National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

IN THIS ISSUE:

1 From the Chief Historian

1 The Centrifugal Space Station 

Comes Full Circle

6 News from Headquarters and 

the Centers

15 Other Aerospace History News

18 Different Worlds

21 Upcoming Meetings

22 The Re-Entry Test Vehicle 

Program and the Space Race

27 Images in NASA History 

FROM

THE CHIEF 

HISTORIAN

I

t’s 60 years...and 

c o u n t i n g ! T h e 

Space Age began 60 

years ago with the 

launch of Sputnik on 

4 October 1957. The United States took several months to respond, but by that point the 

world had already changed—and was about 

to change in ways that were unimaginable at 

the time. In this, our end-of-the-year issue of 

NASA History News & Notes, we are doing a 

thematic issue. This year, we are focusing on 

the 60th anniversary of the Space Age. We 

are especially happy to feature three articles 

that touch on fascinating historical aspects of 

the Space Age. In “The Re-Entry Test Vehicle 

Program and the Space Race,” Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory historian Erik Conway gives us 

an inside view of the origins of the first U.S. 

satellite, Explorer 1. Did you ever wonder why 

the International Space Station is not the big 

wheel in the sky that we might have imagined in 1958? Our fall history intern Madison 

Moore discusses the interaction between 

science fiction and science fact in her feature 

article on centrifugal space stations. Finally, 

in “Different Worlds: The Challenges of 

U.S. and Soviet SETI Collaboration During 

the Space Age,” fall history intern Rebecca 

Charbonneau discusses the little-known 1960s 

scientist-to-scientist cooperation between Carl 

Sagan and Soviet astronomer Iosif Shklovskii. 

These three fascinating articles demonstrate 

continued on next page

THE CENTRIFUGAL SPACE STATION 

COMES FULL CIRCLE

By Madison L. Moore, NASA History Division Intern

I

t is the age-old “chicken-and-egg” question in the history of science: which 

came first, science fiction or science fact? Research has been done on fanciful 

technologies like flying cars and wearable communication devices, which, with 

recent innovations in smart watches, are progressing from the realm of fantasy 

to reality. The centrifugal space station’s development has progressed much in 

the manner of the chicken-and-egg question: from science fiction to science fact, 

with science fiction overtaking once again, bringing its history full circle.

A centrifugal space station is a wheel-shaped rotating spacecraft that uses the 

centrifugal force resulting from the spinning motion to create artificial gravity. 

The centrifugal force resulting from the 

spin pushes anything within the craft—

an astronaut, a bed, or a table and chairs, 

for instance—against the outermost wall 

of the wheel. The spacecraft can be set 

to spin at a rate that produces the effects 

of gravity to the same degree as on Earth, 

allowing passengers to walk along the 

outer wall of the craft as if it were a floor 

on Earth.

The idea of a centrifugal space station was 

first proposed in 1881 by German inventor Hermann Ganswindt; the technology at the time did not make it possible 

to build it, so the idea was disregarded. 

The concept resurfaced nearly 50 years 

continued on page 3
2

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

From the Chief Historian (continued)

the incredible range of scholarship possible in the field 

of space history. 

As we move into the year in which we will celebrate 

the 60th anniversary of the creation of NASA, you 

can expect to see much more coverage from our 

History Program about the accomplishments of 

these first six decades of NASA. You only need to 

look back at everyday life in the late 1950s to realize 

how radically our world has changed in ways that 

have been driven by aerospace technology and accomplishments. Think, for example, of how you would 

exchange holiday greetings with family members who 

lived on another continent. In 1958, you probably 

would have done that by writing a letter and sending 

it weeks ahead of time by mail. If you were particularly well off, you might have splashed out on a longdistance international phone call carried by underwater 

cables. These days, you are more likely to send a nearinstantaneous text message (complete with colorful 

emojis) or directly video chat on your cell phone via 

satellite. Many people will hop on an airplane and jet 

overseas in relative comfort to visit in person. This was 

the stuff of science fiction 60 years ago. Think also 

about how much our understanding of the universe 

has changed in these few decades. Even the newest 

textbooks that I used in school in the 1960s and early 

1970s are completely out of date—much of our revolution in understanding coming from the space probes 

that we have used to reconnoiter our solar system or 

to stare deep into the universe, or from the humans 

we have sent to explore space and our Moon in person. The Big Bang was an unproven theory dating to 

the 1920s until we discovered the cosmic background 

radiation in the early 1960s and built probes to measure it in the late 1980s. Now we have the data to show 

that the universe began about 13 billion years ago and, 

surprisingly, that galaxies in our universe are not simply drifting apart but are accelerating away from one 

another. NASA’s Dr. John Mather won NASA’s first 

Nobel Prize in 2006 for his part in proving this using 

the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. 

We have been hard at work coordinating with our 

colleagues across NASA to highlight how far we have 

come in the first 60 years of the Space Age and to see 

the trajectory of where the next decades will take us. 

The first major event in NASA’s 60th year will come 

at the end of January, when we mark the anniversary of the launch of Explorer 1 on 31 January 1958. 

You will see other events as the year progresses. Keep 

an eye out for the tagline “60 Years and Counting.” 

Between the anniversary of President Eisenhower signing the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 

(on 29 July) and the day NASA opened for business 

(1 October), you will see more from us about the 

legacy bequeathed to us by the giants of generations 

that have gone before at NASA. That nearly 60-day 

period, from the end of July to the first of October, 

will culminate in the celebration of NASA’s “birthday” 

on 1 October 2018. We hope that you’ll come along 

for the ride—and come to appreciate a bit more about 

our past and how it has put us on a trajectory into 

the future. 

On the subject of leading us into the future, I am 

delighted to tell you that in November we won 

approval to hire a Chief Archivist. Hopefully, by the 

time you read this we will be in the process of filling 

that job. That position requires not only specialized 

expertise but also leadership and diplomacy skills to 

make sure that the archival collections that form the 

bedrock of our History Program will be effective for 

the next 60 years and beyond. I very much look forward to introducing you to our Chief Archivist in the 

new year.

In the meantime, happy holidays and Godspeed,

William P. Barry

Chief Historian
3

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

The Centrifugal Space Station Comes Full Circle (continued)

later in 1928, when Slovene rocket engineer Herman 

Potočnik published a book titled The Problem of Space 

Travel—The Rocket Motor (Das Problem der Befahrung 

des Weltraums—der Raketen-Motor), in which he outlined a detailed design for a space station, including 

one design in the shape of a wheel.

Not until 1952 did the idea of the centrifugal space station gain traction in the American imagination, largely 

thanks to the work of Wernher von Braun—then 

the Technical Director of the U.S. Army Ordnance 

Guided Missiles Development Group—who wrote an 

article for Collier’s magazine titled “Crossing the Last 

Frontier.” Von Braun’s article features a centrifugal 

design for an orbital space station, which von Braun 

explains as “a substitution for gravity—by making the 

‘wheel’ slowly spin.... The centrifugal force created by 

the slow spin of the space station forces everything out 

from the hub.... In other words, the inside wall of the 

‘wheel’s’ outer rim serves as the floor.”1

1 Wernher von Braun, “Crossing the Last Frontier,” Collier’s (22 March 1952): 30.

Within a year following his publication in Collier’s, 

von Braun published an abstract titled “The Early 

Steps in the Realization of the Space Station,” which 

addressed the interests of a scientific and federal audience, saying, “The station in space...will be the most 

fantastic laboratory ever devised.... But it will become 

a reality because of its tremendous potentialities as a 

deterrent of war.”2

2 Wernher von Braun, “The Early Steps in the Realization of the Space Station,” Abstract, Hayden Planetarium seminar symposium 

(1952).

Von Braun understood that to introduce drastically 

new ideas to the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics (the NACA, predecessor to NASA)—an 

agency still largely focused on World War II aviation 

technologies—he must first inspire the general public, and second, incentivize the scientific and military 

communities to make the investment. He effectively 

inspired the general public by pointing out the wonder of space and sought to inspire the communities 

of scientists and military officers by appealing to the 

potential for military gain.

Reproduction of the Chesley Bonestell painting that accompanied Wernher von Braun’s article 

“Crossing the Last Frontier” in Collier’s (22 March 1952). The painting features astronauts on 

extravehicular activity (EVA) servicing the space station, as well as a pill-shaped “space taxi” 

docking at the center module.

Just as von Braun had hoped, the scientific community 

responded to his popular culture proposal by seriously 

approaching research for the concept of artificial gravity in an orbital space station. In 1956, a company 

called Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) produced 

technical diagrams and concept art for the centrifugal space station. While the station strayed from 

the “wheel” design, as von Braun had envisioned it, it 

retained the “spokes.” NASA even experimented with 

producing artificial gravity on the Gemini XI mission in 1966 by using a 30-meter cable to tether the 

Gemini craft to the Agena Target Vehicle and initiating spin. Though the experiment’s primary goal was to 
4

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

“investigate modes of stabilizing a space vehicle during 

station keeping,” the rotation did successfully—in the 

words of NASA’s mission review video—“[create] the 

first small artificial gravity field.”3 The experiment was 

successful, and after about 3 hours of spin, the craft 

separated and moved apart.

