National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

IN THIS ISSUE:

1 From the Chief Historian

1 Apollo 12: Why Don’t You Know 

Me? You Should.

9 News from Headquarters and 

the Centers

16 Cleveland Hosts NASA’s Space 

Extravaganza in 1962

18 Space Shuttle Testing Leads to 

Full Utilization in 1970s

19 Other Aerospace History News

23 The Outer Space Treaty

24 Upcoming Meetings

25 Featured Publications

26 In Memoriam: Walter Vincenti

27 Moment in NASA History

FROM

THE CHIEF 

HISTORIAN

More congratulations are in 

order for our very 

own Steve Garber and 

Glen Asner, authors 

of our most recent publication, Origins of 

21st Century Space Travel: A History of NASA’s 

Decadal Planning Team and the Vision for Space 

Exploration, 1999–2004. Following the release 

of the book at the end of June this year, it 

received a lot of positive press and has been 

extremely popular, with nearly 9,000 downloads of the e-book version in the first four 

months it was available. (Don’t have your 

own e-book copy yet? You can find it in three 

different formats at https://www.nasa.gov/

connect/ebooks/origins_detail.html. It’s free!) 

Then, in early October, the American Institute 

for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) 

announced that the book had been selected as 

the winner of their 2020 History Manuscript 

Award! The award “is presented for the best 

historical manuscript dealing with the science, 

technology, and/or impact of aeronautics and 

astronautics on society.” This is a great honor 

and a tremendous reflection on the outstanding research and writing of Steve and Glen. 

The nomination for the award was made in 

the spring based on the manuscript, which 

was still in the production process, hence the 

“manuscript” award. Steve and Glen will be 

presented the award, which comes with a cash 

prize, an engraved medal, and a certificate, 

at the AIAA Science and Technology Forum 

continued on next page

APOLLO 12: WHY DON’T YOU KNOW ME? 

YOU SHOULD.

THE FIRST SPACE ARCHAEOLOGISTS ON THE SECOND 

MOON LANDING

By David Skogerboe

“Do you know me?” the man asked, looking into the camera. The 1975 credit-card commercial was part of a popular ad campaign featuring celebrities with unknown faces. “I walked on 

the Moon,” Apollo 12 Astronaut Charles 

“Pete” Conrad, Jr., continued.1

1 Andrew Chaikin, “Live from the Moon: The 

Societal Impact of Apollo,” in Societal Impact 

of Spaceflight, ed. Steven J. Dick and Roger D. 

Launius (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2007-

4801, 2007), p. 61.

 What a 

topsy-turvy world we live in, that the 

commander of the second Moon landing 

and the third man to walk on the Moon, 

1 of only 12 in the entirety of human 

history (so far), was largely unrecognizable to the public just six years after this 

epic accomplishment. Most people know 

who the first set of Moonwalkers are, but 

the same cannot be said about the second. This becomes more striking when 

one realizes just how close Pete Conrad 

was to actually becoming the first man on 

the Moon. Had the 1202 program alarm 

forced Apollo 11 to abort, Apollo 12 

continued on page 3
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NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

From the Chief Historian (continued)

Glen R. Asner and Stephen 

J. Garber’s book Origins 

of 21st-Century Space 

Travel is the recipient of 

the American Institute 

of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics’ 2020 History 

Manuscript Award.

and Exposition (SciTech 2020) in January 2020, in 

Orlando, Florida. If you are at SciTech 2020, I hope 

you will cheer for them at the awards luncheon on 

Thursday, 9 January, at the Hyatt Regency Orlando.

Congratulations are also in order to the three NASA 

History Fellowship winners for 2019–20: Stephen 

Buono, American Historical Association (AHA) Fellow 

in Aerospace History; Claire Webb, History of Science 

Society (HSS) Fellow in Aerospace History; and 

Dana Burton, Society for the History of Technology 

(SHOT) Fellow in the History of Space Technology. 

You can read a brief overview of the fellows and their 

research projects inside this issue. This year, we have 

had a number of challenges with the fellowship program. Funding has been a perennial challenge, but we 

also encountered problems in renewing our agreement 

with SHOT. Thankfully, our great partners at AHA 

stepped up and saved us from having to terminate 

the History of Technology Fellowship this summer. 

But there will be some changes in responsibilities that 

we are working out now. For my part, let me assure 

you that I am committed to having three healthy 

fellowships. We have always kept the fellowships 

funded despite annual budget struggles over the last 

decade because of the proven impact of this program. 

Typically, discussions about the fellowship end when 

I show people the list of former fellows and where 

they are today. The fellowships have had a broad and 

positive impact in many ways.

Finally, let me take a moment to pay tribute to 

Dr. Valerie Neal of the National Air and Space 

Museum. Valerie handed the reins of the Museum’s 

Space History Division to Dr. Margaret Weitekamp 

this summer and retired this fall. You can read a bit 

more about Valerie’s amazing career elsewhere in this 

issue, but I’d like to take a moment here to sing her 

praises as a colleague, collaborator, and friend. Valerie 

always brought a positive, can-do attitude to the job 

and a practical focus on getting things done. I could 

always depend on her to ferret out the work that 

needed to be done and prod the right people (including me) to get it done, but to always do so with a smile 

and good humor. She is an inspirational leader and a 

productive scholar, and I wish her a long and happy 

retirement. Even better, Margaret and I have already 

been meeting to see how we can further deepen the 

already strong relationship between the NASA History 

Program and the Museum’s Space History Division. I 

see a bright future ahead for all of us.

[NEAL] IS AN INSPIRATIONAL 

LEADER AND A PRODUCTIVE 

SCHOLAR, AND I WISH HER A 

LONG AND HAPPY RETIREMENT.

Until next time, Godspeed,

William P. Barry

Chief Historian
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Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

Apollo 12: Why Don’t You Know Me? You Should. (continued)

was prepared to try again. Apollo 12 was not the first

Moon landing, but why has it been so overshadowed? 

Was being first really that important? It seems so.

Being “first” was a centerpiece of space race geopolitics, 

with the United States and Soviet Union ever vying 

to beat the other to the punch.2 The Soviets achieved 

many firsts—first satellite, first probe to reach the 

Moon, first animal in space, first human in space, first 

woman in space, first multiperson spacecraft, and first 

spacewalk, to name a few.3

 When Apollo 8 became the 

first human lunar orbital mission and Apollo 11, well, 

you know, it could be argued that NASA had achieved 

the ultimate firsts, and all of humankind recognized 

it. President Richard Nixon likely felt justified when 

2 Howard E. McCurdy, Space and the American Imagination, Smithsonian History of Aviation Series (Washington, DC: Smithsonian 

Institution Press, 1997), p. 214.

3 Asif Siddiqi, “From Cosmic Enthusiasm to Nostalgia for the Future,” in Soviet Space Culture: Cosmic Enthusiasm in Socialist Societies, ed. 

E. Maurer, J. Richers, M. Rüthers, and C. Scheide (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). p. 285.

4 Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4014), p. 242.

5 Chaikin, “Live from the Moon,” p. 55.

he stated that the week of the Apollo 11 mission had 

been “the greatest week in the history of the world 

since the Creation.”4

Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad becomes the third man on the Moon. 

(NASA History Flickr site, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons, 

image number AS12-46-6718; other images from same source unless 

otherwise noted)

Pete Conrad performs the first example of space archaeology fieldwork. 

(Image number AS12-48-7134)

When we consider the global impact of the Apollo 11 

mission, witnessed live by one-fifth of the world’s 

population, the lackluster enthusiasm for Apollo 12, 

both then and now, is worthy of exploration.5 A closer 

look at the mission’s fascinating highlights, beautiful 

images, and scientific successes can help to showcase 

why Apollo 12 deserves a more prominent place in the 

American zeitgeist. Apollo 12 was not the first Moon 

landing, but it also was not just a do-over. Astronauts 

Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon performed a science-focused mission with some of the 
4

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

most incredible moments in the Apollo program’s history: being struck by lightning—twice, filming with 

a color television camera, showcasing precision landing prowess, performing two separate extravehicular 

activities (EVAs) on the lunar surface, and deploying 

the full Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package 

(ALSEP). On top of all that, Apollo 12 has earned its 

own special first that does not get the credit it deserves. 

