An exhibit 

that recounts how traveling to Hawaii has changed 

over time, how that experience evolved along 

with the airplane, and how air travel changed 

Hawaii itself.

• “Spying from Space,” 21 November–present: An 

expanded section of the “Space Race” exhibit on 

orbital reconnaissance.

NASM Archives has acquired the Arthur C. Clarke 

Papers from his estate in Sri Lanka. This is a major 

acquisition, and all involved deserve our thanks, 

notably Martin Collins (Space History) and Patricia 

Williams (Archives). The collection is currently being 

processed and should become available for researchers 

at the main Archives reading room at the Udvar-Hazy 

Center before the end of 2015.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first 

two extravehicular activities (EVAs) in 1965, the 

National Air and Space Museum opened “Outside 

the Spacecraft: 50 Years of Extra-Vehicular Activity” 

on 8 January. Running through 8 June, the exhibit 

features many rarely seen artifacts. It focuses on the 

spacesuits and tools required to perform EVA tasks, 

which are set against the backdrop of spacewalk photography and artwork. Highlights include Aleksei 

Leonov’s military uniform, Ed White’s Gemini IV 

EVA equipment, Gene Cernan’s Apollo 17 boots, Neil 

Armstrong’s Apollo 11 “Snoopy” cap, and an artistic 

display of gloves and tools used in Hubble servicing. The exhibit was curated by Jennifer Levasseur 

(Space History). Numerous programs will occur 

throughout the run of the exhibit, all of which can 

be found on the exhibit’s Web site, http://airandspace.

si.edu/EVA. Twitter users are encouraged to respond 

using #spacewalk50.

Hunter Hollins (Space History) has published 

“Science and Military Influences on the Ascent of 

Aerospace Development in Southern California,” 

Southern California Quarterly 96, no. 4 (December 

2014): 373–404. It includes a discussion of the early 

development of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
23

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND ONLINE RESOURCES

COMMERCIALLY PUBLISHED WORKS

Astronautics Publications: 2014

By Michael Ciancone, American Astronautical 

Society (AAS) History Committee Chair

This list comprises English-language books published on various aspects of spaceflight in assorted 

disciplines and ranging from juvenile and popular 

literature to texts intended for academia or practicing 

scientists and engineers. In addition to obvious topics 

of human spaceflight and uncrewed interplanetary 

explorations, this list also includes the occasional 

nonastronautics title that has a space “flavor.” Titles 

that are published solely in electronic format are 

not included. Books marked with a are for young 

readers.

Ruwantissa Abeyratne. Regulation of Commercial Space 

Transport: The Astrocizing of ICAO. Springer 

[SpringerBriefs in Law Series].

Charles Adler. Wizards, Aliens, and Starships: Physics 

and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction. Princeton 

University Press.

Cenan Al-Ekabi, Blandina Baranes, Peter Hulsroj, 

and Arne Lahcen, eds. Yearbook on Space Policy 

2011/2012: Space in Times of Financial Crisis. 

Springer.

John Anderson and Richard Passman. X-15: The 

World’s Fastest Plane and the Pilots Who Ushered in 

the Space Age. Zenith Press [Smithsonian Series].

William Sims Bainbridge. The Meaning and Value of 

Spaceflight: Public Perceptions. Springer.

David Baker and Helen Sharman. Soyuz Owners’ 

Manual: 1967 Onwards (All Models). Haynes 

Publishing UK.

Jay Barbree. Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight. Thomas 

Dunne Books.

Piers Bizony. The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A 

Space Odyssey. Taschen.

Piers Bizony. New Space Frontiers: Venturing into Earth 

Orbit and Beyond. Zenith Press.

Tom Bower. Branson: Behind the Mask. Faber & Faber.

Mark Brake. How To Be a Space Explorer: Your Outof-This-World Adventure. Lonely Planet Kids. 

Colin Burgess. Liberty Bell 7: The Suborbital Mercury 

Flight of Virgil I. Grissom. Springer Praxis Books.