3 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Gemini XI” review video (1966), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6EWMjgRTdg, 

10:54–56, 15:55–16:00 (accessed 13 November 2017).

Shown here is a Lockheed 

technical diagram of a 

centrifugal space station 

(1960s), including values 

for the craft’s dimensions 

and mass.

A number of technical reports were filed in the late 

1960s and early 1970s on the prospect of artificial 

gravity in response to the possibility of putting a space 

station with centrifugal artificial gravity into space, 

but these reports uncovered physiological barriers to 

using the craft. To quote one such report, published in 

1969, contributing factors to astronaut space sickness 

would be “a much larger Coriolis force, relative to the 

nominal gravity strength, than on Earth” and “the 

much larger head to toe gravity gradient present in a 

rotating space station.”4

4 D. B. Hoffman and R. E. McGaughy, Bellcomm, Inc., “Centrifugally Obtained Artificial Gravity” (4 April 1969), NASA Archives.

 In other words, because of the 

relatively small radius of rotation in a space station, a 

standing person would experience a kind of constant 

rotational whiplash due to the Coriolis effect, which is 

the same force that governs the rotation of hurricanes 

and typhoons on Earth. Also, due to the small radius 

of rotation in such a craft, the astronauts would feel 

a drastic difference in centrifugal force applied to the 

head in comparison to the feet. The combined work of 

these two forces would disrupt the astronauts’ spatial 

senses, which originate in the ear canal, resulting in 

what scientists dubbed “canal sickness.”5

5 Hoffman and McGaughy, “Centrifugally Obtained Artificial Gravity,” p. 1.

The centrifuge has largely been demoted to experimental application in the decades since Gemini XI, 

including centrifuges currently at NASA’s Ames 

Research Center, which are used to study the physiological effects of high g-force situations, such as 

launch and reentry. Other than for these experimental 

applications, the centrifuge is currently too expensive 

and physically impractical to become NASA’s next 

space station. 
5

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

Science gave the centrifugal space station a fair attempt. Even 

though the centrifugal space station is no longer in NASA’s 

foreseeable future, von Braun’s original attempts to kick-start a 

legitimate scientific proposal have nevertheless come full circle 

with the return of the centrifuge to popular culture. Centrifugal 

artificial gravity makes its iconic appearance in Stanley Kubrick’s 

1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which itself inspired more 

recent films like Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013) with its orbital 

habitat; Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014); and Andy Weir’s 

book and subsequent film, The Martian (2015).

Still image from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

(1968), in which a crewmember is able to jog the perimeter 

of the wheel-shaped station thanks to artificial gravity created by the spacecraft’s spin.

Whether or not the concept of the centrifuge arose because of the 

direct influence of popular culture, perhaps even at the behest of 

Wernher von Braun, is yet to be determined. But the cycle of fiction inspiring science—which in turn inspires fiction—continues, leaving almost a century of individuals whose imaginations 

were captured by the idea. Who can say where those minds may 

take us next?

The Consequences of Non-Centrifugal Space Stations

The vending machine on the ISS was a novel, yet slightly impractical concept.

Credit: Madison L. Moore and Rebecca A. Charbonneau
6

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

History Division

By Bill Barry

As we approach the end of the calendar year, the NASA Headquarters History Division can look 

back at a tumultuous and rewarding year. This fall, 

we earned some well-deserved recognition in the form 

of two Headquarters Group 

awards. One of them was for the 

President’s Report Team for their 

dedication and Herculean efforts 

to get the report done by the 

legally mandated delivery date of 

May 2017. The following people 

were all honored for their work on 

the Fiscal Year 2016 President’s 

Report: Steve Garber and former 

employee Andres Almeida from 

the History Division; Michele 

Ostovar, Lisa Jirousek, Maxine 

Aldred, Chinenye Okparanta, Chris Duncan, and 

Barbara Bullock from our Communications Support 

Services Center (we couldn’t do any of this without 

them); Bridget Fenner of the Administrator’s Office; 

and Maureen Muncy from the Office of Legislative 

Affairs. A long list of people from across Headquarters, 

including myself, were also honored with a Group 

Award for the Hidden Figures Implementation Team. 

The recognition is nice, but I am obliged to note that 

the History Division and all of the supporting staff 

around us do outstanding work every day.

THIS FALL, WE EARNED 

SOME WELL-DESERVED 

RECOGNITION IN 

THE FORM OF TWO 

HEADQUARTERS 

GROUP AWARDS.

I am especially thankful for the privilege of working 

with such capable and dedicated people when we are 

facing times of staffing turbulence. This winter, in 

addition to the usual intern turnover, we have a number of other personnel developments that are, as usual, 

a bittersweet mix. Will Thompson, who jumped into 

the proverbial deep end this fall as a replacement for 

Andres Almeida, was accepted at a couple of graduate 

schools and will begin his studies at Virginia Tech in 

mid-January. He had the advantage of having served 

as an intern in 2014, but I’m not sure he was aware 

of what he was getting into this fall. You would never 

guess that from his unfailing good humor and the 

phenomenal amount of work he has done for us. We 

knew when he joined us this fall that he was hoping to 

start grad school in the spring semester of 2018, but 

we will miss him dearly. With your drive and skill you 

don’t need it, but good luck in 

school, Will! 

By the time you read this, we 

should be hiring a new Chief 

Archivist. Yes, we finally got 

approval from our Human 

Relations office to advertise for 

that position. As you may recall, 

we got the go-ahead to fill the 

Chief Archivist position late 

last December, but the Trump 

administration’s hiring freeze 

put an end to that effort. At last, however, in addition 

to the new year bringing us new interns and a replacement for Will, we also will be bringing a new Chief 

Archivist on staff. As if that isn’t enough staffing turbulence, a new company is taking over the contract for 

our archival support. That transition is still ongoing as 

I write this, and we are hoping for a smooth transition.

On the subject of interns, Rebecca Charbonneau and 

Madison Moore have been an outstanding team for 

us this fall. Not only have they shouldered all of the 

usual burdens of social media, publication support, 

and “other duties as assigned”—such as working the 

sign-in desk at the International Space Station Day 

on Capitol Hill event—but they also have been prolific writers. You’ll see an article from each of them in 

this issue. Oh, and did you see their team Halloween 

costume? Madi was the painter Bob Ross and Rebecca 

was the painting (wearing a painting she whipped 
7

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

up herself). We wish them well and look forward to 

seeing them again. We are finalizing our selection of 

spring interns as this goes to press, so you will hear 

more about the next group in the spring newsletter.

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By Jack Boyd and Glenn Bugos

Jack Boyd kept up his active speaking schedule. This 

included an interview on the NACA’s research into 

transonic aerodynamics, conducted for a NASA video 

marking the 70th anniversary of Chuck Yeager’s first 

supersonic flight on 14 October 1947. Jack also participated in a Facebook Live event tying the legacy of 

that early transonic work to NASA’s current efforts 

to minimize booms, in advance of a new-generation 

supersonic transport aircraft. 

Glenn Bugos spoke at AirVenture of the Experimental 

Aircraft Association, joining NASA test pilot and 

astronaut Joe Engle in a “Warbirds in Review” session 

on the history of the NACA and NASA test flights. 

Their panel was prompted by the Oshkosh debut of the 

Bell P-63 Kingcobra 42-68941. During World War II, 

six different P-63s were test-flown at the NACA’s laboratories to advance a variety of aircraft technologies. 

This specific P-63 was flown at Ames in 1945 and 

1946 in important tests of the laminar flow airfoil 

and aileron buffet. It was then surplused, and decades 

later the plane found its way to the Commemorative 

Air Force (CAF) Dixie Wing just north of Atlanta, 

Georgia. The museum lovingly restored it to flying 

condition and, after some debate, returned it to its 

original and operational NACA paint scheme, including the word “TEST” in bold yellow letters. The CAF 

Dixie Wing will fly this P-63 to air shows around the 

country, using it to prompt discussion on the role of 

the NACA and NASA in shaping American aviation 

and on the importance of flight testing in advancing 

our knowledge of aerodynamics. 

Glenn also talked about the history of rotorcraft flight 

tests at the awards banquet of the American Helicopter 

Society’s San Francisco Bay Area Chapter. He represented NASA Ames in accepting the induction 

of Smith DeFrance into the NASA Langley Hall of 

Honor. DeFrance was appointed as founding Director 

of NASA Ames, where he served for 25 years, because 

of his exemplary career at the NACA Langley laboratory, where he served for 18 years. At the Langley 

Centennial Symposium, Glenn also moderated a 

panel of historians talking about the storied legacy of 

NASA’s first research installation. 

In September, Glenn resigned his post as Historian 

at NASA Ames to pursue new projects. His contributions to both Ames history and the NASA History 

Program are greatly appreciated. We wish him well in 

his future endeavors. 

Layne Karafantis will begin her tenure as Historian at 

NASA Ames on 4 December. Dr. Karafantis holds a 

Ph.D. in the history of science and technology from 

Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in aerospace 

history, the history of American military technologies, 

and urban and suburban history.