When Pete and Al visited the 1967 Surveyor 3 lunar 

lander during their second EVA, they became the first 

space archaeologists.

Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr., Command Module pilot Richard F. Gordon, Jr., and Lunar 

Module pilot Alan L. Bean. (Image number S69-38852)

6 Douglas Robinson, “Second Moon Visit Stirs Less Public Excitement,” New York Times (20 November 1969): 30.

7 Astronautics and Aeronautics 1969, p. 385.

8 Ibid., p. 8.

9 Debrief: Apollo 8, NASA Films, 1969.

Before we explore the highs, we must understand 

the lows. A 20 November 1969 New York Times

article titled “Second Moon Visit Stirs Less Public 

Excitement” said quite a lot.6 The Associated Press 

reported that the landing was “almost a ho-hum,” and 

when the Times further interviewed 12 New Yorkers 

about the Apollo 12 landing, why did the only one

who watched it remark, “The first one was more exciting. This one was anticlimactic...”?7

 Apollo 12 simply 

did not register on the Richter scale like its forerunner. 

Truth was, a Moon landing was no longer an impossible dream. Landing on the Moon and returning safely 

to Earth could be, and had been, done.

It is remarkable to recall that President Dwight D. 

Eisenhower, who in 1958 created NASA when he 

signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, was 

born in 1890. This means he was 13 years old when 

the Wright brothers first flew in 1903, and he was 

78 when the Apollo 8 astronauts became the first 

humans to orbit the Moon on 24 December 1968. 

It is incredible how much can change in one lifetime. 

When NASA released the film Debrief: Apollo 8 on 

24 January 1969, a voiceover from historian Arthur 

Schlesinger, Jr., set to images of a distant Earth, captured this sense of awe:8

The salient fact of our age is the fantastic 

speedup in the velocity of history. It was as 

recently as 1903 that the Wright brothers 

soared for a moment over the sand at Kitty 

Hawk. And today, 65 years later, within the 

same lifetime of many men, astronauts fly 

around the Moon. And now the velocity of 

history is carrying us into a new phase in the 

human adventure. No one knows where this 

new phase will end, in what triumph or tragedy. But it is clear that the flight of Apollo 8 

begins a new epoch in the history of man.9
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Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

Assuming the presidency at the onset of this “new 

epoch,” Nixon would get the honor of witnessing 

triumph. When he addressed Neil, Buzz, and Michael 

upon their return on 24 July, he remarked, “Emperors, 

Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Kings, have sent the 

most warm messages that we have ever received. They 

represent over two billion people on this Earth, all of 

them who had the opportunity, through television, to 

see what you have done.”10 The optics werestupendous.

“Earthrise” was taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders. (Image number AS08-14-2383)

Apollo 11 astronauts visit Mexico City, 29 September 1969. (Image number 70-H-1553)

Once the Moon dust settled, Apollo 11 had earned 

its place in history. But when the 14 November 

launch of Apollo 12 rolled around, the New York 

Times attributed the public’s “scant enthusiasm” to 

the “intense national emotion spent on the first moon 

landing four months ago.”11 Many Americans found 

themselves investing more national emotion elsewhere. 

The day after Apollo 12 launched, 500,000 activists 

marched in the Second Moratorium to End the War 

in Vietnam in DC, and with the Vietnam draft scheduled for 1 December, a second government-funded 

Moon spectacle may have seemed superficial.12 Civil 

rights, environmental, feminist, and anti-war activists 

increasingly felt that the space race shifted funds and 

attention away from more pressing domestic needs.13

Perhaps there really was only excitement for the first 

landing. In hindsight, it is somewhat reasonable why 

Apollo 12 has been lost to the margins of history, a 

public relations victim of its time. Today, with the 

50th anniversary of the mission now upon us, perhaps 

it is time to give it the credit it is due.

Apollo 12, “The Pinpoint Mission,” was a master 

class in precision. Launching on 14 November 1969 

at 11:22 a.m. ET, the mission’s total flight time of 

244 hours, 36 minutes, and 25 seconds went just 

62 seconds longer than its planned duration, splashing down on 24 November at 3:58 p.m. ET only 

10 Astronautics and Aeronautics 1969, p. 242.

11 Ibid., p. 380.

12 Andrew Smith, Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), p. 201.

13 Neil M. Maher, Apollo in the Age of Aquarius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), p. 96.
6

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

3 miles from its target area in the Pacific Ocean.14

Even more impressive was the pinpoint lunar landing. 

In 1967, Surveyor 3, one of seven robotic landers 

NASA sent to prepare for and support the coming 

Apollo missions, successfully soft-landed in the lunar 

Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms).15 When the 

Lunar Module Intrepid separated from the orbiting 

Command Module Yankee Clipper on 19 November, 

Pete and Al sought to land within walking distance of 

Surveyor 3. Incredibly, they touched down just over 

500 feet away.16

14 “Apollo 12: The Pinpoint Mission,” https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo12.html (accessed 25 November 2019).

15 “Mission to Moon: Surveyor 3,” https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/surveyor-3/ (accessed 25 November 2019).

16 “Apollo 12: The Pinpoint Mission.”

17 Ibid.

18 “Analysis of Surveyor 3 Material and Photographs Returned by Apollo 12,” 1972, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/AnalysSurvIIIMtrial.

pdf (accessed 25 November 2019).

Alan Bean becomes the fourth man on the Moon. (Image number AS12-46-6729)

While Apollo 11 was the first time 

humans performed an EVA on the 

lunar surface, Apollo 12 was the 

first time it happened twice. Pete 

proclaimed “Whoopie!” and became 

the third man on the Moon; Al 

became the fourth; and they spent 

the first EVA collecting samples and 

deploying ALSEP experiments.17

When they embarked on their second EVA the next day, the itinerary 

included a visit to Surveyor 3, earning Pete and Al the rare distinction 

of being the first, and still only, 

space archaeologists.

Having masterfully landed within 

a short jaunt to Surveyor 3, Al 

and Pete meandered over, getting 

to work collecting the TV camera 

and robotic scoop, along with some 

tubing, glass, and cables. NASA 

was interested in determining how 

exposure to the elements on the 

lunar surface affected these materials. When they carefully gathered 

these human artifacts in the field and prepared them 

for a trip back to Earth, they accomplished a truly 

significant first. To add to the drama, the subsequent 

analysis that NASA performed on Surveyor’s parts 

identified bacteria that (they believed at the time) had 

survived over two years exposed to the vacuum of 

space.18 Recent scholarship has persuasively argued 

that the bacteria were a result of Apollo 12 contamination, but the controversy remains important in 

debates about life’s capacity to survive in space, the 

potential for contaminating distant worlds, and the 
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Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

Alan Bean deploys the Lunar Surface Magnetometer (LSM) with Intrepid in the background. 

(Image number AS12-46-6813)

Alan Bean holds the vacuum-sealed Special Environmental Sample Container (SESC). 

(Image number AS12-49-7278)

This image of Surveyor 3 was taken from about 15 feet away. (Image number 

AS12-48-7121HR)

Pete Conrad reaches for the Surveyor 3 camera he will extract. (Image number 

AS12-48-7132HR)
8

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

importance of planetary protection. To say this collection was significant would be an understatement. 

The Apollo 12 visit to Surveyor 3 was made possible 

through Pete Conrad’s incredible precision landing. 

As a result, it marked a historic illustration of archaeological fieldwork in space, a feat that may prove to 

be enormously challenging to replicate.19 With most 

probes, orbiters, landers, and rovers being millions—

or even billions—of miles, miles per hour, and dollars 

out of reach, we may have a long wait before the next 

space archaeologists get to work.