Michael Carroll. Living Among Giants: Exploring and 

Settling the Outer Solar System. Springer.

James Chen. How To Find the Apollo Landing Sites. 

Springer [The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy 

Series].

Brian Clegg. Final Frontier: The Pioneering Science and 

Technology of Exploring the Universe. St. Martin’s 

Press.

Arlin Crotts. The New Moon: Water, Exploration, and 

Future Habitation. Cambridge University Press.

Kerrie Dougherty, ed. History of Rocketry and 

Astronautics, Proceedings of the 44th History 

Symposium of the International Academy of 

Astronautics (IAA), Prague, Czech Republic, 2010. 

Univelt [Volume 41 of the AAS History Series]. 

(Includes DVD supplement of 2010 interview 

with IAA founding member Dr. Leslie “Les” 

Shepherd.)
24

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

Jiri Dusek and Jan Pisala. Space Atlas: A Voyage of 

Discovery for Young Astronauts. Sterling Children’s 

Books. 

Mark Erickson. Into the Unknown Together: The DOD, 

NASA, and Early Spaceflight. Military Bookshop.

Ben Evans. The Twenty-First Century in Space. Springer 

Praxis Books.

Richard Foss. Food in the Air and Space: The Surprising 

History of Food and Drink in the Skies. Rowman 

& Littlefield Publishers.

Doug Gangler. The Road to Modern Rocketry: 

Launch Bases, Centers, Museums, Memorials, and 

Monuments. Champion Books, LLC.

Jeffrey Geiger. Camp Cooke and Vandenberg Air Force 

Base, 1941–1966: From Armor and Infantry 

Training to Space and Missile Launches. McFarland.

Slava Gerovitch. Voices of the Soviet Space Program: 

Cosmonauts, Soldiers, and Engineers Who Took the 

USSR into Space. Palgrave Macmillan [Palgrave 

Studies in the History of Science and Technology].

Karen Bush Gibson. Women in Space: 23 Stories of First 

Flights, Scientific Missions, and Gravity-Breaking 

Adventures. Chicago Review Press [Women of 

Action Series].

Chris Hadfield. You Are Here: Around the World in 92 

Minutes: Photographs from the International Space 

Station. Little, Brown and Company.

David Hitt and Heather R. Smith. Bold They Rise: The 

Space Shuttle Early Years, 1972–1986. University 

of Nebraska Press [Outward Odyssey: A People’s 

History of Spaceflight Series].

Lori Haskins Houran. A Trip into Space: An Adventure 

to the International Space Station. Albert Whitman 

& Company. 

Garik Israelian and Brian May. Starmus: 50 Years of 

Man in Space. Carlton Books, Ltd. This book is 

based on the 2011 Starmus festival that was held 

in Tenerife, Canary Islands, in June 2011.

Annie Jacobsen. Operation Paperclip: The Secret 

Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists 

to America. Little, Brown and Company.

Matthew Johnson and Nick Stevens. N-1: For the 

Moon and Mars: A Guide to the Soviet Superbooster. 

ARA Press.

Marc Kaufman. Mars Up Close: Inside the Curiosity 

Mission. National Geographic.

Matthew Kleiman. The Little Book of Space Law. 

American Bar Association.

John Krige. Fifty Years of European Cooperation in 

Space: Building on Its Past, ESA Shapes the Future. 

Les Editions Beauchesne.

Heribert Kuczera and Peter Sacher. Reusable Space 

Transportation Systems. Springer Praxis Books.

Roger Launius and David DeVorkin, eds. Hubble’s 

Legacy: Reflections by Those Who Dreamed It, Built 

It, and Observed the Universe with It. Smithsonian 

Institute Scholarly Press.

W. Henry Lambright. Why Mars: NASA and the Politics 

of Space Exploration. Johns Hopkins University 

Press [New Series in NASA History].

Ajey Lele. Asian Space Race: Rhetoric or Reality?