Dr. Layne Karafantis comes to Ames from the National Air and Space 

Museum’s Aeronautics Department, where she was most recently the 

Curator of Modern Military Aircraft. (Photo credit: Smithsonian National Air 

and Space Museum)
8

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH 

CENTER (AFRC)

Edwards Air Force Base, California

By Christian Gelzer

Christian Gelzer helped orchestrate a two-day CBS 

shoot on the Low Boom Supersonic Demonstrator 

work being done at the Center, focusing on the 

Waveform and Sonic Boom Perception and Response 

(WSPR) project that uses an F-18 to perform different 

maneuvers at Mach 1 to attenuate the shock wave. 

(Christian appeared briefly in the background in the 

final cut; one had to look quickly.) The story aired 

nationally on CBS on 12 October 2017.

The more important news is that the Center has agreed 

to fund digitizing the historical reference collection. 

Christian expects to start boxing and palletizing the 

collection in the next few weeks, and the project (not 

packing and shipping) is expected to take at least a year. 

Once this is complete and we are satisfied with the transfer of material, the collection will be sent to a National 

Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility. 

The digital collection will remain behind a firewall at 

the Center because parts of it contain International 

Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) material, but it will 

finally have a permanence it does not now have, and the 

building in which the collection currently resides can 

be demolished without losing anything of consequence. 

We plan a regular, scheduled dispatch of material to 

keep up with newly accessioned material.

GLENN RESEARCH CENTER (GRC)

Cleveland, Ohio

By Bob Arrighi

NACA Lewis’s 1957 Transformation

“Hey, did I hear you use the word ‘spaceflight’?” “Yes, 

sir,” replied Lewis research engineer Ed Jonash. Jonash 

was rehearsing his talk on high-energy fuels for a small 

contingent of Headquarters officials days before the 

NACA’s 7–10 October 1957 inspection. “We’d better 

take that out of there,” warned Executive Secretary 

John Victory. “Suppose a Congressman heard you 

say ‘spaceflight’?” 

Lewis researchers were not focused on spaceflight at 

the time, but merely saw it as a logical extension of 

their aeronautical propulsion efforts. Victory, however, 

did not want to jeopardize the Agency’s funding by 

giving the visiting officials the impression that the 

NACA was going beyond its aeronautical mandate. 

He ordered references to space to be excised from 

the presentations. Late in the afternoon on Friday, 

4 October, the TASS news agency announced that 

the Soviet Union had successfully orbited the first 

artificial satellite. The Space Age had begun. When the 

inspection began on Monday morning, the statements 

regarding space were not only reinserted into the talks, 

but emphasized.

The year 1957 was one of the Lewis Flight Propulsion 

Laboratory’s most transformative years. The laboratory 

took steps to accelerate the redirection of its research 

from aviation to missiles and to transition liquid 

hydrogen from an experimental fuel to a reliable, 

usable propellant. By the end of the year, lab leaders 

would urge the NACA to take the lead in the development of a new U.S. space agency. Liquid hydrogen 

would play a key role throughout.

In the midafternoon of 13 February 1957, NACA 

pilots Eb Gough and Joe Algranti took a B-57 

Canberra out over Lake Erie and successfully switched 

the fuel supply from JP-4 to hydrogen. The aircraft 

performed superbly as the hydrogen-fueled engine 

etched a long vapor trail across the deep blue sky for 

the next 20 minutes before Algranti switched back to 

jet fuel. The mission was the first flight demonstration 

of liquid hydrogen. It came just two years after Lewis 

researchers began using small, experimental engines 

to study hydrogen combustion on test stands. The 

B-57 flight not only confirmed the performance of 

hydrogen, but more importantly proved that the cryogenic fluid could be safely stored and pumped in an 

operational system. 

In early March 1957, Associate Director Abe 

Silverstein created the Fluid Systems Components 

Division to intensify the lab’s efforts regarding the 

handling of cryogenic fluids. On 11 April, Congress 

approved an NACA appropriations bill that included 
9

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

funds for a new cryogenic fluids research complex at 

Lewis. Shortly thereafter, a new Air Force–sponsored 

hydrogen production plant began operation nearby 

to supply the lab with large quantities of hydrogen to 

conduct its research. 

On 26 April, Lewis held a conference to present the 

initial results of the hydrogen aircraft program to 175 

guests. In addition, the lab announced that it would 

be hosting two larger events in the fall—an NACA 

inspection for industry and political leaders and a 

technical conference on advanced flight propulsion. 

The Lewis staff spent the next six months preparing 

for these events.

Silverstein also established a group of six senior managers in early March to guide the laboratory’s research 

agenda and define facilities required for that research. 

This Research Planning Council would play a critical role in the technical and physical expansion of 

the laboratory in the coming months and years. The 

council, which disbanded the massive Compressor 

and Turbine Division in July, decided by the end of 

the summer to terminate the lab’s celebrated turbojet 

engine program. 

In August 1957, Lewis engineers started up their 

new Rocket Engine Test Facility (RETF) for the first 

time. The RETF, which could fire 20,000-poundthrust engines, was at the time the largest U.S. facility 

for testing high-energy propellants. This was the first 

in a long succession of new or repurposed facilities 

dedicated to space activities. The RETF would be 

prominently featured at the upcoming inspection.

The NACA conducted an inspection at one if its laboratories every three years. Hundreds of public officials 

and industry leaders were invited to hear presentations 

on the laboratory’s research and facilities. These elaborate events provided the NACA with a great deal of 

exposure, so they were subject to meticulous planning and close review by Victory and other NACA 

leaders. For the 1957 inspection, the Lewis staff 

prepared several stops highlighting some of the lab’s 

more traditional work, such as aircraft noise reduction, 

high-temperature materials, and supersonic turbojets. 

In addition, there would be presentations on advanced 

efforts such as nuclear aircraft, hypersonic propulsion, 

and high-energy fuels. 

A researcher works a demonstration board in the Rocket Engine Test Facility during the 1957 

inspection of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Lewis Flight Propulsion 

Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo credit: NACA)

The event began on Monday, 7 October, just three days 

after the Soviets launched Sputnik. Over the weekend, 

there was not only a general elevated national interest 

in space, but a concern by many citizens, journalists, and politicians that the Soviet Union had technologically surpassed the United States. “[Sputnik] 

is bad because of their progress,” admitted NACA 

Administrator Jimmy Doolittle during one of the coffee breaks, “but good because it will shake us loose 

from our complacency.” The Lewis staff did their best 

to ease these concerns for the visitors.

Lewis researchers had been studying high-energy 

propellants since the mid-1940s in an attempt to 

identify fuels that yield significantly better performance without substantial increases in risk or expense. 

Although the studies were geared toward aircraft and 

missile propulsion, by 1957 it had become apparent 

that these fuels could be used to launch payloads into 
10

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

space. To demonstrate these capabilities, the engineers 

at the RETF created a display above the control panel 

that featured Earth with both a satellite and spacecraft 

orbiting above. The speakers compared the performance the solid rocket fuels then being used to propel 

missiles to the potential superior performance of propellants such as hydrogen, fluorine, and ammonia.

The hypersonic propulsion stop included a discussion of the nascent field of ion engines. Since these 

thrusters must operate in a vacuum, their only application is space propulsion. The demonstration of a 

rudimentary thruster within a glass jar seemed to elicit 

the most response from the press, who wrote articles 

including “Space-Ship Engine Forerunner Exhibited,” 

“Model of Manned Space Ship Revealed by NACA,” 

and “Ions May Hold Space Travel Key.” Throughout 

the week, both the media and guests praised Lewis for 

its foresight regarding space. The Cleveland Press ran 

the headline, “Vital research in the US race to send 

American airmen orbiting through space ahead of the 

Russians is going on in NACA’s Air Lab.”

In this atmosphere, Silverstein requested funds 

to construct a million-pound-thrust rocket test 

stand. Headquarters, however, could not afford the 

expense of operating such a facility at the time. The 

Lewis Research Planning Council then proposed a 

$6 million budget request for FY 1958 to initiate a 

series of rocket facilities at Plum Brook Station. On 

3 November 1957, the Soviets demonstrated an even 

higher level of technical competence by launching 

a dog into space aboard the significantly heavier 

Sputnik II. Days later, President Dwight Eisenhower 

gave the first indication that the United States would 

make space a priority by appointing a Special Assistant 

for Science and Technology. 

Meanwhile, the Lewis staff continued to prepare 

for the Flight Propulsion Conference. One team of 

researchers wanted to include data from the firing 

of a small regeneratively cooled hydrogen-fluorine 

rocket engine in their presentation. After months of 

preparation, they attempted a run on 5 November. 

Just moments before the engine was to be activated, a 

fluorine leak caused the test cell to burst into flames. 

Over the next three weeks, the staff rushed to rebuild 

the cell. The team labored on the installation around 

the clock during the final days before the conference. 

At 6 a.m. on 22 November, the hydrogen-fluorine 

engine came to life. One of the men rushed to process 

the data while another went home to clean up for his 

talk. Hours later, he was dramatically handed the data 

as he spoke from the podium. 