19 Beth O’Leary and P. J. Capelotti, eds., Archaeology and Heritage of the Human Movement into Space: Space and Society (Cham, Switzerland: 

Springer, 2014), p. 7.

But we can certainly dream of, and strive for, that 

moment. Sojourner, the now-defunct Mars Pathfinder 

rover, currently sits on the Martian surface collecting 

dust. As visualized by artist Pat Rawlings in 1997, 

sending an astronaut to meet Sojourner like Pete and 

Al met Surveyor 3 is a valiant aspiration. We can only 

hope that the Apollo 12 mission has proven that visiting a human artifact on a celestial body far from Earth 

is a fully attainable goal. If Apollo 11 can inspire the 

world and prove that a Moon landing is possible, then 

why cannot the achievements of Apollo 12 help drive 

us toward Mars? It is up to us to ensure that this trailblazing mission gets its proper place in the moonlight.

Artist Robert Watts’s October 1969 envisioning of Apollo 12’s visit to Surveyor 3. (Image number S69-55553) Artist Pat Rawlings’s 1997 envisioning of a future visit to 

Sojourner. (Image credit: NASA/JSC by Pat Rawlings, SAIC)
9

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

1 See https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/apollo_12_comic_book_web_res.pdf.

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

By Bill Barry

This fall, the Headquarters history team continued work on the Apollo 50th anniversaries. These 

efforts included support for the Apollo 12 50th anniversary in November. In addition to the videos on 

NASA TV and the assorted social media coverage, did 

you notice the reissue of the Apollo 12 comic book 

(originally issued on the 25th anniversary)1 and the 3D 

printable model of the Apollo 12 landing site created 

by our colleagues at Goddard 

Space Flight Center with data 

from the Lunar Reconnaissance 

Orbiter? We have also been 

involved in planning for events 

related to the 50th anniversary 

of Apollo 13 in April 2020. 

Stand by for more on that soon.

But the major new job this fall 

in the NASA Headquarters 

History Division has been 

the Mission Support Future 

Architecture Program, or MAP. 

If this is the first that you have 

heard of it, MAP is an Agencywide effort to improve NASA 

support functions, and with the 

Apollo 11 anniversary over, the History Program is 

now being “MAPped.” Following a briefing to our 

Associate Administrator Bettina Inclan and the Office 

of Communications MAP team, a History Working 

Group was established. This group includes a mix 

of historians and archivists from six Centers (Glenn 

Research Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Stennis 

Space Center, Johnson Space Center, Ames Research 

Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) as well 

as representatives from the Headquarters Office of 

the Chief Information Officer, the Space Technology 

Mission Directorate, the Human Exploration and 

Operations Mission Directorate, and a MAP program 

resources expert. This group was chartered to provide 

options for how the history and archival programs 

at the Agency should operate under MAP. This is a 

great opportunity to address some of the shortcomings 

in history and archival work at NASA, but the wide 

variety of Center-specific arrangements make this an 

incredibly complicated task. The Working Group’s 

goal is to provide recommendations by the end of 

this calendar year (a daunting task) and then hammer out an implementation 

plan by mid-April. This is an 

extremely aggressive schedule, but the Working Group 

is off to a good start.

THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO ADDRESS SOME 

OF THE SHORTCOMINGS 

IN HISTORY AND ARCHIVAL WORK AT NASA, 

BUT THE WIDE VARIETY 

OF CENTER-SPECIFIC 

ARRANGEMENTS MAKE 

THIS AN INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED TASK.

While the MAP History 

Working Group got started, 

the history and archival team 

at Headquarters continued 

to push ahead with ongoing projects. This included 

wrapping up work on the 

delayed fiscal year 2018 

Aeronautics and Space Report 

of the President, getting the 

production ball rolling again 

on the third volume of The 

Wind and Beyond, and getting a book on space science 

and two books on the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics (NACA) ready for copyediting. We’ve 

got some great publications in the pipeline for 2020. 

We also continue to fine-tune and expand the https://

history.nasa.gov website. If you haven’t visited it lately, 

you should go take a look. Our amazing archival team 

has been extremely productive in producing finding 

aids for our collection. If you don’t know what a finding aid is, go take a look. These new tools will help 
10

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

researchers to identify what we have in our collection 

without having to send a question to Colin or Liz. We 

hope to make it ever easier for you to do your research 

from the comfort of your home computer, and the 

finding aids, plus increasing access to our electronic 

collection online, are huge steps in that direction. This 

doesn’t mean that we don’t want to see you here in 

person. In fact, Robyn Rodgers and the archival team 

have been working hard to make the Headquarters 

Historical Reference Collection an inviting place to do 

research. If you are in the Washington, DC, area, come 

take a look. (Details about arranging a visit can be 

found at https://www.history.nasa.gov/visit_us.html.)

These days, when you visit the Reference Collection, 

you will also get to meet our interns. This fall, we had a 

highly productive and creative pair of interns. Andrew 

Parco, a Senior at George Washington University, 

was with us several days a week (while still carrying 

a full academic load at school—I’m not sure how he 

did that). David Skogerboe, a graduate student at 

Utrecht University, was in the office almost full-time. 

(He spent a few days this semester in various other 

archives in DC doing research for his Master’s thesis.) 

If you follow our social media accounts on Twitter 

and Facebook, you will have seen the creative genius 

of Andrew and David on display—and if you missed 

that, well, they also have contributed to this copy of 

News & Notes. For spring 2020, we will have Stacy 

Bishop, a former teacher and now graduate student 

at the University of Maryland University College, 

and Alisa Greenhalgh, a junior at Brigham Young 

University, serving as our history interns. Fortunately 

for us, both of them will start here early in January and 

be on the job into April. We are all looking forward to 

another busy and highly productive spring.

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By April Gage

A Look Back at LCROSS

The History Archives lent its support to another 

10th anniversary celebration of the Lunar CRater 

Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, 

this time focusing on the spacecraft’s successful impact 

at the South Pole of Earth’s Moon on 9 October 2009 

and subsequent confirmation of the presence of water 

ice there. LCROSS Project Manager Daniel Andrews 

and Project Scientist Anthony Colaprete hosted the 

event, entitled “LCROSS: The Impact, 10 Years On,” 

and provided a frank and fascinating discussion of 

the mission design, development, and science results. 

Afterward, the audience joined members of the 

LCROSS team at a lively reception.

NASA launched LCROSS on 18 June 2009 as a secondary payload to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter 

(LRO). LCROSS was designed to confirm the presence 

and nature of water ice on the Moon and to study the 

composition of lunar regolith by using the launch vehicle’s upper stage as a kinetic impactor and its shepherding spacecraft as a data collector. The impact dislodged 

lunar material at the bottom of a permanently shadowed crater near the Moon’s south pole and elevated it 

high into the sunlight, thus enabling the instruments 

aboard the spacecraft to record its characteristics.

The data returned from the instruments aboard 

LCROSS and LRO showed that the debris plume contained a significant amount of pure water ice grains 

as well as other volatiles, such as methane, ammonia, 

hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, 

in addition to some light metals, such as sodium, mercury, and silver. This detection of water on the Moon 

definitively confirmed what the scientific community 

had already suspected based on data obtained from 

three earlier lunar missions that remotely detected 

the chemical signatures of water in the Moon’s polar 

regions: Clementine (Naval Research Laboratory, 

launched 1994), Lunar Prospector (NASA Ames 

Research Center, launched 1998), and Chandrayaan-1 

(Indian Space Research Organization, launched 2008). 