Springer.
25

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

John Lewis. Asteroid Mining 101: Wealth for the New 

Space Economy. WaveCloud Corporation.

Otfrid Liepack, ed. History of Rocketry and Astronautics, 

Proceedings of the 45th History Symposium of the 

International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), Cape 

Town, South Africa, 2011. Univelt [Volume 42 of 

the AAS History Series].

Ai-Ling Louie. Astronaut Kalpana Chawla: Reaching 

for the Stars. Dragoneagle Press.

Glynn Lunney. Highways into Space: A First-Hand 

Account of the Beginnings of the Human Space 

Program. Self-published.

Malcolm Macdonald and Viorel Badescu, eds. The 

International Handbook of Space Technology. 

Springer Praxis Books.

Sue Macy. Sally Ride: Life on a Mission. Aladdin [RealLife Story Series]. 

Sérgio Mah, João Seixas, and John Gribbin. Edgar 

Martins: The Rehearsal of Space and the Poetic 

Impossibility to Manage the Infinite. La Fábrica. 

(Text in Spanish and English.)

Rob Manning and William Simon. Mars Rover 

Curiosity: An Inside Account From Curiosity’s Chief 

Engineer. Smithsonian Books.

Cindy Donze Manto. Michoud Assembly Facility. 

Arcadia Publishing [Images of America Series].

Gregory Matloff, Les Johnson, and C. Bangs. Living 

off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos. 

Copernicus. (Paperback edition, first published 

as hardcover in 2007, but not previously noted so 

included in 2014 list.)

Ron Miller. The Art of Space: The History of Space Art, 

from the Earliest Visions to the Graphics of the 

Modern Era. Zenith Press.

Edgar Mitchell, with Ellen Mahoney. Earthrise: My 

Adventures as an Apollo 14 Astronaut. Chicago 

Review Press.

James Moltz. Crowded Orbits: Conflict and Cooperation 

in Space. Columbia University Press.

Stewart Money. Here Be Dragons: The Rise of SpaceX 

and the Journey to Mars. Apogee Prime.

Michael Najjar. Michael Najjar: Outer Space. Distanz. 

(Bilingual edition. The author is in the queue 

as a passenger on a Virgin Galactic commercial 

flight.)

Valerie Neal. Discovery: Champion of the Space Shuttle 

Fleet. Zenith Press [Smithsonian Series].

Michael Neufeld. Milestones of Space: Eleven Iconic 

Objects from the Smithsonian National Air and 

Space Museum. Zenith Press [Smithsonian Series].

Hermann Oberth. The Rocket into Planetary Space. 

De Gruyter Oldenbourg. (English translation 

of Oberth’s seminal title, Die Rakete zu den 

Planetenräumen.)

Frederick Ordway and Robert Godwin. 2001: The 

Heritage and Legacy of the Space Odyssey. Apogee 

Prime. (Incorrect publication date noted on 

Amazon.)

Joseph Page II. Vandenberg Air Base. Arcadia 

Publishing [Images of America Series].

Amy Pastan. The Smithsonian Book of Air and Space 

Trivia. Smithsonian Books.
26

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

Scott “Shuttleman” Phillips, with Dianne Phillips. 

Remove Before Flight: Memoir of a Space Shuttle 

Team Member. Tate Publishing.

Rod Pyle. Curiosity: An Inside Look at the Mars Rover 

Mission and the People Who Made It Happen. 

Prometheus Books.

Rod Pyle. Innovation the NASA Way: Harnessing the 

Power of Your Organization for Breakthrough 

Success. McGraw-Hill.

Anne Rooney. Space Record Breakers. Carlton Kids.

Jerry Ross, with Susan Gunderson. Becoming a 

Spacewalker: My Journey to the Stars. Purdue 

University Press.

Daniel Sage. How Outer Space Made America: 

Geography, Organization and the Cosmic Sublime. 

Ashgate Publishing Company. (Listed on Amazon 

as a new edition, but no previous edition noted.)