In general, Lewis used the conference to make the 

case that hydrogen-fueled aircraft and ramjet missiles 

could compete with intercontinental ballistic missiles 

(ICBMs). Although these vehicles did not come to 

fruition, the high-energy fuels and cryogenic technology discussed would soon be applied to rocket stages. 

Perhaps the most advanced portion of the conference 

was the final session on performance and missions. 

Here, Lewis researchers used some broad “back of the 

envelope” calculations to compare the performance of 

different types of propulsion systems for a variety of 

missions, including surface-to-surface missiles, Earth 

satellites, lunar orbits, and piloted missions to the 

surface of the Moon. This is likely one of the NACA’s 

first detailed considerations of a lunar landing.

Meanwhile, both the NACA and the government 

deliberated on the best way to address the new space 

challenge. In late November, Senator Lyndon Johnson 

opened a series of congressional hearings to critically 

review the status of U.S. missile and space technology. 

President Eisenhower had planned to deliver a nationally broadcast speech from Cleveland on 26 November. 

Afterward, he was to visit the new RETF facility at 

Lewis. The trip was canceled at the last moment after 

the President suffered a mild stroke, however.

On 6 December, the first U.S. response to Sputnik 

ended traumatically when the Vanguard rocket toppled over on the launch pad. At Lewis, Walter Olson 

revisited a document he had drafted in 1955 that 

urged the NACA to explore spaceflight. He noted a 

number of space-related areas that the NACA could 

readily support, including a space station. His colleague Bruce Lundin, however, envisioned an even 
11

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

more ambitious effort. Following the loss of Vanguard, 

he drafted a report that called on the NACA not only 

to support U.S. space efforts, but to aggressively lead 

the way. He and the other Research Planning Council 

members began developing proposal plans for a new 

space laboratory.

On 18 December, NACA leaders called a meeting in 

Washington, DC, to discuss the group’s future role 

in space with representatives from the three laboratories. Silverstein cleaned up Lundin’s proposal and 

presented it to the others. Lewis was the only lab that 

advocated for a strong role in space. When offered an 

opportunity to voice their opinion later that evening, 

younger members from the laboratories were much 

more universal in their desire get into the space effort. 

By mid-January 1958, the NACA had resolved to 

seek leadership of the U.S. space efforts. By March, 

President Eisenhower had decided to use the NACA 

as the basis for the new National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration. 

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By John Uri

This year’s hurricane season is one for the history 

books. Hurricane Harvey soaked the Texas coast, and 

despite the Houston area receiving a year’s worth of 

rain in four days, we survived. The Center was closed 

for a week, but infrastructure impacts were minimal 

and affected events were quickly rescheduled. History 

Office personnel were minimally affected, but our 

thoughts are with those who are still dealing with 

the storm’s aftermath. We indirectly felt the impacts 

of Hurricane Irma, as Jennifer Ross-Nazzal was an 

invited speaker at the canceled American Institute 

of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) meeting 

in Orlando.

We continue to expand our extensive oral history collection by conducting numerous interviews for several 

customers: the NASA Headquarters History Office, 

JSC Knowledge Management Office, and NASA 

Headquarters Science Mission Directorate. During 

FY 2017, Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, Sandra Johnson, and 

Rebecca Wright conducted 45 interviews for the three 

projects. Among the many individuals interviewed 

were JSC Center Director Ellen Ochoa, former Flight 

Director Milt Heflin, Michelle Brekke, Steve Squyres, 

and Wendell Mendell. The transcripts of the interviews are being processed and will be uploaded to the 

JSC History Portal once the subjects have approved 

them for release.

In anticipation of upcoming major anniversaries of 

significant space events, the JSC History Office is 

embarking on several efforts. We have begun discussions with the JSC External Relations Office (ERO) 

regarding plans commemorating significant achievements leading up to and including the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing in July 2019. Utilizing 

lessons learned from several Webinars sponsored by the 

American Association of State and Local History, we 

have begun a series of short articles in JSC Today that 

highlight the anniversaries of less-celebrated events and 

people that were nevertheless crucial to achieving the 

Moon landing within President Kennedy’s timetable. 

Personnel in the ERO use this content to develop feature stories for JSC’s home page, as well as Facebook 

and Twitter posts. We have reached out to other 

Centers for possible collaboration on future stories.

In September, Ross-Nazzal traveled to Philadelphia for 

the annual American Cultural Resources conference. 

Historians, archaeologists, and architectural historians from across the country gathered in this historic 

city to discuss the state of the field under the Trump 

administration, to learn about the vital importance 

of tax credits for historic properties, to explore how 

climate change will impact heritage sites, and to discuss how those places might be saved. A highlight of 

the visit was a guided walking tour of Independence 

National Historical Park and a private reception at the 

Museum of the American Revolution. 

Planning for the 2018 NASA History Program 

Annual Review is under way. The JSC History Office 

will be hosting the meeting at the White Sands Test 
12

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. John Uri traveled 

to White Sands in August on a fact-finding mission 

and found the management team there eager to facilitate the conference. There will be lots of interesting 

facilities to tour. And based on a small sampling of 

local restaurants, there will be no problem choosing a 

suitable venue for the annual dinner.

JSC Historian Jennifer Ross-Nazzal looks over the Electrical, Environmental and COMmunication (EECOM) console as Frank Hughes, a 

simulator instructor, shares some of his Apollo documents with members of the historic Apollo Mission Control restoration team. (Photo 

credit: NASA JSC/Norah Moran)

To celebrate Docomomo Day, an annual celebration 

of modern architecture and design, Houston MOD, 

a group of architects and historians who work to 

preserve modern architecture in the Houston area, 

contacted JSC Historic Preservation Officer (HPO) 

Sandra Tetley to set up a visit to the Houston Center. 

On 6 October, Ross-Nazzal and Tetley gave a brief 

overview of how and why Houston became home to 

the Manned Spacecraft Center (now JSC), the development of the campus, its architectural style, and its 

master plan. Interested in seeing the Center’s Brutalist 

architecture up close, 36 members toured the central 

mall where many of JSC’s buildings are built out of 

precast exposed aggregate–

faced panels in that rugged architectural style. 

Throughout the walk, 

visitors saw many of JSC’s 

original buildings, learned 

more about the master 

plan for the Center, saw 

the landscape created out 

of prairie, and viewed 

other architectural features. They also visited the 

floor of historic Mission 

Control, the International 

Space Station (ISS) Flight 

Control Viewing Room, 

and the Space Vehicle 

Mockup Facility. 

Restoration of the historic Mission Operations 

Control Room is starting. 

To understand how the 

Apollo flight controllers and instructors engaged with 

their consoles, the back rooms, and the front screens, 

a series of interviews were held on the floor of the 

facility in late September. Seated in front of their 

console, they talked with Jim Remar of the Kansas 

Cosmosphere about their memories of the room and 

its look and feel during the lunar program. The Center 

HPO, the Center Historian, and contractors selected 

to restore the room and consoles were there to learn 

more about the space and its layout for the restoration. 

Our summer intern Carlos Amaya, a rising sophomore at the University of Houston majoring in computer science, made significant progress on upgrading 

the JSC History Portal. Unfortunately, the summer 

flew by, and due to his other commitments in the JSC 

Knowledge Management Office, Amaya was not able 

to complete all the upgrades. We are hoping to have 

the use of another talented intern in the near future to 

complete the excellent work that Amaya began. 
13

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER 

Huntsville, Alabama

By Brian Odom and Jordan Whetstone

The Marshall History Office has devoted much time 

over the past months to collecting oral histories and 

processing archival collections. One topic of interest has 

been research associated with NASA’s Gravity Probe B 

(GP-B) Mission. Launched on 20 April 2004, GP-B 

utilized ultraprecise, cryogenic gyroscopes to experimentally investigate the two predicted effects of Albert 

Einstein’s 1916 general theory of relativity, the geodetic and frame-dragging effects. Stanford University 

professor Dr. Leonard Schiff first proposed the experiment to NASA in January 1961. Over the 40-plus 

years between proposal and flight, the GP-B team at 

Stanford, Lockheed Martin, and Marshall Space Flight 

Center developed the diverse portfolio of innovative 

technologies that made the program a success.

A project is under way in the History Office to collect oral histories with members of the GP-B mission, 

including personnel from Marshall, Lockheed Martin, 

and Stanford University. Central to the project are 

interviews with Stanford University professor and 

GP-B Principal Investigator Dr. Francis Everitt. As 

a student, Professor Everitt worked under Nobel laureate P. M. S. Blackett at the University of London 

(Imperial College) and obtained his Ph.D. in 1959. At 

the invitation of William Fairbank and Leonard Schiff, 

Everitt came to the GP-B program in 1962 from the 

University of Pennsylvania, where he was working in 

the field of low-temperature physics. Everitt has been a 

major force in the development of GP-B critical technologies in the areas of magnetics, quantum devices, 

control systems, quartz fabrication techniques, cryogenics, and gyroscope technology as well as leading 

the fight to keep the mission funded over the years. 

NASA awarded Everitt a Distinguished Public Service 

Medal in 2005 in recognition of his efforts on the 

GP-B Mission.