The amount of water ice was a major discovery showing that the Moon holds a vital resource for human 

space exploration in its accessible crust. That ice is 

potential fuel, water, and air that future surface facilities could harvest from the soil to support exploration 

instead of bringing it all from Earth.
11

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

In April 2006, NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission 

Directorate selected the proposal for LCROSS to lift 

off as a secondary payload on the LRO. LCROSS 

had to remain within a budget of 79 million dollars, 

weigh less than 1,000 kilograms, and be completed in 

time for the LRO launch scheduled just 31 months 

following the selection date. To meet these requirements, the designers pursued a nontraditional approach, 

creatively employing various management measures 

and incorporating low-cost components. For example, the spacecraft incorporated durable, commercially 

available, “off-the-shelf” materials, such as the visible 

camera and other scientific instruments, along with 

existing flight-qualified hardware, such as the Evolved 

Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload 

Adapter (ESPA) ring, rather than costly, time- and 

resource-consuming custom-made items. The Centaur 

was repurposed for use as the kinetic impactor, thus 

maximizing the mass available to the working payload. 

Ultimately, the spacecraft was completed and delivered 

on time and within the budgeted total mission cost.

The mission, science, payload, and operations were managed from Ames Research Center. Northrop Grumman 

designed and built the LCROSS spacecraft bus with 

oversight from the team at Ames. Mission operations 

was led by Ames, along with navigational support from 

Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory. LCROSS was launched co-manifested with 

LRO from Kennedy Space Center with network communications provided by the Deep Space Network.

Ames Deputy Director Carol Carroll introduces LCROSS Project Manager Dan Andrews (center) and 

Project Scientist Tony Colaprete (right) at the “LCROSS: The Impact, 10 Years On” anniversary event. 

(Photo credit: Dominic Hart, NASA Ames Research Center)

Current News

In other news, space settlement artwork from the 

History Archives collections by Ames-commissioned 

artist Rick Guidice are now on exhibit at the Design 

Museum in London. The exhibition, entitled Moving 

to Mars, presents design concepts for living and working in space and runs through February 2020.

As we approach the 80th anniversary of Ames, a short 

coffee-table–style book that captures the past and 

present of Ames has been drafted and will be reviewed. 

A small run of printed copies should be available early 

next year.

Space settlement concept artwork by Rick Guidice is now on display at the Design Museum in London. 

(Photo credit: Jessica Taylor, Design Museum)
12

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH 

CENTER (AFRC)

Edwards Air Force Base, California

By Christian Gelzer

Christian hosted a Fulbright scholar from New 

Zealand for nearly two weeks. Fiona Amundsen, of 

Auckland University of Technology (AUT), is working 

on a photography project, and Christian facilitated 

her access to different hangars and locations as well as 

serving as escort. Additionally, he spoke to two different organizations at Edwards Air Force Base about different aspects of the Center’s and Agency’s history. He 

continues interviews with the Preliminary Research 

Aerodynamic Design to Lower Drag (PRANDTL-D) 

team members as part of a book project. He has also 

submitted an article for publication, a reassessment 

of Neil Armstrong’s “excursion,” as fellow X-15 pilot 

Mil Thompson called his long flight to a Los Angeles 

suburb and back to Edwards.

Meanwhile, the reference collection’s digitization 

remains paused until the backlog is managed. One 

of the delights in cleaning out the warehouse where 

the collection was housed is the discovery of artifacts 

stashed in rooms and lost to memory. These include a 

small, custom-made flag with the meatball sewn onto 

a deep blue background, which Armstrong took with 

him on Gemini VIII. It will be displayed with a small 

U.S. flag carried to the Moon on Apollo 11. There are 

other surprises: a large, portable, all-metal thermos 

likely carried on board an aircraft—which is probably 

how it got here—and which Christian will send to 

his colleagues at Glenn Research Center since it has 

a Lewis identifier on it. It most likely dates from the 

1950s or early ’60s.

ONE OF THE DELIGHTS IN 

CLEANING OUT THE WAREHOUSE 

WHERE THE COLLECTION WAS 

HOUSED IS THE DISCOVERY OF 

ARTIFACTS STASHED IN ROOMS 

AND LOST TO MEMORY. 

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By John Uri

Although the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon 

landing took place in July 2019, the JSC History 

Office continues to respond to requests for information from groups looking to honor the accomplishment. For example, we received a request, coordinated 

through NASA Headquarters, from a researcher on 

the iHeartRadio Nine Days in July podcast regarding 

Apollo 11. The requestor is reviewing the oral history 

transcripts and choosing sections to be clipped.

Sandra Johnson provided audio clips from the oral 

histories that the History Office conducted with Flight 

Director and former JSC Center Director Christopher 

Kraft. The JSC Multimedia Operations team utilized 

these clips in the production of a video that was shown 

at Dr. Kraft’s memorial service.

The JSC History Office has been actively participating 

in an effort led by the External Relations Office (ERO) 

to celebrate key moments leading up to the 20th anniversary of permanent occupancy of the International 

Space Station on 2 November 2020. Activities to date 

have included generating a list of significant milestones 

achieved prior to the Expedition 1 crew occupation, as 

well as providing meaningful topics about planning, 

assembly, operations, and research aboard the facility. 

Stories about day-to-day living and working aboard 

the outpost have also been proposed. As part of the 

messaging effort, ERO designed the logo and banner 

featured below.

We want to thank Bill Barry, Robyn Rodgers, Steve 

Garber, and the entire History and Archive team at 

NASA Headquarters for hosting John Uri for a useful 

and productive set of meetings and excellent tours. 

The discussions pertaining to the ongoing Mission 
13

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

Support Future Architecture Program (MAP) activities regarding history and archive programs were particularly fruitful. We would also like to thank Center 

Archivist Holly McIntyre and her team at Goddard 

Space Flight Center for providing an excellent overview of Center activities, including the new outstanding archive website as well as informative tours of the 

Center and several key facilities.

The External Relations Office’s logo and banner design for the ISS’s 20th anniversary as an inhabited outpost. 

(Image credit: NASA)

The History Office provided research assistance to Ben 

Feist, an engineer working with the Astromaterials 

Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division 

at JSC. The Chief Exploration Scientist within 

the Human Exploration 

and Operations Mission 

Directorate at NASA 

Headquarters asked the 

engineer to write a report 

on how geology operations 

were designed and performed during Apollo in 

the backrooms, as well as 

the lessons learned that can 

be applied to the Artemis 

structure. NASA Chief 

Historian Bill Barry asked the JSC History Office to 

assist the engineer. In order to complete the project 

by a short, 30-day deadline, Feist required items such 

as organizational structures, memos, and documents. 

The History Office forwarded the staffing lists of the 

geology rooms in the Building 30 Mission Control 

Center, as well as a number of reports about geology 

operations, manuals, and mission plans. Additionally, 

we put Feist in contact with 

John Osborn, an astronomer 

who conducted a similar 

study for the Constellation 

Program. Other sources like 

Bill Muehlberger’s papers at 

the University of Texas were 

also searched. In all, we provided Feist with more than 

1,500 pages of material.

The History Office provided support to an intern assigned to the JSC Flight 

Surgeon’s Office. The intern was assigned the task of 

writing a review of NASA Flight Surgeon activity from 

1958 to 2019. The intern, also constrained to a 30-day 

deadline, looked to the History Office for assistance. 

Jennifer Ross-Nazzal provided him with a packet of 

historical documents and offered advice on how to 

complete the project. The final product, a publication, 

will be a way for the public to learn more about the 

Flight Surgeon’s Office.

THE FINAL PRODUCT, A 

PUBLICATION, WILL BE A WAY 

FOR THE PUBLIC TO LEARN 

MORE ABOUT THE FLIGHT 

SURGEON’S OFFICE.

We continue to expand our extensive oral history collection. As a follow-on to an interview trip Sandra 

Johnson and Jennifer RossNazzal took to Kerrville, 

Texas, over the summer 

for an oral history project 

involving the neighborhoods surrounding JSC 

in the 1960s, they again 

traveled to several locations 

around Texas in November. 

This trip included interviews 

with wives and children of 

several astronauts and a former Center Director, including Jane Conrad Dreyfus 

(first wife of Pete Conrad), Dottie Duke (wife of 

Charlie Duke), Kirk Griffin (son of Gerry Griffin), 

and Kent Slayton (son of Deke Slayton). Later this 

year, Sandra and Jennifer are pursuing oral history 

interviews with more family members, including 

Marilyn Lovell (wife of Jim Lovell), Sue Bean (first 

wife of Alan Bean), and Barbara Cernan (first wife 
14

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

of Gene Cernan). Locally, interviews were conducted 

with Dianne Bobko (wife of Bo Bobko) and longtime JSC employee (now retired) George Weisskopf. 