Kai-Uwe Schrogl, Peter Hays, Jana Robinson, 

Denis Moura, and Christina Giannopapa, eds. 

Handbook of Space Security: Policies, Applications 

and Programs. Springer.

David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek. Marketing 

the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

Erik Seedhouse. Bigelow Aerospace: Colonizing Space 

One Module at a Time. Springer Praxis Books.

Erik Seedhouse. Suborbital: Industry at the Edge of 

Space. Springer Praxis Books.

Erik Seedhouse. Tourists in Space: A Practical Guide. 

Springer Praxis Books. (Second edition.)

Lynn Sherr. Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space. 

Simon & Schuster.

Stephen Hayward Silberkraus. The Space Shuttle 

Endeavour. Arcadia Publishing [Images of 

Modern America Series].

R. K. Singh. Military Application of Space: The Indian 

Perspectives. Vij Books India.

Michael Smith. Rockets and Revolution: A Cultural 

History of Early Spaceflight. University of Nebraska 

Press.

Michael Soluri. Infinite Worlds: The People and Places of 

Space Exploration. Simon & Schuster.

Giles Sparrow. Hubble: Legacy Edition. Metro.

Giles Sparrow, Chris McNab, and Judith John. 

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space & Space 

Exploration. Metro.

Carole Stott. Space Exploration. Dorling Kindersley 

[DK Eyewitness Books].

Parviz Tarikhi. The Iranian Space Endeavor: Ambitions 

and Reality. Springer Praxis Books.

Matthew Tribbe. No Requiem for the Space Age: The 

Apollo Moon Landings and Popular Culture. 

Oxford University Press.

Olesya Turkina. Soviet Space Dogs. FUEL Publishing.

Thomas Uhlig, Florian Sellmaier, and Michael 

Schmidhuber, eds. Spacecraft Operations. Springer.

Paolo Ulivi, with David Harland. Robotic Exploration 

of the Solar System: Part 4: The Modern Era, 2004–

2013. Springer Praxis Books.

Christopher Venet and Blandina Baranes, eds. 

European Identity Through Space: Space Activities 

and Programmes as a Tool To Reinvigorate the 

European Identity. Springer [Studies in Space 

Policy Series].
27

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

Giovanni Vulpetti. Fast Solar Sailing: Astrodynamics 

of Special Sailcraft Trajectories. Springer [Space 

Technology Library].

Giovanni Vulpetti, Les Johnson, and Gregory Matloff. 

Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary 

Travel. Springer Praxis Books. (Second edition.)

Brendon Walters. Civil Earth Observations: National 

Strategy and Plan. Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Claus Weiland. Aerodynamic Data of Space Vehicles. 

Springer.

Claus Weiland. Computational Space Flight Mechanics. 

Springer.

Qihao Weng. Global Urban Monitoring and Assessment 

Through Earth Observation. CRC Press [Remote 

Sensing Application Series].

David West. Lots of Things You Want To Know About 

Astronauts...and Some You Don’t! Hachette 

Children’s Books.

David Whalen. The Rise and Fall of COMSAT: 

Technology, Business, and Government in Satellite 

Communications. Palgrave Macmillan.

Frank White. The Overview Effect: Space Exploration 

and Human Evolution. AIAA. (Third edition.)

Steve Whitfield, ed. Gemini 3: The NASA Mission 

Reports. Apogee Prime.

The History Program Office gives sincere thanks to 

Michael Ciancone. Please note that this list includes only 

astronautics publications, not aeronautics or astronomy, 

and does not represent an endorsement by NASA.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The annual meeting of Oral History in the MidAtlantic Region will be held 9–10 April 2015 in 

Camden, New Jersey. Visit http://ohmar.org for 

more details.

The 31st National Space Symposium will be held 

13–16 April 2015 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

Visit http://www.nationalspacesymposium.org/ for 

more details.

The annual meeting of the National Council on 

Public History will be held 15–18 April 2015

in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit http://ncph.org/cms/

conferences/2015-annual-meeting/ for more details.