Following an oral history interview with former GP-B 

Project Scientist Dr. Jeff Kolodziejczak, the History 

Office was given several boxes of materials pertaining 

to the development, testing, and review of the mission. These materials, along with two models, have 

been processed and added to the archival holdings. 

Included in the collection are an assortment of photographs, test data, reports, graduate student papers, 

publications, and presentation slides. More specifically, 

there are numerous papers and presentations about 

the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s involvement 

in solving the problem of slosh in GP-B’s 645-gallon, 

liquid helium–filled dewar. Baffles, or metal ridges, 

were added to the inside of the dewar to help suppress the sloshing motion of the superfluid helium, 

steadying the spacecraft when in orbit. While highly 

technical in nature, the contents of this collection 

provide an overview of the history of the program.

For more information on the Gravity Probe B Mission, 

visit https://einstein.stanford.edu/.

Shown here is the installation of the Gravity Probe B (GP-B) payload atop 

the Delta II launch vehicle. (Photo credit: Russ Underwood/Lockheed 

Martin Corporation)
14

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

STENNIS SPACE CENTER (SSC)

Stennis Space Center, Mississippi

By Jessica Herr

A Look Back at the Early Days at Stennis

In 1955, the United States announced that it would 

launch a satellite for the International Geophysical 

Year, an international scientific program that opened 

scientific exchanges between the East and the West 

that had been interrupted during the Cold War. The 

Soviet Union responded that they would also launch a 

satellite “in the near future.” The space race had begun.

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched 

Sputnik into low-Earth orbit. Then, on 12 April 1961, 

they launched Vostok 1, sending the first human into 

space, Yuri Gagarin. The United States had its eye on 

the big prize, though. The United States was going to 

the Moon. The space race morphed into the Moon 

race, and what was then known as the Mississippi 

Test Facility became a very important factor in the 

United States winning the race to the Moon. NASA 

needed a place to test the large rocket engines and 

stages needed to carry humans to the Moon. In August 

1961, an ad hoc committee of members from NASA 

Headquarters and Marshall Space Flight Center began 

the work of finding the perfect location. There were 

several variables to consider, since the rockets would 

be assembled at the Michoud Assembly Facility outside of New Orleans, Louisiana, and launched from 

Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA needed a facility 

that, ideally, would lie between these two places, be 

away from a densely populated area because of the 

noise associated with testing rocket engines and stages, 

have access to both a waterway and a highway, have 

a mild climate so testing could conceivably be done 

year-round, and have supporting communities nearby. 

Several already existing facilities were in the running, 

but the committee kept coming back to a marshy, pine 

tree–covered area along the Pearl River in Mississippi. 

The Pearl River site won out over the final six locations.

Logtown Post Office employees lower the flag after completing their final 

mail delivery in May 1963. Logtown was one of several towns relocated 

for construction of Stennis Space Center, then known as Mississippi Test 

Operations. (Photo credit: Russ Underwood/Lockheed Martin Corporation)

On 25 October 1961, NASA announced that a 

rocket engine test site would be established in 

Hancock County, Mississippi. The site, then known 

as Mississippi Test Operations, would test the Saturn 

rockets that would one day launch the Apollo missions to the Moon. Construction would begin as soon 

as possible, but first, residents living along the Pearl 

River would need convincing to leave their homes 

in preparation for the building of the test site. U.S. 

Senator John C. Stennis had been a proponent of 

the Pearl River site from the beginning and used his 

contacts in Washington to plant the seed of having 

NASA operations in Mississippi. Following NASA’s 

announcement, Stennis himself visited residents of 

the Pearl River communities and appealed to their 

patriotism in asking them to give up their land and 

their homes “as a sacrifice in America’s crusade against 

the Soviets.” The Soviets had already put humans in 

space, and America was aiming to win the space race 

to get a person on the Moon. Stennis promised residents of the Pearl River communities that day that he 

would make sure that their sacrifice was not in vain, 

that they were compensated for their property, and 

that they would never be forgotten for “taking part 

in greatness.”
15

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS

IAA HISTORY COMMITTEE

By Otfrid Liepack, Systems Engineer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The History Committee of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) met on 

28 September 2017 in 

Adelaide, Australia, for its 

annual meeting. Two of the 

major topics on the agenda 

were to prepare for the 51st 

History Symposium being 

held at the International 

Astronautical Congress 

(IAC) and how the History 

Committee will continue the 

celebration of the Apollo 11 

landing on the Moon.

TWO OF THE MAJOR TOPICS 

ON THE AGENDA WERE TO 

PREPARE FOR THE 51ST 

HISTORY SYMPOSIUM BEING 

HELD AT THE INTERNATIONAL 

ASTRONAUTICAL CONGRESS 

(IAC) AND HOW THE HISTORY 

COMMITTEE WILL CONTINUE 

THE CELEBRATION OF THE 

APOLLO 11 LANDING ON 

THE MOON.

Theodore von Kármán 

championed the idea of an 

International Academy of 

Astronautics, which was 

created in 1960. The first 

History Symposium was 

held in Belgrade in 1967. 

Since then, the symposia have provided professional 

historians and history lovers with the chance to present unknown facts or stories of the ever-growing history of spaceflight.

Since 1967, the international history symposium has 

been held every year. Symposia have been attended by 

many prominent scholars, pioneers of modern rocketry and astronautics, and specialists in the history 

of science engaged in these fields. The sessions of the 

committee are split into Memoirs and Organizational 

Histories, Scientific and Technical Histories, and a 

special session in which the host country’s contributions to spaceflight will be portrayed. During this 

year’s conference, Australia is in the main focus of 

the special session. Papers were given about the Deep 

Space Network, the first Australian satellites, the 

rocketry pioneer Ken Atock, and the Parkes telescope. 

Next year’s conference in Bremen will focus on the history of Germany’s post–World War II contributions 

to spaceflight. Potential presenters are invited to submit an abstract to the call 

for papers announcement. 

More information can be 

found at http://iac2018.org.

Another topic of this year’s 

committee meeting was the 

continuation of the celebration of the Apollo 11 lunar 

landing, for which a special 

session was created with the 

title “Can you believe they 

put a man on the Moon?” 

Through 2019, the History 

Committee of the IAA is 

encouraging researchers to 

present lesser-known stories 

covering this epic event. 

Whether these are the unknown heroes, nail-biting 

moments, or effects on people or societies, we would 

like to learn about them. Also, the U.S. aerospace 

industry is being asked to go through their archives 

to investigate and to present their Apollo 11 contributions at the conferences in Bremen and in 2019 in 

Washington, DC.

History can be forgotten unless it is being written 

down, and this is what the IAA History Committee is 

doing: preserving history. All presentations since 1967 

are being published in the IAA History Symposia 

Proceedings, which are published by Univelt, Inc., at 

http://www.univelt.com/History.html. 
16

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

ONLINE SOVIET SPACE 

DOCUMENT ARCHIVE

By Asif Siddiqi, Professor, Fordham University

The long-running Cold War International History 

Project run by the Woodrow Wilson Center in 

Washington, DC, recently unveiled a new project 

to commemorate the history of the space race. The 

multiyear initiative will involve several conferences, 

speakers, and events commemorating upcoming 

anniversaries related to the early days of the space 

race, including Sputnik, Explorer I, and the Apollo 

lunar landing. As part of the project, the Woodrow 

Wilson Center is hosting an archive of original primary source documents from the space race. I am 

curating the set of documents on the history of the 

Soviet space program. The first set of 19 documents, 

translated from the Russian into English, went live on 

4 October 2017, the 60th anniversary of Sputnik, and 

can be found at http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/

collection/383/space-race.

THE FIRST SET OF 19 

DOCUMENTS, TRANSLATED 

FROM THE RUSSIAN INTO 

ENGLISH, WENT LIVE ON 

4 OCTOBER 2017....

In addition to selecting and editing each document 

to reflect accuracy in translation, I provided detailed 

annotations and footnotes explaining the sources. The 

documents describe both the development of the R-7 

intercontinental ballistic missile as well as the decision 

to initiate the Soviet satellite project and its launch 

in 1957. The original Russian versions of these documents reside in Russian state archives and were officially declassified in the past decade or so. In the next 

few years, I hope to expand this archive to include 

further documents on the ICBM, Sputnik, Vostok, 

Voskhod, and the N-1 human lunar program.

AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY

By Michael Ciancone, Chair, History Committee

2017 Ordway Award 

The American Astronautical Society (AAS) Ordway 

Selection Panel has considered the pool of nominees 

for the 2017 Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence 

in Spaceflight History. The Ordway Award is named 

in memory of Frederick I. Ordway III (1927–2014), 

a human spaceflight advocate and chronicler of the 

history of rocketry and space travel. The award recognizes exceptional, sustained efforts to inform and 

educate on spaceflight and its history through one or 

more media, such as 1) writing, editing, or publishing; 2) preparation and/or presentation of exhibits; or 

3) production for distribution through film, television, 

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

by the History Committee of the AAS. The recipients 

of the 2017 Ordway Award are as follows:

 Dr. David Baker

 George S. James

 Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project 

(LOIRP)

2016 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature

The AAS Emme Selection Panel, chaired by Don Elder, 

has been busy this past summer reviewing titles submitted for the award. After careful consideration, the 

Panel has selected the following recipient of the 2016 

Emme Award:

Julian Guthrie, How to Make a Spaceship: A 

Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth 

of Private Spaceflight, Penguin Press, 2016.