Interviews are scheduled with William Bowers, who 

worked on Shuttle photo/TV training, as well as 

Kathy Weisskopf.

Although the anniversary of the first Moon landing is 

behind us, the JSC History Office continues to work 

with the JSC External Relations Office on a series of 

articles commemorating other significant historical 

milestones, including the next Apollo missions. The 

content is posted on the www.nasa.gov website and 

JSC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Select articles 

are posted on JSC’s Roundup Reads, and abstracts of 

the articles appear online in JSC’s Roundup Today. 

These features often highlight the anniversaries of 

lesser-known, but still important events/people in the 

Apollo program and other spaceflight endeavors. We 

would like to thank history and archive personnel at 

other NASA Centers for their valued help and contributions to many of these products.

John Uri attended the annual meeting of the American 

Association of State and Local Historians (AASLH) in 

Philadelphia in September. In addition to the usual 

outstanding set of technical sessions and guest speakers, 

this year’s conference included a session on the preservation of space artifacts. The session, cochaired by 

Margaret Weitekamp of the Smithsonian Institution’s 

National Air and Space Museum, focused primarily of 

the memorabilia and public display varieties.

The History Office continues its effort to publish 

Jennifer Ross-Nazzal’s book Making Space for Women, 

in collaboration with the JSC University Research, 

Collaboration and Partnership Office. The manuscript 

is currently undergoing peer review at Texas A&M 

University Press.

As a reminder, the JSC History Portal recently migrated 

to a new web address (https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.

gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/). It appears that most 

of the issues encountered after the transition have 

now been corrected, and the oral histories should 

be updated soon. We encourage you to update your 

bookmark to the new URL and ask that you spread 

the word about the new address. Also, please inform 

us if you run into any issues with the new site so that 

we may address them expeditiously. We are continuing 

efforts to upgrade the look and feel of the History 

Portal. This improvement will provide the History 

Office more control over content updates and deliver 

a more modern format to users.

MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER 

(MSFC)

Huntsville, Alabama

By Brian Odom

On 5 September, the Marshall History Office and 

Chandra Program Office celebrated 20 years of 

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory by organizing a 

panel discussion at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s 

INTUITIVE® Planetarium. There, Kim Kowal 

Arcand, Visualization Lead at the Chandra X-ray 

Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, moderated a 

roundtable discussion with panelists including retired 

astronaut Eileen Collins, the first female commander 

of a Space Shuttle mission; Dr. Martin Weisskopf, 

Chandra project scientist; Dr. Harvey Tananbaum, 

senior astrophysicist at the Chandra X-ray Center; 

and Dr. Aneta Siemiginowska, another astrophysicist 

at the Chandra X-ray Center. Developed and managed by Marshall Space Flight Center, Chandra has 

spent the last two decades making profound new discoveries and reshaping our understanding of the x-ray 

THE HISTORY OFFICE IS COLLABORATING WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS 

ON THE PUBLICATION OF AN 

ANTHOLOGY OF ESSAYS, NASA 

AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH.
15

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

universe, black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. 

The panel discussion utilized the planetarium’s stateof-the-art projection capability to explore Chandra’s 

development, the 23 July 1999 launch, what we have 

learned from two decades of space-based observations, 

and what the future of x-ray astronomy holds. For 

more information on Chandra, visit https://www.nasa.

gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/index.html.

The History Office is collaborating with the University 

of Alabama Press on the publication of an anthology of essays, NASA and the American South. This 

collection includes essays surveying everything from 

aerospace tourism to NASA’s impact on southern religion and architecture. This work originated from a 

symposium held in March 2019 at the University of 

Alabama in Huntsville.

Looking toward the future, the History Office will 

soon release a call for papers for our next symposium, 

“NASA and the Rise of Commercial Space.” This 

event, scheduled for March 2021 at the University of 

Alabama in Huntsville, invites scholars to explore the 

evolution of commercial space from the beginnings 

of the space program to the present. The symposium 

will address topics including, but not limited to, developments in commercial and private space industry, 

space tourism, commercial use of the International 

Space Station, the developing economy of lowEarth orbit, presidential administrations and NASA 

Administrators, and the development of launch vehicles and rocket technologies. If you have questions or 

would like to participate, please contact Brian Odom 

at brian.c.odom@nasa.gov.

At the 5 September 2019 “20 Years of Chandra” panel discussion, Chandra project scientist Dr. Martin Weisskopf (center) summarizes the observatory’s 

great scientific accomplishments. Looking on are Kim Arcand (left) and Eileen Collins (right).
16

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

CLEVELAND HOSTS NASA’S SPACE EXTRAVAGANZA IN 1962 

By Bob Arrighi (ATS)

1 See https://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm.

2 See https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/history/centaur.html.

3 See https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/historic-facilities/altitude-wind-tunnel/project-mercury-testing/#astronaut-training-in-the-mastif.

4 See https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/Biographies/Pilots/bd-dfrc-p019.html.

5 See https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/stapp-john-paul/.

6 See https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/cobb-geraldyn-jerrie-m/.

On 23 November 1962, crowds in the brisk morning air outside Cleveland Public Hall formed 

lines around the block. Many were students off on the 

day after Thanksgiving. At noon, the doors opened, 

and the throng streamed into NASA’s largest public 

exhibition to date. Turnout was so good that the fire 

department periodically blocked entrances to disperse 

the congestion. It was an impressive start to the Space 

Science Fair—a 10-day space extravaganza sponsored 

by NASA and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Public interest in the new space agency was high, 

with the development of the Apollo program and 

the Mercury missions already in full swing. Recently, 

President John F. Kennedy had given his Moon speech1

at Rice University, Walter Schirra had completed a 

record six Earth orbits, and NASA Lewis Research 

Center (later renamed Glenn) had assumed responsibility for the Centaur2

 and Agena rockets. Despite its 

mandate to share information on its activities, NASA 

had done a poor job communicating with the public. 

There were no NASA T-shirts or mission patches for 

sale, and interactions with the media were deficient. 

In addition, NASA was finding it difficult to obtain 

enough competent individuals to meet its massive 

hiring goals.

In 1962, the Agency began taking steps to better keep 

the public abreast of its activities and to encourage 

students to pursue science in school. These efforts 

included providing a variety of space hardware and 

models at the Seattle World’s Fair (April–October of 

that year) and hosting a two-day student open house 

at Lewis that drew three times as many visitors as in 

the previous 20 years combined. On 13 June 1962, 

the Plain Dealer announced NASA’s most ambitious 

event to date—a 10-day Space Science Fair. The 

newspaper promoted the event, disseminated the free 

tickets, and provided educational materials. Lewis 

employees acquired the hardware, set up the displays, 

and served as guides.

There were twice as many exhibits displayed on 

Public Hall’s 30,000-square-foot floor as at the 

NASA Pavilion during the World’s Fair. An illuminated 8-foot-diameter globe near the entrance was 

encircled by dozens of rings indicating the paths of 

all satellites then in orbit. Space hardware included 

Mercury and Gemini capsules, Ranger and Mariner II 

spacecraft, an Echo satellite, and Lewis’s infamous 

Gimbal Rig.

3

 The scores of large models included an 

X-15 Eagle, an Atlas-Centaur, a Scout, a Saturn, and 

an Atlas-Mercury.