The annual meeting for the Organization of American 

Historians will be held 16–19 April 2015 in St. Louis, 

Missouri. Visit http://www.oah.org/meetings-events/ for 

more details.

The annual meeting for the Society for History in the 

Federal Government will be held 24–25 April 2015

in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Visit http://shfg.org/

shfg/events/annual-meeting/ for more details.

The 34th International Space Development 

Conference (ISDC 2014) will be held 20–24 May 

2015 in Toronto, Canada. Visit http://isdc.nss.org/2015

for more details.

The joint meeting of the Council of State Archivists 

and the National Association of Government Archives 

and Records Administrators will be held 22–25 July 

2015 in Austin, Texas. Visit http://www.statearchivists.

org for more details.

The annual meeting of the Society of American 

Archivists will be held 16–22 August 2015 in 

Cleveland, Ohio. Visit http://www2.archivists.org/

conference for more details.
28

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

OBITUARIES

MILTON W. ROSEN1

1 Information taken from the Washington Post’s Web site: 

Megan McDonough, “Milton Rosen, Rocket Engineer and 

NASA Executive, Dies at 99,” Washington Post (24 January 

2015), available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/

obituaries/milton-rosen-rocket-engineer-and-nasa-executivedies-at-99/2015/01/24/5bda7524-a1a3-11e4-b146-

577832eafcb4_story.html.

Milton Rosen, a rocket engineer and early NASA executive who led the United States’ first satellite 

venture, Project Vanguard, died 30 December 2014 at 

a retirement community in Bethesda, Maryland. He 

was 99.

Rosen began his career at the dawn of Space Age, conducting research on the development of radar and 

missiles at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in 

Washington, DC. At the end of 1945, he teamed with 

nuclear physicist Ernst H. Krause to establish NRL’s 

first rocket-development program. Until then, the 

United States was limited in its high-altitude experiments, using only a finite supply of captured German 

V-2 missiles to conduct research. Rosen believed that 

NRL’s experience developing and researching missiles 

during World War II would be the ideal foundation 

for studying the utility, functionality, and design 

of rockets.

Within months, he, Krause, and other colleagues began 

to design and develop the multistage Viking rockets. The high-altitude rockets, which were launched 

between 1949 and 1955, helped demonstrate the 

potential of space exploration.

“I feel it’s inevitable that our youngsters will see a lot 

more [of space] than we have,” Rosen said in an interview on the early 1950s CBS television show Longines 

Chronoscope. Rosen oversaw the success of Vanguard 1, 

the first solar-powered satellite and the second artificial satellite placed in Earth’s orbit. It remains the 

oldest humanmade satellite in orbit.

Rosen moved to NASA Headquarters in Washington 

at its inception in 1958 and served as the Agency’s 

launch-vehicle director. He became a senior scientist in NASA’s Office of the Deputy Associate 

Administrator for Defense Affairs and Deputy 

Associate Administrator for what is now the Science 

Mission Directorate.

He retired from NASA in 1974 and later served at the 

National Academy of Sciences as executive director of 

its Space Applications Board. He was a fellow of the 

American Rocket Society and wrote a book titled The 

Viking Rocket Story (1955). Reviewing the book in the 

New York Times, science writer and editor Jonathan N. 

Leonard wrote, “Mr. Rosen has the literary touch, rare 

among engineers, to build up sympathy for both men 

and machines.”

BONNIE HOLMES

Wernher von Braun once called her “the lady I work for.” Von Braun, the first Director of 

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), was 

humorously referring to his devoted longtime executive assistant, Bonnie Holmes, who passed away on 

5 December 2014.

For Holmes and von Braun, it was an 18-year-long 

working relationship that began in 1952 at Redstone 

Arsenal and ended in 1970, when von Braun moved 

to NASA Headquarters not long after he and his team 

at Marshall had developed the Saturn V rocket that 

landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. The 

relationship between Holmes and von Braun was 

based on trust from beginning to end.