AAS History Series

Univelt has published the Proceedings of the 49th IAA 

History Symposium (Jerusalem, Israel) as volume 47 in 

the AAS History Series, with Tal Inbar as volume editor. Dr. Rick Sturdevant (Air Force Space Command) 

patiently serves as series editor.
17

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

By William Thompson

Alexander C. T. Geppert, an associate professor of 

history and European studies at New York University 

(NYU), is the recipient of this year’s NASA Fellowship 

in the History of Space Technology offered by the 

Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). His 

position is divided between NYU-NY and NYUShanghai as a member of the university’s Center for 

European and Mediterranean Studies. Alexander’s 

dissertation led to the publication of the monograph 

Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in fin-de-siècle 

Europe (2010), a historical contextualization of five 

European expositions. He will utilize a sabbatical from 

NYU to work on his upcoming book, The Future in 

the Stars: Time and Transcendence in the Age of Space, 

1942–1972, a study of the cultural history of the Space 

Age. Alexander received master’s degrees from Johns 

Hopkins University and Georg-August-Universität 

Göttingen, and his Ph.D. from the European 

University Institute.

Andy Bruno, assistant professor of history at Northern 

Illinois University, is the recipient of this year’s History 

of Science Society (HSS) Fellowship in the History of 

Space Science. Andy’s first book, The Nature of Soviet 

Power: An Arctic Environmental History (2016), evaluates the environmental history of economic transformation in the Russian north during the 20th century. 

Andy will use his HSS fellowship term to conduct 

research in Russia and Washington, DC, while working 

on his upcoming book project, Landscape of Mystery: 

The Tunguska Event and the Siberian Environment. This 

book will examine the natural disaster known as “the 

Tunguska event,” which occurred in Siberia in 1908, 

as well as the interdisciplinary attempts to explain it. 

Andy received his M.A. from the European University 

at Saint Petersburg in 2004 and his Ph.D. from the 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011.

ANDY BRUNO, ASSISTANT 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY 

AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS 

UNIVERSITY, IS THE RECIPIENT 

OF THIS YEAR’S HISTORY 

OF SCIENCE SOCIETY (HSS) 

FELLOWSHIP IN THE HISTORY 

OF SPACE SCIENCE.

Emily Margolis, a doctoral candidate at Johns 

Hopkins University, is the recipient of this year’s 

NASA-supported Fellowship in Aerospace History 

offered by the American Historical Association. Her 

dissertation, “Space Travel at 1G: Space Tourism in 

Cold War America,” focuses on the phenomena of 

space exploration sites becoming tourist attractions 

in 20th-century America. Emily focuses on public 

engagement during the Space Age, as well as the economic benefits in the hospitality sector. Emily hopes 

to use her fellowship term to conduct research at 

NASA Centers and archival collections in support of 

her dissertation. She received her B.A. in physics from 

Princeton University in 2010 and her M.A. in the 

history of science and technology from the University 

of Oklahoma in 2013. 

CALL FOR PAPERS

2018 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology 

The mission of the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering 

and Technology (fPET) is to encourage reflection on 

engineering, engineers, and technology and to build 

bridges between existing organizations of philosophers, engineers, and scholars in related fields. The 

2018 Forum will be held 30 May–1 June 2018 in 

College Park, Maryland.

Deadline: 500-word-maximum abstracts must be 

submitted by 14 January 2018 to https://easychair.

org/conferences/?conf=fpet2018. 

For additional information, visit 

https://philosophyengineering.com/.
18

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

DIFFERENT WORLDS: THE CHALLENGES OF U.S. AND 

SOVIET SETI COLLABORATION DURING THE SPACE AGE1

By Rebecca A. Charbonneau, NASA History Division Intern

1 This essay is adapted from Rebecca A. Charbonneau, “Examining Intelligent Life in the Universe: How SETI Internationalism Facilitated 

Scientific Collaboration During the Cold War” (master’s thesis, University of Oxford, 2017).

I

n 1964, Carl Sagan co-published a now little-known 

book on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence 

(SETI) with Iosif Samuilovich Shklovskii, a Soviet 

radio astronomer. Their book, titled Intelligent Life 

in the Universe (1966), is a fascinating example of 

scientific collaboration during the Cold War and of 

how such collaborations were rife with challenges. 

Shklovskii’s relationship with Sagan illuminates these 

challenges and serves as an example of the ingenuity 

of Soviet scientists in their struggle to collaborate with 

their international peers within a contentious system 

fraught with restrictions and danger. 

While Sagan is a household name in the United States, 

Shklovskii has received little attention from historians, 

despite being one of the most widely admired astrophysicists and radio astronomers in the USSR.2

2 I. S. Shklovskii, Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991), p. 35.

 His 

expertise in radio astronomy prompted a curiosity 

about the potential of radio waves in interstellar communication, which led to a lifelong obsession with the 

search for and communication with extraterrestrial 

intelligence, a subject on which he published extensively. For example, in 1958, in a popular scientific 

magazine called Technology for Youths, Shklovskii speculated on whether or not Mars’s moon Phobos might 

be a hollow artificial satellite created by extraterrestrial 

beings (a theory he repeated in multiple publications).3

3 Carl Sagan and I. S. Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe (San Francisco: Holden-Day, Inc., 1966), p. 362.

These eccentric ideas sometimes confused colleagues 

who could not tell whether or not he was being 

tongue-in-cheek; a colleague of his once remarked 

that “50 percent of Shklovskii’s ideas are brilliant, but 

no one can tell which 50 percent they are.”4

4 Herbert Friedman, Introduction to Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon, p. 29.

Carl Sagan (left) and Iosif S. Shklovskii from Communication with 

Extraterrestrial Intelligence, ed. Carl Sagan (Cambridge, 1973). In his 

compilation of the conference proceedings, Carl Sagan labeled this picture “I. S. Shklovsky, right, unimpressed by an argument.”

The collaboration between Sagan and Shklovskii first 

began when Sagan wrote a letter to Shklovskii in 

1962.5

5 Sagan and Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, p. vii.

 Sagan, who had heard that Shklovskii was the 

primary Soviet scientist pushing SETI development 

in the USSR, sent Shklovskii an article he had written, 

titled “Direct Contact Among Galactic Civilizations 

by Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight.”6

6 Carl Sagan, “Direct Contact Among Galactic Civilizations by Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight,” Planetary and Space Science 11 

(December 1963): 485–498; Sagan and Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, p. vii.

 Shklovskii 

told Sagan he wanted to incorporate the paper into 

the upcoming edition of his popular astronomy book, 
19

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

Universe, Life, Mind.

7

7 Sagan and Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, p. vii.

 Shklovskii had recently become 

excited by the prospect of communication with 

extraterrestrial intelligence and had set out to write 

a book that addressed the prospect of finding life in 

space, as well as the significance of the field of radio 

astronomy in this search.8

8 Frank Drake and Dava Sobel, Is Anyone Out There?: The Scientific Search for Artificial Intelligence (New York: Delacorte Press, 1992), p. 99.

 Pleased to share his work 

with a fellow SETI enthusiast, Shklovskii sent Sagan a 

copy of the manuscript of his book.9

9 Sagan and Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, p. vii.

 Sagan loved the 

book and wanted to have an English translation made. 

Shklovskii, enthusiastic about the prospect of sharing 

his newfound passion for SETI with the rest of the 

world, agreed. 

During the translation process, Sagan contributed to 

the original text, annotating and adding bits of relevant 

information for an American audience, until the book 

had about doubled in size.10

10 Ibid.

 Sagan marked his contributions to the text by enclosing them within small symbols 

(“”and “”) to delineate his words from Shklovskii’s 

original writing. In his autobiography, Shklovskii 

recounted his surprise at receiving the English manuscript in the mail, with Sagan’s name squished next 

to his own on the title page, and remarked on how 

Sagan had “interpreted [his permission for translation] 

broadly.”11

11 Shklovskii, Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon, p. 251.

 Despite the danger of miscommunication 

and hard feelings, however, Sagan and Shklovskii 

maintained an amiable relationship. 