The fair also featured live demonstrations, films in 

balcony theaters, materials for teachers, and career 

counselors. Large blocks of time were set aside for 

qualified students to attend a special Space Science 

Institute. Guests included test pilot Joe Walker,4 flight 

surgeon John Stapp,5 and pilot Jerrie Cobb.6

Sunday, 25 November, was perhaps the most 

eventful day of the fair. It began with the arrival 

of 15,000 Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TRW), 

Inc., employees in the morning. Over 25,000 others, 

many also attending Cleveland’s annual Christmas 

Parade or the Browns-Steelers football game, viewed 

the exhibits that day. The estimated 300,000 people 
17

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

downtown snarled traffic for hours. In the evening, a 

black-tie dinner was held at the Sheraton Hotel for 

1,000 prominent northern Ohio leaders. Speakers 

included NASA officials Abe Silverstein, T. Keith 

Glennan, and Hugh Dryden, as well as President 

Kennedy (remotely).

The Space Science Fair was a huge success for NASA 

and the city. Its 375,000 attendees, including 49,000 

students, broke all previous Public Hall records.

The Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility (MASTIF), also known as the Gimbal Rig, is shown here in the Altitude Wind Tunnel (AWT) at Lewis Research 

Center, now John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field.
18

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

SPACE SHUTTLE TESTING LEADS TO FULL UTILIZATION IN 1970S

By Jessica Herr

1 “Smith Blasts von Braun,” Picayune Item (24 March 1974).

2 “Stennis Announces MTF Reclassification,” Sea Coast Echo (Bay St. Louis, MS): 20 June 1974.

I

n 1973, the then–Mississippi Test Facility (MTF), 

now known as Stennis Space Center, had a total of 

1,127 employees. After the end of the Apollo program, 

however, the facility faced tough times that caused a cut 

in the workforce. However, an engine test project was 

on the horizon: the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle 

was designed as a reusable vehicle to carry humans to 

low-Earth orbit following the Apollo program.

Sunset offers a scenic view of a Space Shuttle main engine test on the A-2 Test Stand at Stennis Space 

Center on 21 July 2003. After an initial Space Shuttle main engine test in June 1975, Stennis continued 

testing of the engines for the next 34 years.

MTF jumped at the chance to test the engines that 

would power the Shuttle fleet. An effort to have 

Shuttle engines manufactured at Michoud Assembly 

Facility in nearby New Orleans and tested at MTF 

went into motion. One of the companies entering 

bids for the project was the Lockheed Propulsion 

Co. of California, which embraced the idea of using 

Michoud and MTF to perform the work. Other 

companies putting in bids for the work were Thiokol 

Chemical Corp. of Brigham City, Utah; Aerojet Solid 

Propulsion Co. of Sacramento, California; and United 

Technology Center of Sunnyvale, California.

With bids submitted, a delegation of elected officials, community leaders, and businesspeople from 

Louisiana and Mississippi began lobbying for the 

work to come to their states. In late 1973, the award 

was given to Thiokol Chemical Co. The local community around Michoud and MTF were shocked by 

this announcement. Just a few years earlier, NASA 

had deemed MTF “the nation’s foremost propulsion 

test site.”1

The announcement set off a series of events that would 

shape the future of MTF: the protest of the solid rocket 

motor contract award to Thiokol and calls for “full utilization of MTF” by its future namesake, U.S. Senator 

John C. Stennis, as well as U.S. Representative Trent 

Lott and other Mississippi and Louisiana officials.

Senator Stennis spearheaded the movement for full 

utilization, and on 14 June 1974, the Mississippi Test 

Facility was renamed the National Space Technology 

Laboratories (NSTL) and became an independent installation of NASA, reporting to NASA 

Headquarters. Stennis said that the “efforts to increase 

the use of NSTL by NASA and other federal agencies 

[would] now be more successful than ever before.” Site 

Director Jackson Balch was quite pleased with the 

changes, saying that “it will be kind of nice to be a 

member of the club.”2

Just a year later, on 24 June 1975, a brief but very 

important event occurred at the newly independent 

site: the first ignition test of a Space Shuttle main 

engine. It lasted just a second but marked the return 

to propulsion testing for NSTL and opened the door 

for testing projects to follow, including the current 

testing of engines that eventually will carry humans 

further than ever before.
19

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS

NASA HISTORY FELLOWSHIP WINNERS 

FOR 2019

The NASA History Division supports three history fellowships in conjunction with three major historical organizations: the Society for the History of 

Technology (SHOT), the History of Science Society 

(HSS), and the American Historical Association 

(AHA). These fellowships fund research in a wide 

range of topics, but all three look to investigate the 

effect aerospace history has had on our world.

The Fellowship in Aerospace History is administered 

by the American Historical Association and funds 

projects that undertake advanced research in all 

aspects of aerospace history, from the earliest human 

interest in flight to the present, including cultural 

and intellectual history; economic history; the history 

of law and public policy; and the history of science, 

engineering, and management. The 2019–20 winner 

of the Fellowship in Aerospace History is Stephen 

Buono, for his project “The Province of All Mankind: 

Outer Space and the Promise of Peace, 1957–1970.” 

Buono is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of 

History at Indiana University and plans to use the 

funds to complete his dissertation—a political, intellectual, and cultural history of U.S. space diplomacy 

during the Cold War.

The Society for the History of Technology offers the 

Fellowship in the History of Space Technology, which 

supports advanced research related to all aspects of 

space history, leading to publications on the history of 

space technology broadly considered, including cultural 

and intellectual history, institutional history, economic 

history, history of law and public policy, and history of 

engineering and management. The 2019 Fellowship 

has been awarded to Dana Burton, a Ph.D. candidate 

in the George Washington University Anthropology 

Program, for her research project/dissertation, “Tracing 

Harmful Contamination in NASA’s Search for Life on 

Mars,” which analyzes contamination protocols for 

human and robotic space exploration.

Stephen Buono, Indiana University Ph.D. candidate 

and winner of the Fellowship in Aerospace History.

Dana Burton, George Washington University Ph.D. candidate and winner of the Fellowship in the History of Space Technology.Claire Isabel Webb, MIT Ph.D. candidate and winner 

of the Fellowship in the History of Space Science.

The History of Science Society funds a nine-month 

research project called the Fellowship in the History 

of Space Science. The research can be related to any 

aspect of the history of space science, from the earliest 
20

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

human interest in space to the present. The winner 

of this year’s HSS Fellowship is a fifth-year Ph.D. 

candidate in the History, Anthropology, and Science, 

Technology, and Society (HASTS) program at 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) named 

Claire Isabel Webb. Her dissertation, “Technologies 

of Perception: The Search for Life and Intelligence 

Beyond Earth,” uses both historical and ethnographic 

methods to analyze how radio and optical astronomers call upon familiar modes of sensing to make 

meaning about as-yet-undiscovered objects: the alien 

and extraterrestrial life.

Congratulations to all three winners! If you are interested in applying for any of these three fellowships, see 

the following:

Society for the History of Technology 

https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/

awards-prizes-and-grants/shot-nasa-fellowship/

Fellowship in the History of Space Science 

https://hssonline.org/employment/

fellowship-in-the-history-of-space-science/

Fellowships in Aerospace History 

https://www.historians.org/awardsand-grants/grants-and-fellowships/

fellowships-in-aerospace-history

AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY 

(AAS) HISTORY COMMITTEE

By Michael Ciancone

2018 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature

The Emme Award Panel, chaired by Dr. Don Elder, 

has selected Ronald Reagan and the Space Frontier, by 

Dr. John Logsdon, as the recipient of the 2018 Emme 

Award. Other members of the panel are Dr. Rick 

Sturdevant, Dr. Asif Siddiqi, and Dr. De Witt Kilgore.

2019 Ordway Award

As an addendum to the announcement of the Ordway 

Award in the last newsletter, Michael Ciancone

(AAS History Committee Chair) presented the 2019 

Ordway Award to John Noble Wilford, who was 

unable to attend the presentation ceremony.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair 

in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation

The Blumberg Chair is a partnership between NASA’s 

Astrobiology Program and the Library of Congress. 

This annually selected position supports a scholar in 

the sciences or the humanities to be the scholar in 

residence at the Library’s John W. Kluge Center.

The Blumberg Chair creates an opportunity to research 

the range and complexity of societal issues related to 

how life begins and evolves and to examine philosophical, religious, literary, ethical, legal, cultural, and 

other concerns arising from scientific research on the 

origin, evolution, and nature of life.

Within the parameters of NASA’s mission, a Chair 

might also seek to investigate how innovative quests 

for fundamental understanding may lead to major 

developments for the betterment of society. Barry 

Blumberg, for whom the Chair is named, conducted 

groundbreaking research addressing a simple but 

fundamental question: Why do some people get 

sick while others, exposed to the same environment, 

remain healthy? That this work unexpectedly led to 

the discovery of the hepatitis B virus, the development 

of a vaccine, and the awarding of the Nobel Prize 

in Physiology or Medicine illustrates the potential 

for unconventional thinking about fundamental 

questions to yield great rewards. Using methodologies from the history and sociology of science; the 

philosophy of science; legal, political, and cultural 

history; and other disciplines, a Chair might study 

and tell the story of how a basic research initiative led 

to completely unexpected discoveries and applications.

Possibilities for research subjects are many and 

wide-ranging in scope. The following potential topics of 

research are meant to inspire, not limit, your creativity:
21

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

• Legal issues related to governance of planets and space.

• Within the parameters of NASA’s mission, “highrisk, high-reward” initiatives from a historical, legal, 

philosophical, or ethical perspective or one that 

draws on several disciplinary modes of analysis.

• Ethical implications of cross-contamination.

• Scientific and philosophical definitions of life.

• Conceptions of the origins of life in theistic and 

nontheistic religions.

• Comparison of the discussion of these issues in 

multiple nations and cultures.

• Life’s collective future—for humans and other life, 

on Earth and beyond.

• Impacts on life and future evolutionary trajectories that may result from both natural events and 

human-directed activities.

Located in the Library’s magnificent Jefferson Building, 

the Kluge Center offers a rich intellectual atmosphere 

for informal discussion and exchange of perspectives.

Completed applications are due by 1 January 

2020. For further information, please consult the 

Center’s web page: https://www.loc.gov/programs/

john-w-kluge-center/chairs-fellowships/chairs/

blumberg-nasa-chair-in-astrobiology/.

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL AIR AND 

SPACE MUSEUM

By Margaret Weitekamp

The Space History Department at the Smithsonian’s 

National Air and Space Museum continues to see 

significant transitions.

In the building on the National Mall, the south-facing 

Independence Avenue entrance closed on 7 October 

2019 to facilitate the construction of an immense wall 

that bisects the central Boeing Milestones of Flight 

Hall. Visitors can still enter the multistory atrium 

from the Mall side of the building, but the single-story 

south lobby of Milestones will remain closed for the 

next few years. In this form—with the west end and 

south entrance closed, but the north entrance and 

east end open—the museum will remain open to the 

public during the intensive construction to revitalize 

the historic structure. In a few years, the west end will 

reopen with all new exhibits and building access will 

flip. At that point, the east end of the museum will 

become a construction zone and visitors will be able 

to enter and exit only through the refurbished south 

lobby entrance on Independence Avenue. Artifacts 

have been removed from the construction zones, 

except for those pieces, such as the 747 nose, that are 

too large and are being protected in place or on site. In 

the meantime, Space History staff are actively engaged 

in reimagining all of the exhibit spaces, of which there 

are more than 20.

DESTINATION MOON

EXPLORES AND HONORS THE 

GREAT ACHIEVEMENT OF 

APOLLO 11 USING GENUINE 

FLOWN ARTIFACTS FROM 

THE MISSION.

The traveling exhibition Destination Moon: The 

Apollo 11 Mission reached its final stop in its national 

tour when it opened at the Cincinnati Museum Center 

on 28 September 2019. Destination Moon explores 

and honors the great achievement of Apollo 11 using 

genuine flown artifacts from the mission. Featuring 

the Apollo Command Module Columbia—the only 

portion of the historic spacecraft to survive the lunar 

journey—the exhibition explores the birth and development of the American space program and the space 

race in time for the 50th anniversary of humankind’s 

greatest scientific achievement. Destination Moon

gives guests the rare opportunity to see artifacts that 

made the 953,000-mile journey possible, like Buzz 

Aldrin’s gold-plated extravehicular helmet visor and 

thermal-insulated gloves. The dizzying star chart that 

helped Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael 

Collins navigate the historic journey and the rucksack/
22

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

survival kit that accompanied the astronauts are also 

included. The star of the exhibition is the Columbia 

Command Module, which is on display outside the 

National Air and Space Museum for the first time 

since 1976. Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission

was organized by the National Air and Space Museum 

and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition 

Service. The exhibition will close on 17 February 2020.

Dr. Valerie Neal retired from the museum on 

31 October 2019, assuming a new status as Curator 

Emerita. Neal joined the museum as a curator in 1989 

and was responsible for human spaceflight artifact collections from the Space Shuttle era and International 

Space Station, most prominently the orbiter Discovery. 

She led the museum’s effort to prepare Shuttle test 

vehicle Enterprise for public display and to acquire 

Spacelab; SpaceShipOne; the Manned Maneuvering 

Unit; the space-flown IMAX camera; and personal 

effects from astronauts Sally Ride, Kathryn Sullivan, 

Pamela Melroy, David Brown, Tom Jones, and Danny 

Olivas for the national collection. She worked closely 

with NASA and museum staff to orchestrate the transfer of Discovery to the Smithsonian and the release of 

Enterprise back to NASA in 2012. Neal has curated 

three major exhibitions: Where Next, Columbus?, on 

the challenges of future exploration; Space Race; and 

Moving Beyond Earth, about spaceflight in and beyond 

the Space Shuttle era. She chaired the museum’s Space 

History Department from 2015 to 2019.

The Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
23

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

Neal’s publications include Spaceflight in the Shuttle 

Era and Beyond (2017), recipient of the AIAA GardnerLasser Aerospace History Literature Award; Discovery, 

Champion of the Space Shuttle Fleet (2014); and two 

edited books on space exploration, Spaceflight: A 

Smithsonian Guide (1995) and Where Next, Columbus? 

The Future of Space Exploration (1994). Her articles 

on Shuttle history have appeared in History and 

Technology and Space Policy. She has been instrumental 

in the production of eight Smithsonian Channel documentaries about the Space Shuttle and other major 

engineering projects for space exploration. Before 

joining the museum, Neal spent a decade as a writer, 

editor, and manager for some 25 NASA publications 

on Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions, the Hubble 

Space Telescope and other great space observatories, 

the space sciences, and NASA history. She also participated in underwater astronaut-training activities and 

worked on the mission management support team for 

four Shuttle missions. The staff, friends, and family 

who packed her farewell ice cream social in September 

illustrated the reach of her impact as a curator, historian, and friend. Despite having moved to North 

Carolina, she will maintain a relationship with the 

museum, working on various projects, including some 

ongoing productions for the Smithsonian Channel.

On 14 November 2019, the 50th anniversary of the 

launch of Apollo 12, the museum celebrated with 

its annual National Air and Space Society Lecture, 

held during Vice Admiral Donald D. Engen Flight 

Jacket Night. The speaker was NASA astronaut Al 

Worden, who flew on Apollo 9 and 15 and also 

served as the backup Command Module pilot for 

Apollo 12. Members of the National Air and Space 

Society receive invitations to Flight Jacket Night as a 

part of their membership, which supports the work of 

the museum.

The Outer Space Treaty

Piecing together six main points of one of the most important

international agreements in the history of spaceflight 

“free for exploration and

use by all”

Freedom and equality to:

 •access space

 •conduct research

 •explore the cosmos

“not subject to national

appropriation”

No country can annex any part of outer space 

by any means, including by occupation or use.

Space can be occupied and used, but those 

cannot be a justification for appropriation.

“maintaining international

peace and security”

All activities must uphold peace and promote 

cooperation.

Weapons cannot be tested and no weapon 

of mass destruction can be placed in orbit.

By Andrew Parco

“envoys of mankind”

Life and limb take top priority. Every measure must 

be taken to protect, rescue, and return astronauts.

Stranded astronauts are not returned to their home 

country necessarily, but instead “to the State of

registry of their space vehicle.”

“internationally liable”

The responsibilities and privileges of owning a

craft are not impinged by its presence in space.

“All stations [...] shall be open

to representatives”

Any country may request to inspect and observe 

the operations of any other.

OPEN

What’s Missing?

Commercial spaceflight is scarcely alluded to. The hallmarks of the 

Cold War are distinctive, but the questions of today were

unheeded and remain unanswered. Today, another international 

agreement to dictate the role of governments amidst a rapidly

privatizing industry could not come soon enough.

GENEROUS THANKS TO: THE NOUN PROJECT (WITH ART FROM ANGELINA, BERKAH ICON, SANDRA, AND SUPALERK LAIPAWAT)

WITH INFORMATION FROM: UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR OUTER SPACE AFFAIRS

IN CONSULTATION WITH: CATHERINE BALDWIN AND DAVID SKOGERBOE
24

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The annual meeting of the American Historical 

Association will be held 3–6 January 2020 in New 

York, New York. Visit https://www.historians.org/

annual-meeting for more details.

The annual meeting of the Society for History in 

the Federal Government will be held 13–14 March 

2020 in Washington, DC. Visit https://www.shfg.org/

Annual-Meeting for more details.

The American Astronautical Society’s annual Goddard 

Memorial Symposium will be held 17–19 March 

2020 in Silver Spring, Maryland. Visit https://

astronautical.org/events/goddard for more details.

The annual meeting of the National Council on Public 

History will be held 18–21 March 2020 in Atlanta, 

Georgia. Visit https://www.ncph.org for more details.

The annual Spring Meetings of the International 

Astronautical Federation will be held 24–26 March 

2020 in Paris, France. Visit http://www.iafastro.org

for more details.

The annual meeting of the Organization of American 

Historians will be held 2–5 April 2020 in Washington, 

DC. Visit https://www.oah.org for more details.

The semiannual Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives 

Conference will be held 16–18 April 2020 in 

Harrisonburg, Virginia. Visit https://www.marac.info

for more details.

NEWfrom the

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

ORDERING INFORMATION

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/ic/ic2.htm

Now available in digital and print formats, 

Origins of 21st-Century Space Travel: 

A History of NASA’s Decadal Planning 

Team and the Vision for Space Exploration, 

1999–2004 by Glen R. Asner and Stephen 

J. Garber gives a detailed historical account 

of the plans, debates, and decisions that 

opened the way for a new generation of 

spaceflight at the start of the 21st century. 

DOWNLOAD THE FREE E-BOOK

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/
25

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS

The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA’s Visionary Leader George M. Low 

By Richard Jurek (University of Nebraska 2019)

Richard Jurek utilized many of the NASA History Division’s resources, including the 

Historical Reference Collection, to tackle the subject of George M. Low. Former 

NASA Deputy Administrator George Low was a brilliant engineer and one of the 

chief architects of the Apollo program, among many other prominent NASA projects. In his book, Richard Jurek chronicles the life of the engineer, from his escape 

from Nazi-occupied Austria to his illustrious career at NASA. Jurek is also the author 

of Marketing the Moon, a retrospective on public relations and the Apollo era, on 

which he made a presentation at NASA Headquarters in early 2019.

See You in Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight

By Alan Ladwig (To Orbit Productions, LLC, 2019)

Alan Ladwig, the author of See You in Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight, is a former 

NASA senior manager who held a number of roles at Headquarters, including 

manager of the Agency’s Space Flight Participant Program. He recently visited NASA 

Headquarters in November to give a brown-bag talk on the subject of space travel 

for the general public and his new book. The book discusses NASA’s role in opening 

space travel beyond the traditional astronaut corps, delves into the history of space 

tourism, and shares other anecdotes within the same theme.

NASA HEADQUARTERS HISTORY DIVISION 

STAFF CONTACT INFORMATION

William Barry bill.barry@nasa.gov

Chief Historian 202-358-0383

Nadine Andreassen nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov

Program Support Specialist 202-358-0087

Catherine Baldwin catherine.e.baldwin@nasa.gov

Editor 202-358-4397

Colin Fries colin.a.fries@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0388

Stephen Garber stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

Historian 202-358-0385

Craig Haibon craig.p.haibon@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-1033

Robyn Rodgers robyn.k.rodgers@nasa.gov

Chief Archivist 202-358-2798

Elizabeth Suckow elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0375

Andrew Parco andrew.t.parco@nasa.gov

Intern 202-358-0478

David Skogerboe david.s.skogerboe@nasa.gov

Intern 202-358-1738
26

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

IN MEMORIAM: WALTER VINCENTI

By James Anderson

Walter Vincenti died on 11 October at age 102. In addition to being an integral part of research 

at Ames Research Center from the very beginning, his 

legacy will always hold a particular importance within 

the history of science and technology community.

In 1971, Vincenti became the cofounder and a faculty member of the Program in Values, Technology, 

and Society, which is now the Program in Science, 

Technology, and Society (STS) at Stanford University. 

The program is one of the first such STS programs 

in the United States. Another one of his major contributions to the field was the book What Engineers 

Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from 

Aeronautical History, published by the Johns Hopkins 

University Press in 1990.

Vincenti’s history at Stanford reaches back even further. He was a cofounder of Stanford’s Department of 

Aeronautics in 1957. Stanford’s Dean of Engineering 

and Provost at the time, Frederick Terman, offered 

Vincenti a job as a full-tenured professor that year. 

Along with Nicholas Hoff, Vincenti developed the new 

Department of Aeronautics, which would later expand 

to include astronautics. Well before Vincenti received 

Terman’s offer, he had been teaching night classes at 

Stanford with Harvey Allen and Dean Chapman.

...HIS LEGACY WILL ALWAYS 

HOLD A PARTICULAR 

IMPORTANCE WITHIN THE 

HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND 

TECHNOLOGY COMMUNITY.

The connections between Ames and Stanford have 

been present since Russell Robinson oversaw 

the groundbreaking for Ames that commenced 

on 20 December 1939. Russell was a Stanford 

graduate, and Vincenti received his undergraduate 

degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford 

in 1938, followed by a graduate degree in 1940 

in the same field with an emphasis on aeronautics. 

Robinson recruited Vincenti to Ames as one of its 

first engineers.

Longer tributes to Vincenti are no doubt forthcoming. Stanford has published an obituary available 

at https://news.stanford.edu/2019/10/17/waltervincenti-interdisciplinary-engineer-dead-102/. In 

addition to the published Ames histories that document his work, there are oral history interviews 

that were recorded for the NASA Headquarters 

NACA Oral History Project as well as through 

Stanford’s Oral History Program.

Engineer Walter Vincenti explains the benefits of wing sweep in front of the test section of the 1- by 3-foot 

supersonic wind tunnel. (Image credit: NASA)
27

Volume 36, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2019

MOMENT IN NASA HISTORY

The crew of Apollo 12 spent years preparing for their mission to the lunar surface. In this photo 

taken in October 1969, Commander Pete Conrad and 

Lunar Module pilot Al Bean are pictured at Kennedy 

Space Center’s Crew Training Building, participating 

in an extravehicular activity simulation. This simulated 

inspection of the unpiloted Surveyor 3 spacecraft 

was preparation for an important objective of the 

Apollo 12 mission. The Apollo 12 visit to Surveyor 3 

was the first and is currently the only time human 

beings have visited a robot on another heavenly body.
CREATED AND PRODUCED BY:

Catherine Baldwin, Newsletter Editor

Lisa Jirousek, Editor

Michele Ostovar, Graphic Designer

Trenita Williams, Mail Coordinator

Carl Paul, Distribution

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EDITIONS OF NEWS & NOTES AT 

http://history.nasa.gov/histnews.htm.

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