One day in 1952, von Braun, then working for the 

U.S. Army as leader of the pioneering rocket team, 

rushed to the hospital for his daughter’s birth. It was 
29

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

also the day he was supposed to 

interview the person he might 

select to permanently work as 

his new executive assistant. So 

Holmes was waiting just outside his door as he left.

That meant someone else had 

to select the new assistant. 

Although Holmes never got her 

interview with von Braun, she 

got the job and continued in 

the position when von Braun 

and his team transferred to the 

newly formed Marshall Space 

Flight Center. In a 2013 interview, Holmes remembered 

the dedication ceremony of 

MSFC in 1960: “I got to escort 

President Dwight Eisenhower 

to the stage where he officially 

named the George C. Marshall 

Space Flight Center.”

Former MSFC Director William Lucas shakes hands with executive assistant Bonnie Holmes at her retirement party 

in 1978. (NASA)

As von Braun prepared to leave Huntsville, Alabama, 

for NASA Headquarters in 1970, Holmes was 

invited to continue her job for von Braun at NASA 

Headquarters. However, she chose to decline the 

opportunity because of close ties to her family and 

friends in Eva, Alabama. Still, von Braun convinced 

her to at least travel to Washington and interview her 

potential successors.

By the time Holmes retired in 1978, she had served 

as an executive assistant for four Marshall Directors: 

von Braun, Eberhard Rees, Rocco Petrone, and 

William Lucas.

After leaving NASA, she worked at the U.S. Space & 

Rocket Center; after her retirement from there, she 

became active in civic duties in Eva. She served a term 

as Eva’s town clerk and helped find funding for a park, 

senior center, and library, where she also worked for 

years as volunteer head librarian.

JERRY ROSENBERG

J

erome “Jerry” Rosenberg, who had served NASA in 

a variety of capacities over the course of his career, 

passed away on 21 November 2014 at the age of 94.

He received his undergraduate degree in physics from 

the City College of New York, worked as a supervisory physicist for instrumentation at the National 

Bureau of Standards and as the project engineer (later 

administrator) for the pulsed nuclear reactor at Harry 

Diamond Laboratories before arriving at NASA in 

1962. Rosenberg served as Chief of the Operations 

Group in the Office of Technology Utilization; program manager of the National Geodetic Satellite 

Program and project manager of NASA’s Geodetic 

Explorer satellites, GEOS-1 and -2; Deputy Director 

of Communications Programs in the Office of 

Applications; and Director of Technology Applications 

Programs. He also served as longtime executive director of the NASA Alumni League.
30

NASA HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE — News & Notes

IMAGES IN NASA HISTORY

On 14 March 1995, as a member of the Soyuz TM-21 crew, Norman Thagard became the 

first American to be launched on a Russian rocket 

and the first American to stay aboard the Mir space 

station during the Shuttle-Mir Program.

Space Shuttle Atlantis (during mission STS-71) has its payload bay open as 

it prepares to dock with the Mir space station.
31

Volume 32, Number 1 First Quarter 2015

Norm Thagard exercises on the bicycle ergometer in the Mir Core Module.

NASA HEADQUARTERS HISTORY PROGRAM OFFICE 

STAFF CONTACT INFORMATION:

William Barry

Chief Historian 

bill.barry@nasa.gov

202-358-0383

Nadine Andreassen

Program Support Specialist 

nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov

202-358-0087

Colin Fries

Archivist

cfries@mail.hq.nasa.gov

202-358-0388

Stephen Garber

Historian

stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

202-358-0385

Jane Odom

Chief Archivist 

jane.h.odom@nasa.gov

202-358-0386

Yvette Smith

Editor

yvette.smith-1@nasa.gov

202-358-5196

Elizabeth Suckow

Archivist 

elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov

202-358-0375

Shelby Jirikils

Intern

shelby.r.jirikils@nasa.gov 

202-358-0893

Rachael Kirschenmann

Intern

rachael.l.kirschenmann@nasa.gov

202-358-4495
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