The English manuscript, which was titled Intelligent 

Life in the Universe, was one of the earliest SETI texts 

published for a general audience, and possibly the first 

of its kind. In addition to shedding light on the ideas 

of early SETI and planetary science, Intelligent Life 

in the Universe also illuminates the extent to which 

Soviet and American scientific writing differed. The 

differences in language used by Shklovskii and Sagan 

make it easy to determine who wrote any given paragraph, even if Sagan had not provided the helpful 

symbols. As a result, the book reads (a little sloppily, in 

some places) as a dialogue between an American and 

a Soviet, in which the participants sometimes eagerly 

supplement each other’s thoughts and at other times 

dispute the roles of dialectic materialism and Marxism 

in the future of human space travel. For example, “at 

this point in the Russian edition,” Sagan writes in 

one chapter, “Shklovskii...expresses his belief that as 

long as capitalism exists on Earth, a violent end to 

intelligent life on the planet is probable.... I am able 

to imagine alternative scenarios for the future.”12

12 Sagan and Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, p. 37.

The discordant nature of the book’s dialogue did 

have some advantages, however. In an interview with 

Bernard Oliver (another SETI pioneer) at a SETI 

conference in Estonia in 1981, Shklovskii revealed 

his private thoughts regarding the strong differences 

of opinion within Intelligent Life in the Universe. As a 

Soviet scientist, he explained, 

I must show respect to Marxism and work 

“according to Marx,” but after preamble Sagan 

can write “according to Kant....” This is fine 

because I can show Soviet officials, who say 

this book has a mistake, that it is not my mistake, it’s Carl’s.13

13 David W. Swift, SETI Pioneers: Scientists Talk about Their Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 

1993), p. 173.

The Soviet officials, whom Shklovskii once, in irritation, dubbed “our vigilant readers,” certainly made 

the publishing of the English translation a challenge.14

14 Shklovskii, Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon, p. 252.
20

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

A slightly passive-aggressive note and cartoon, attached with a letter asking why Sagan has taken so long publishing their book. 

(Image credit: Letter from Shklovskii to Sagan in 1964, located in the Library of Congress, “Correspondence between Iosif S. Shklovskii 

and Carl Sagan,” in The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive, Box 1244, Shklovskii I.S. [Translation: 

“I hope in this new year my book will be translated in your country! Happy New Year.”])

In addition to the challenges of Soviet bureaucracy, 

as a Jewish scientist, Shklovskii faced difficulties with 

the anti-Semitism prevalent in the USSR Academy 

of Sciences.15

15 Ibid., p. 16.

 In spite of his many accomplishments, 

including a Lenin Prize for his work on satellites 

during the space race, Shklovskii was never elected as a 

full member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which 

he resentfully concluded was due to his Jewish heritage 

and his commitment to promoting human rights.16

16 Friedman, Introduction to Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon, p. 17.

Even as his fellow physicists occasionally disappeared 

or died in mysterious circumstances, Shklovskii would 

stand up for mistreated colleagues and denounce what 

he viewed as ethical transgressions committed by the 

Academy.17

17 Ibid., p. 25.

 His penchant for criticism often worked 

against him, however, as he was frequently barred 

from traveling abroad. Frustration with the travel 

restrictions that plagued Shklovskii’s life arose time 

and time again in his correspondence with his international peers. In one letter to Sagan, he wryly wrote: 

“The probability of us meeting is unlikely to be smaller 

than the probability of a visit to 

the Earth by an extraterrestrial 

cosmonaut.”18

18 Sagan and Shklovskii, Intelligent Life in the Universe, p. vii.

Unfortunately, travel restrictions 

were not the only impediments 

to communication between 

Soviets and Americans. In 

another letter from Shklovskii 

to Sagan in 1963, Shklovskii 

expressed frustration with the 

amount of time it had taken to 

publish Intelligent Life in the 

Universe, and it became clear 

that the letters Shklovskii sent to 

Sagan did not always reach him. In one case, it was 

not until the third attempt at sending one of his letters 

that Sagan received the information he needed for the 

publication.19

19 Library of Congress, “Correspondence between Iosif S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan,” in The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan 

and Ann Druyan Archive, Box 1244, Shklovskii I.S. 

 It is unclear whether these difficulties 

were the result of deliberate interference or postal 

incompetence, but there is a history of evidence of the 

Soviet government tampering with mail.20

20 Naomi Godfrey, “U.S. Questions Soviet Interception of Overseas Mail,” The New York Jewish Week 197 (July 1984): 8.

In addition to the difficulty surrounding travel 

and communication, there were also issues regarding finances in Soviet and American collaboration. 

As noted earlier, despite the success of Sagan and 

Shklovskii’s book, Shklovskii did not receive the proper 

royalties. In one letter, Sagan noted that the reason for 

the difficulty in Shklovskii receiving his honorarium 

was because the “Soviet Union [did] not adhere to 

the international copyright convention.”21

21 Library of Congress, “Correspondence between Iosif S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan.”

 Sagan was 

distressed by this inequity and gave Shklovskii a check 

from his own royalties when they were finally able to 

meet, at an International Astronomical Union meeting 
21

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

in Prague in 1967. Shklovskii received the check but 

never cashed it out of fear he would face trouble with 

the KGB for receiving unauthorized payment from 

the United States.22

22 Drake and Sobel, Is Anyone Out There?, p. 100.

 Given the travel restrictions, KGB, 

and other potential barriers to communication, it is 

surprising that there was interaction between Soviet 

and American scientists at all. 

In a 1981 interview given just four years before his 

death, Shklovskii was asked: “Have you suffered any 

real sorrow or disappointment or plain real tragedy 

in your life?” Shklovskii, a man who had labored on 

rail tracks as a teenager, narrowly survived the Great 

Terror of the 1930s, experienced both World War II 

and Stalin’s reign, faced anti-Semitism from his Soviet 

colleagues, and lived all of his life in near-poverty 

despite his great achievements, replied: “Tragedy? 

No, absolute [sic] 100 percent satisfied. Life is a blue 

23

23 Swift, SETI Pioneers, p. 174.

 Such a statement elegantly sums up the 

spirit of the man, who somehow managed to find 

humor in even the bleakest of moments. He was not 

completely satisfied with his life, however. When 

asked what he would like “people in the future to 

know about [his] feelings,” Shklovskii expressed his 

long-held desire for “a little more degree of freedom.”24

24 Ibid., p. 177.

dream.”

Such a perspective is emblematic of SETI in the mid20th century—optimistic despite challenges, yet dissatisfied with institutional and national interference. 

Shklovskii’s collaboration with Sagan on Intelligent 

Life in the Universe demonstrates that SETI pioneers 

operated within the tension between institutional and 

ideological restraints and were able to connect and 

form international relationships within a system that 

often centered on the restriction of free information 

and international collaboration.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The 2018 AIAA SciTech Forum will be held 8–12 

January 2018 in Orlando, Florida. Visit https://

scitech.aiaa.org for details.

“To Boldly Preserve: Archiving for the Next HalfCentury of Space Flight” will be held 1–2 March 

2018 at the Center for the History of Physics at 

the American Institute of Physics in College Park, 

Maryland. Contact Jonathan Coopersmith at 

j-coopersmith@tamu.edu, Angelina Callahan at 

angelina.callahan@nrl.navy.mil, or Greg Good at 

ggood@aip.org for details. You may also visit https://

go.nasa.gov/2v3DUF8.

The annual meeting for the Society for History in 

the Federal Government (SHFG) will be held 23–24 

March 2018 at the Robert C. Byrd Center for 

Legislative Studies in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. 

The theme for the conference is “Federal History in 

Times of Transition.” Visit http://shfg.org/shfg/events/

annual-meeting/ for details.

The annual meeting for the Organization of American 

Historians (OAH) will be held 12–14 April 2018 at 

the Sacramento Convention Center in Sacramento, 

California. Visit http://www.oah.org/meetingsevents/2018/ for details.

The annual meeting for the National Council on 

Public History (NCPH) will be held 18–21 April 

2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Visit http://ncph.org/

conference/2018-annual-meeting-2/ for details.
22

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

THE RE-ENTRY TEST VEHICLE PROGRAM AND THE SPACE RACE1

By Erik M Conway

1 This essay is adapted from Erik M. Conway, “From Rockets to Spacecraft: Making JPL a Place for Planetary Science,” Engineering and 

Science 4 (2007): 2–10.

As NASA is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary, I thought it appropriate to dredge up out 

of JPL’s photo archives some rare images of its mid1950s collaboration with the then–Army Ballistic 

Missile Agency’s (ABMA) Redstone Arsenal. In what 

was known as the Re-Entry Test Vehicle (RTV) program, the two organizations developed the ability 

to test the idea of ablative reentry, using a modified 

Redstone booster, known as a Juno, and subscale 

Sergeant solid rocket motors. Leftover hardware 

from that effort was repurposed into the much more 

famous Explorer 1.

Shown here is part of the Project Orbiter–configured payload shroud, 14 September 1956. (Copyright California Institute of Technology)

In 1954, the United States proposed putting a scientific satellite into space as an experiment for the 

International Geophysical Year, which spanned from 

1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. President Dwight 

Eisenhower had arranged for this satellite to be financed 

by the National Science Foundation, with the Ad-Hoc 

Advisory Group on Special Capabilities committee, 

chaired by Homer Stewart of the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory (JPL), who was given the responsibility of 

choosing the winning proposal. JPL Director William 

Pickering and Wernher von Braun of the Redstone 

Arsenal proposed a joint ABMA-JPL project to launch 
23

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

a satellite, called Project Orbiter. The other substantial 

proposal came from the Naval Research Laboratory 

(NRL) in Maryland, which teamed up with Glenn 

L. Martin Corporation to use NRL’s sounding rocket, 

the Viking, to launch a 25-pound satellite carrying 

small instruments and a transmitter. This was called 

Project Vanguard. In August 1955, the Ad-Hoc 

Advisory Group on Special Capabilities made its recommendation: Project Vanguard should be approved. 

The Vanguard proposal had offered a greater scientific 

return than Orbiter, making it more appealing to a 

majority of the committee. 

Stewart and one other committee member disagreed 

vehemently enough to write their own minority 

report. “I remember staying up ’til three o’clock in 

the morning at home writing the most purple prose 

that I have probably ever written, trying to write the 

minority report as to why I thought that was the 

wrong way to go,” Stewart remembered much later. 

He thought the Vanguard proposal, which required 

a substantial scaling-up of its Viking first stage and 

newly developed second and third stages, would need 

more developmental work than there was time for, 

while the ABMA Juno launcher powering the Orbiter 

program was much further along.

Having lost out on the satellite program, JPL and 

ABMA instead teamed up on the Re-Entry Test 

Vehicle Program. The two organizations were involved 

in the design of an intermediate range ballistic missile 

named Jupiter, with JPL providing the guidance and 

control system and ABMA the rocket hardware. The 

full-scale Jupiter warhead would reach space and have 

to reenter Earth’s atmosphere, which meant it would 

experience enormous temperatures. Von Braun’s V-2 

rocket had experienced problems with this heating 

during World War II—the V-2s had literally disappeared. JPL’s Pickering explained later that von 

Braun’s team fired literally hundreds of V-2s in an 

effort to find out what was happening: the answer 

was they were exploding from reentry heat. So ABMA 

needed to prove that it could prevent the Jupiter from 

experiencing this little problem. The RTV program 

was designed to prove that an ablative material would 

provide sufficient protection by simply burning away, 

carrying much of the heat with it.

Here is another view of the Project Orbiter–configured upper stages, 

29 August 1956. (Copyright California Institute of Technology)

Pickering explained it this way: “The idea was to take 

a Redstone rocket, stick some of these Sergeants on 

top of it, and throw a reentry test nose cone about 

two or three thousand miles out into the Atlantic and 

instrument it to see how it worked. The arrangement 

of Sergeant rockets was a group of eleven rockets in 

a ring and inside that was a group of three rockets. 

What happened was this whole thing was in a circle 

tub sitting on top of the Redstone rocket, spinning 

around to give it directional stability. You fired the 

eleven, then you fired the three, and by then you 

were going fast enough to go three thousand miles.” 

And, he could have added, fast enough to reach the 

proper temperature.

JPL also developed the tracking system used for 

RTV. This was called Microlock. It enabled reception 
24

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

of signals as small as a milliwatt in strength from 

thousands of miles away. ABMA had decided to use 

transistors—brand new technology—for the RTV’s 

transmitter, but at the time these could operate only 

at extremely low power levels. The Microlock tracking system could maintain a lock even at those low 

levels, allowing the missile to be tracked through 

its entire flight. This was important because the 

team intended to retrieve the experimental warhead 

from the ocean so that they could inspect the heat 

shield. Not getting the warhead back amounted to 

a failed test.

Missile 27 is shown on the launcher, 17 September 1956. (Copyright 

California Institute of Technology)

Shown here is the Missile 34 high-speed stages and experimental reentry 

vehicle, 24 May 1957. (Copyright California Institute of Technology)

The RTV program carried out three flights of the 

ABMA-JPL “stack” in 1956 and 1957, using two different configurations. The first configuration was the 

“Project Orbiter” configuration, complete with cylindrical spacecraft. General John Medaris had the fourth 

stage section filled with sand on orders from his superiors, to ensure it did not “accidentally” go into orbit. 

Known as “Missile 27” and flown on 20 September 

1956, this shot was completely successful, proving 

the functionality of the launch vehicle, tracking, and 

communications systems. It did not demonstrate 

the ablative reentry technology, however, as the final 

stage was not the proper warhead shape. This configuration flew first because the design was done first; 

surviving correspondence suggests, but does not prove, 

that JPL and ABMA leaders also hoped its success 

would overturn the decision to let Vanguard be the 

first public launch. If that was their intent, it did not 

work. Medaris ordered Missile 27’s backup, Missile 

29, put into storage and Missile 34, which had been 

built with the warhead shape intended for the Jupiter 

Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, moved to the 

front of the queue.

Missile 34’s flight in May 1957 was a partial failure. 

The guidance system failed, but it happened far enough 

into the flight that the launch vehicle survived it, and 

it was tracked successfully to its impact in the Atlantic 

Ocean. The recovery team heard the explosion of a 

“sonar bomb” they had built into the test vehicle, in 

approximately the expected location. But the device 
25

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

intended to separate the experimental reentry vehicle 

from the final rocket stage had also failed, and it did 

not separate. The team assumed it had sunk from the 

extra weight. 

This is the Missile 40 reentry vehicle, 6 August 1957. (Copyright California Institute of Technology)

The third flight, Missile 40, was a complete success, 

and the USS Escape retrieved the floating experimental warhead. This showed little damage from its 

hypersonic flight—although one of its float bags had 

shark bites in it, leading to a joke that the previous 

attempt had been eaten. The ablative heat shield had 

worked well, although it had not been subjected to 

as rigorous a test as intended, again due to guidance 

system troubles. Medaris ended the program after only 

3 of the intended 12 flights, and the remaining sets of 

RTV hardware joined Missile 29 in storage. 
26

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

At the end of October, President Eisenhower approved 

Medaris’s recommendation to pull Missile 29, the 

backup to the Project Orbiter–configured RTV flight 

#1, out of storage. On 7 November, four days after 

the launch of Sputnik II, Eisenhower made a televised 

address to the nation on science and technology in 

national security, using Missile 40’s recovered payload 

as a prop. He explained: 

One difficult obstacle on the way to producing 

a useful long-range weapon is that of bringing 

a missile back from outer space without its 

burning up like a meteor, because of friction 

with the earth’s atmosphere. 

Our scientists and engineers have solved that 

problem. This object here in my office is an 

experimental missile—a nose cone. It has been 

hundreds of miles to outer space and back. 

Here it is, completely intact.

Eisenhower also authorized a payload for Missile 29 

after the Sputnik II launch.

Missile 29 became the basis of “Project Deal,” the 

code name for Explorer 1, launched 31 January 1958. 

The first American artificial satellite, Explorer 1 carried 

instrumentation for cosmic-ray science and meteoroid 

detection. Explorer 1 operated for nearly four months 

and reentered Earth’s atmosphere 31 March 1970. The 

Army’s space program ended during 1958, as the U.S. 

Air Force gained responsibility for intercontinental 

ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and the National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was transformed 

into NASA. JPL joined NASA in December 1958, 

followed in 1960 by the former Army Ballistic Missile 

Agency’s Redstone Arsenal Facility, renamed Marshall 

Space Flight Center.

References

Eisenhower address, 7 November 1957, http://www.

presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=10946.

Allen E. Wolfe and William L. Truscott, “Juno Final 

Report v. 1: Re-entry Test Vehicles and Explorer 

Satellites,” JPL TR no. 32–31, 1960. 

A. R. Hibbs, “Notes on Project Deal,” JPL External 

Publication No. 471, 14 March 1958.

A. R. Hibbs, “Development of the High-Speed Stages 

for the Re-Entry Test Vehicle,” JPL Publication 

No. 68, 13 April 1956.

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

Colin Fries colin.a.fries@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0388

Stephen Garber stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

Historian 202-358-0385

Elizabeth Suckow elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0375

William Thompson william.f.thompson@nasa.gov

Project Coordinator 202-358-0231

Chief Archivist (Vacant)

Rebecca Charbonneau rebecca.a.charbonneau@nasa.gov

Intern 202-358-0680

Madison Moore madison.l.moore@nasa.gov

Intern 202-358-2577
27

Volume 34, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2017

IMAGES IN NASA HISTORY 

The NACA shieldand-wings logo was 

replaced on 1 October 

1958, the day NASA officially began operations. 

With the NASA insignia 

still in the making, the 

Centers had to make do by 

painting over or replacing 

the “C” in “NACA” with 

the “S” in “NASA.” Today, 

this door at Armstrong 

Flight Research Center 

(then titled the “HighSpeed Flight Center”) 

boasts the NASA “meatball” insignia, but the 

NASA seal, as seen in the 

bottom photo from 1962, 

was the immediate successor to the NACA logo.
CREATED AND PRODUCED BY:

William Thompson, Newsletter Editor

Jennifer Way, Editor

Michele Ostovar, Graphic Designer

Trenita Williams, Mail Coordinator

Carl Paul, Distribution

DOWNLOAD THIS AND OTHER RECENT 

EDITIONS OF NEWS & NOTES AT 

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

JOIN THE

NASA HISTORY 

DIVISION 

ONLINE ON 

OUR SOCIAL 

NETWORKS! 

Get short, timely messages and stay updated on a wide 

variety of topics by following @NASAhistory on Twitter.

Learn the history of NASA’s exploration of the universe 

and its many discoveries about our home planet by 

liking the Facebook page at 

https://www.facebook.com/NASAHistoryOffice.

Find our collection of great images from NASA 

history at NASA on the Commons on Flickr: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street SW 

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov