National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

IN THIS ISSUE:

1 From the Chief Historian

1 The Langley Centennial: 

An Appreciation 

11 News from Headquarters and 

the Centers

22 Other Aerospace History News

28 Recent Publications

32 Upcoming Meetings

33 Obituaries

35 Image in NASA History 

FROM

THE CHIEF 

HISTORIAN

Welcome to our annual yearend “theme” edition 

of NASA History 

News and Notes. This 

December we are turning our attention to the 

2017 Langley Research Center (LaRC) centennial. As you will see in the accompanying 

articles, the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) first research laboratory 

not only made major breakthroughs in aeronautics research but also had major impacts 

on the culture of the organization that would 

become the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration (NASA) in 1958. It is little 

wonder that LaRC will devote 2017 to telling 

this story in so many ways. We hope that you 

will enjoy this small contribution to that effort 

and that you will continue to follow the story 

throughout 2017.

If you have read the last two editions of News 

and Notes, you may be wondering about the 

latest developments regarding the history program at Johnson Space Center (JSC). I am 

delighted to say that the end of the calendar 

year brings with it a happy conclusion. As 

you will read elsewhere in this issue, JSC has 

moved its history program to the Knowledge 

and Quality Management Systems Office, part 

of the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, 

and has added a civil servant manager, John 

Uri, to the team. John, Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, 

continued on next page

THE LANGLEY CENTENNIAL: AN APPRECIATION 

INTRODUCTION

By Bill Barry

On 17 July 2017, NASA will mark 100 years since the groundbreaking 

ceremony at what was then the National 

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ 

(NACA) Langley Memorial Aeronautical 

Laboratory. This legendary facility 

almost did not come into existence 

in the first place. The creation of the 

NACA had been tacked onto the Naval 

Appropriations Act, passed in 1915, and 

the wording about NACA research facilities was unclear. This was a result of the 

strong opinions both for and against the 

idea of a government-owned aeronautics 

research laboratory. The very next year, 

after intense lobbying by Charles Walcott, 

Smithsonian Secretary and Chairman of 

the Executive Committee of the NACA, 

Congress voted in favor of adding $85,000 to the NACA budget for the purpose 

of building a research facility. (The previous year, the entire NACA budget was 

$5,000.) Among those opposed to an NACA laboratory was President Woodrow 

Wilson. Despite his opposition, the funding was included in the budget, and 

work began almost immediately to find a location. By the end of 1916, the U.S. 

Army and the NACA had agreed on a parcel of land near Hampton, Virginia, 

for a joint aeronautical research area. The site was named in honor of Walcott’s 

predecessor as Smithsonian Secretary, Samuel Pierpoint Langley.

continued on page 3
2

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

From the Chief Historian (continued)

and Sandra Johnson have already moved into a new 

temporary office space while they await renovations 

that will give them a permanent home in the JSC 

Headquarters building in the new year. In another 

positive development, NASA’s Science Mission 

Directorate has begun an effort to capture more oral 

histories, and we are directing that work to our oral 

history experts at JSC. So they will have a new home 

and plenty of new work in 2017. While all of these 

changes reflect the strong support within NASA for 

our history work, I would also like to acknowledge 

the significant positive impact of the several historical 

professional societies, advocacy groups, and individuals who made their concerns known in letters, calls, 

and e-mails to NASA senior management. Although 

those of you who have worked in government may be 

cringing because you know that many well-meaning 

interventions of this sort can backfire, I have to say 

that the measured tones and positive approaches of 

the interventions were very helpful. My thanks to all 

of you!

While we are on the subject of professional societies, 

let me congratulate the winners of the fellowships 

that we sponsor in cooperation with the American 

Historical Association (AHA), the History of Science 

Society (HSS), and the Society for the History of 

Technology (SHOT). You can read more about the 

2016–17 fellows inside this edition. Although these 

fellowships offer relatively modest stipends, the work 

they sponsor has had a significant cumulative impact 

on the field of aerospace history since my predecessor Sylvia Kraemer initiated the AHA Fellowship in 

Aerospace History 30 years ago. About a decade ago, 

then–Chief Historian Steve Dick expanded the fellowship participation effort to include HSS and SHOT. 

The list of fellows over the past 30 years reads like a 

who’s who in the aerospace history field. Budgets may 

be tight, but to my mind, the fellowships are a critical 

priority because they are what I like to call our seed 

corn. We continue to consider ways to make the fellowships even more effective, but our commitment to 

encouraging excellent historians to work in this field 

is a strategic investment that has paid huge dividends.

Finally, a few words about forthcoming events. The 

20th Century Fox movie Hidden Figures opens in 

some theaters on 25 December and more widely on 6 

January 2017. It is based on the new (and outstanding) 

book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. The 

movie is not a historical documentary, but it is true 

to the struggles of the main characters—the African 

American women who worked as “computers” at LaRC 

in the early days of the space program. NASA agreed 

to cooperate with the movie’s production team to help 

make the film as credible and accurate as possible 

because it tells an important story about our past that 

also illuminates our future. I was one of many NASA 

folks who dug up vintage photographs and manuals, 

provided feedback, and answered countless questions 

from the production team. The dedication of the 20th 

Century Fox team to being as historically accurate as 

possible (within the bounds of telling a great story in 

a feature film) was mind-boggling. I think you’ll enjoy 

it. Another important, and related, thing coming in 

2017 that you may enjoy is the symposium “NASA 

and the ‘Long’ Civil Rights Movement.” The symposium is being hosted by the University of Alabama in 

Huntsville (UAH) from 16 to 17 March 2017. Our 

own Brian Odom, historian at Marshall Space Flight 

Center, is one of the organizers of this event. He and 

Dr. Stephen Waring of UAH have put together a great 

program of papers (and I don’t say that only because I 

am one of the presenters). The symposium will take a 

wide perspective on the struggle for civil rights and is 

fortuitously timed to build on the interest in the topic 

that will be generated by the book and movie Hidden 

Figures. The year 2017 is already shaping up to be an 

exciting one for the NASA history program.

But, as we come to the end of 2016, let me offer my 

best wishes to you and yours for the holiday season. 

Until next time....

Godspeed,

William P. Barry

Chief Historian
3

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

The Langley Centennial: An Appreciation (continued)

Ironically, Langley’s most famous, or infamous, 

accomplishment in aeronautics was the failure of 

his Aerodrome—an unpiloted, unpowered aircraft 

built for the U.S. Army. Having flown a scale model 

in 1895, Langley convinced the Army to invest 

$100,000 in developing a full-sized, piloted version. 

Sadly, both tests of the Aerodrome in late 1903 were 

very public failures. (The Wright brothers were to succeed, in private, just nine days after Langley’s second 

failure.) Langley died a broken man two years later. 

But thanks to the advocacy of his devoted successor, 

Langley’s name not only would live on but would 

be the name with the longest legacy in aeronautical 

research facilities.

The pathbreaking successes of the NACA in the 1920s 

and 1930s were the result of work done at Langley. 

To a considerable extent, the facilities, methods, tools, 

and culture of aeronautical research were created or 

extended by the staff at the lab. Not surprisingly, when 

the demands of World War II mandated an expansion 

of NACA facilities and efforts, Langley was both the 

model and the source of experienced staff. Referred 

to in those years as the “Mother” lab, Langley populated first Ames Aeronautical Laboratory and then 

the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL, later 

renamed Lewis Research Center, now Glenn Research 

Center). But as you look across NASA now, the role 

of Langley in influencing facilities (and the culture 

there) is not limited to these three traditional aeronautics centers. Near the end of World War II, Langley 

also set up a facility for the Pilotless Aircraft Research 

Division (now Wallops Flight Facility) at Wallops 

Island in Virginia. Although staff from Ames were the 

first NACA personnel to conduct flight tests at what 

is now Edwards Air Force Base, the first permanent 

NACA personnel assigned there were a group from 

Langley who supported the X-1 test program. What 

is now the Armstrong Flight Research Center also 

began with Langley personnel. Moreover, the leader 

of the postwar Pilotless Aircraft Research Division, 

Bob Gilruth, would also lead the Space Task Group 

at Langley when it was formed. Gilruth would, a 

few years later, take the rapidly growing Space Task 

Group to Houston to create what we now know as 

Johnson Space Center. Even NASA’s first spaceflight 

center has a link to the Mother lab. Although the staff 

of Goddard Space Flight Center was largely formed 

from the team at the Naval Research Laboratory that 

had worked on Project Vanguard, the Center’s first 

Director, Harry J. Goett, was a Langley alumnus. He 

came to Goddard from Ames Research Center, but 

he started his NACA career in 1936 at Langley. In all, 

five of the nine other NASA Centers have a creation 

story rooted in one way or another in Langley.

...I THINK [OF] LANGLEY 

AS THE MOTHER CENTER 

ALWAYS—LANGLEY WAS 

FIRST, AMES WAS SECOND, 

AND LEWIS WAS THIRD. 

SO THEY ALWAYS SORT OF 

THOUGHT OF US AS THEIR 

KIDS.... 

– Jack Boyd, 3 October 2005

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/

history/oral_histories/NACA/

BoydJW_10-3-05.htm

In the contributions that follow from our colleagues 

at Ames, Glenn, and Stennis Space Center, you’ll 

get a picture of how the ever-present Langley lab has 

influenced our Agency over the last century in a variety of ways. This is an important and all-too-often 

overlooked legacy that we will carry forward into the 

next century.
4

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

THE LANGLEY DIASPORA AND THE 

ORIGINS OF NASA AMES RESEARCH 

CENTER

By Jack Boyd and Glenn Bugos

The balance between competition and cooperation 

among NASA Centers is part of what makes the 

Agency so efficient and effective, as is the willingness of 

NASA people to go where the work needs to be done.

The Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory was 

only 22 years old in 1939, when Congress funded 

the construction of a second National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory to 

be built on the West Coast—the Ames Aeronautical 

Laboratory (now NASA Ames Research Center). A 

few months later, Congress funded the construction 

of the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL) 

in Cleveland, now the NASA Glenn Research Center. 

Early staff of these two new laboratories came from 

Langley, and for many years, they referred to Langley 

as the “Mother Lab.”

Smith DeFrance had joined Langley as employee number 63 in July 1922, when the lab was five years old. 

He designed the 30- by 60-foot full-scale wind tunnel 

at Langley, which, when opened in 1931, was the 

largest wind tunnel ever built. Soon, DeFrance rose to 

the post of assistant chief of aeronautics at Langley and 

was asked in the fall of 1939 to begin sketching plans 

for the new Ames laboratory. DeFrance traveled to 

Moffett Field to assess whether it was a suitable place 

for an NACA laboratory in terms of the terrain, water 

and electrical resources, access to culture, and suitable 

houses for the staff. Langley staff knew the history 

of the nearby Jamestown settlement, where British 

pioneers first built an outpost on American soil. The 

letters from DeFrance back to Langley had that same 

tone—convincing folk back home to uproot themselves to build a permanent home on a wild frontier.

Some at Langley were excited to go. Russell Robinson, 

a Stanford University–educated engineer at Langley 

(where he designed and managed the 8-foot highspeed tunnel) who served as a liaison to NACA 

Headquarters, started an NACA western office in 

southern California to survey how the existing laboratory had helped California aircraft manufacturers 

and what the expanded NACA might do better. Every 

so often, he traveled north to take measurements at 

Moffett Field for the folks back at Langley.

Work on the Ames lab began in earnest on 29 January 

1940, when John Parson and Ferril Nickle arrived 

from Langley. Like Robinson, Parson had also studied 

at Stanford with William Durand, one of the founding members of the NACA main committee. Parson 

served his entire career as DeFrance’s technical assistant, first in the operations of the full-scale tunnel at 

Langley and then as DeFrance’s associate director at 

Ames until they retired. It was Parson who determined 

if the designs drawn at Langley made sense in the 

California terrain.

Otherwise, the earliest Ames staff members were 

administrative. Nickle was a procurement specialist. 

A month later, Edward “Ray” Sharp arrived from 

Langley, a specialist in contractual and budget issues. 

Sharp returned to Langley that fall, which was itself 

rife with construction, to answer aeronautical questions of the coming war. A year later, Sharp left to 

build and run the AERL. Administrative assistant 

THE RESEARCH INCREASED 

GREATLY, AND SO DID THE 

STAFF. THE STAFF AT LANGLEY, I 

DON’T REMEMBER HOW MANY 

THOUSANDS THERE WERE, MAYBE 

A COUPLE THOUSAND, BUT IT GOT 

UP TO 6,000 I THINK.

– Jane Hess, 2 April 2014 

on Pearl Harbor’s effect on Langley

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/

oral_histories/NACA/HessJS_4-2-14.htm
5

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

Mannie Poole arrived from Langley in March and 

managed the flow of mail back and forth between 

Virginia and California.

DeFrance kept his design staff as long as possible at 

Langley, where they had established relationships to 

help them tackle the engineering challenges of the 

new tunnels. By June, he let them go west. For those 

going by train, the trip was four days. Most drove 

their cars out, and that road trip across America could 

take two weeks. DeFrance himself arrived in August 

1940. That month, the first Ames staff photo showed 

51 people, 23 of whom had come from Langley. The 

rest were local hires, either machinists from the local 

fruit-processing industries or aeronautical engineers 

fresh from their degrees at Stanford or the University 

of California.

DeFrance himself selected every Langley person who 

transferred to Ames, but it is not clear that he recruited 

them. DeFrance did recruit Helen Davies to serve as 

his administrative assistant, and she shared his style—

no nonsense, maximum efficiency, and a passion for 

safety. Most of the other ex-Langleyites were inspired 

by the pioneering spirit of Harvey Allen. Later at 

Ames, Harvey developed the blunt-body concept, 

The year 1940 saw rapid movement among NACA staff. Smith DeFrance, recently departed Langley assistant chief of aeronautics and recently arrived 

Engineer-in-Charge of the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, presents a departing gift to Ray Sharp. Sharp spent eight months at Ames after arriving 

from Langley, and he was on his way to building the new laboratory in Cleveland. On Sharp’s right is Helen St. Davies, and on his left is Mannie Poole, both 

key in bringing NACA Langley processes to Ames. Half of the people behind him had just arrived from Langley, including Harvey Allen, the tall fellow in the 

top left with the impish smile, who actively recruited to Ames a number of NACA engineers.
6

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

and later still, he served as Ames Director—but in 

1939, he was a recognized aerodynamics genius and 

iconoclast. He had grown up in Palo Alto, California; 

attended Stanford; and joined Langley because it was 

on the cutting edge of aerodynamics. No one was 

more excited about an NACA laboratory on the San 

Francisco Peninsula than he was, and he recruited 

fervently among his friends. Walter Vincent, another 

Stanford graduate, joined him, as did Carlton Boletti, 

Lew Rodert, Charlie Frick, Harry Goett, and Manley 

Hood. The NACA workforce was already young, but 

this group was younger still and excited at the immense 

opportunity to both build and use the new tunnels.

DeFrance’s group at Langley also began the design of 

facilities for the AERL in Cleveland, while the rest 

of the Langley staff focused on their work in aeronautics. Indeed, even after they transferred to Ames, 

several of the former Langley engineers continued to 

design facilities for the AERL. As the research programs matured at each lab, the staff peer-reviewed one 

another’s work before it was printed as NACA publications. Management and researchers from all three 

labs met at the yearly NACA Inspections, where they 

jockeyed to see who could gain the stage to present 

their latest NACA research to the attending aerospace 

firms, academia, and military services.

The earliest staff of the NACA High-Speed Flight 

Station (later Dryden Flight Research Center and now 

Armstrong Flight Research Center) in 1946 also came 

largely from Langley. When NASA formed in October 

1958, Langley was still the largest among the NACA 

labs. Langley staff again dispersed to staff the laboratories built for the new NASA space missions—notably 

at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space 

Center) in Houston and the Goddard Space Flight 

Center in Maryland. Over the decades, a rich spirit 

of collaboration and rivalry endured between the new 

NASA Centers.

One prime example of collaboration in aeronautics 

was NASA’s intercenter High-Alpha Research Program, 

which started as a cooperative activity between Langley, 

Ames, Dryden, and Lewis and ran from 1987 to 1996. 

Alpha stood for “angle-of-attack,” and the program 

investigated ways of controlling flight, providing 

exceptional maneuverability, and avoiding loss of control or dangerous spins as military fighters performed 

maneuvers at the edge of the flight envelope during 

close-in dogfights. The effort was initiated at Langley 

by Joe Chambers, Bill Gilbert, and the staff of their 

full-scale wind tunnel—which had been designed 

and managed by DeFrance more than 60 years earlier. 

Multidisciplinary teams of NASA engineers from the 

four participating Centers investigated three ways of 

controlling high-alpha flight: thrust vectoring of the 

engines, modifications to the flight controls, and the 

use of actuated forebody strakes. Ames technicians 

modified a mothballed Blue Angels F/A-18 for tests 

in the Ames National Full-Scale Aeronautics Facility, 

where Langley and Ames engineers worked side by 

side, notably on an analysis of nose strake controls.

Meanwhile, researchers Lou Schiff at Ames and Jim 

Thomas of Langley did computational fluid dynamics 

analyses of on- and off-body flows for the F/A-18 at 

high angles of attack. They correlated their results 

with flight test data from an extensive series of 385 

flights at Dryden Flight Research Center in another 

highly instrumented F/A-18 known as the High 

Alpha Research Vehicle (HARV), which was modified 

for each phase of the research effort. Test pilots Bill 

THERE WAS A LOT OF BRILLIANCE 

AT LANGLEY. LANGLEY WAS 

THE RESEARCH CENTER. EVEN 

WHEN THE OTHER CENTERS WERE 

CREATED, THEY HAD DIFFERENT 

RESPONSIBILITIES. BUT WE HAD 

THE RESPONSIBILITY TO DO THE 

RESEARCH.

– Jane Hess, 2 April 2014

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/

oral_histories/NACA/HessJS_4-2-14.htm
7

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

Dana and Ed Schneider led the test flights and were 

joined by pilots from other NASA Centers and the 

military services.

One of the enduring cultural characteristics of the 

Langley diaspora that made the High Alpha Research 

Program so successful was the balance of respect 

and cooperation. The engineers involved knew each 

other, they understood the value of collaboration to 

get the best results from NASA funds, and they double-checked everything because they knew their work 

would be checked by the leading experts in the field—

their peers at the other NASA Centers. Because of this 

highly effective program, NASA research significantly 

expanded flight envelopes for recent fighters—such as 

the F-22 Raptor—in the American military fleet.

An ex-F/A-18 Blue Angels airframe, provided to NASA by the U.S. Navy as a result of the advocacy of Langley’s Joe Chambers, being prepared at Ames 

for an extensive series of wind tunnel tests as part of the High Alpha Research Program. A special F/A-18 High Alpha Research Vehicle flown at NASA’s 

Dryden Flight Research Center (now Armstrong) is now on display at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, Virginia, and the F/A-18 airframe used 

in the Ames wind tunnel tests is now at the Moffett Field Museum.

GLENN’S LANGLEY LEGACY

By Bob Arrighi

“[On 15 December 1941] a few shivering, startled 

Southerners from Langley, the vanguard of those in 

the Power Plants Division transferring to Cleveland, 

arrived in the biggest snowstorm in years,” recalled 

former receptionist Mary Louise Gosney. This vanguard was the first large group of NACA employees 

to relocate from the Langley Memorial Aeronautical 

Laboratory to the new Aircraft Engine Research 

Laboratory (AERL).1 As construction of the AERL 

proceeded over the next two years, larger factions 

1 The AERL was renamed the Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 

1947, the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 1948, the 

NASA Lewis Research Center in 1958, and the NASA John H. 

Glenn Research Center in 1999.
8

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

followed suit. Langley employees not only designed 

and constructed the AERL but formed the core of 

the Laboratory’s leadership and research staff for 

three decades.

For the newcomers, the mid-December snowstorm 

was a dramatic change from Virginia, where temperatures had reached 60 degrees Fahrenheit just days 

before. The challenge of acclimation to the northern 

climate, however, paled in comparison to the tumult 

resulting from Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and the 

Philippines just eight days before. The United States 

was now involved in World War II on two fronts, 

and there was a new urgency to get the NACA’s new 

engine research laboratory operational. The military 

was relying on the AERL to resolve a host of propulsion issues for its aircraft.

Nearly a year beforehand, in January 1941, Langley 

construction engineer Charles Herrmann had 

relocated to Cleveland with Helen Ford, an administrative assistant from NACA Headquarters. From 

a 19th-century farmhouse on the barren AERL site, 

they managed the construction contracting and 

inspections. Meanwhile, in a room above Langley’s 

Structural Research Laboratory, a team of civil engineers designed the AERL’s test facilities and other 

structures. In August 1941, the NACA decided to 

transfer the Chief of Langley’s Construction Division, 

Edward Raymond Sharp, to Cleveland to expedite 

the work.

The Langley arrivals of December 1941, which 

included inspectors, engineers, draftsmen, mechanics, 

and administrative staff, were stationed in temporary 

offices inside the aircraft hangar—the only completed 

building. Sharp negotiated a key contract with a new 

construction company in the ensuing weeks that provided a breakthrough in the work. The first test facility 

was operational in May 1942. One after another, the 

other buildings and facilities were completed during 

the following year, and the former Langley staff left 

the hangar for their permanent offices.

In the fall of 1942, units of the Langley engine research 

staff began transferring to Cleveland. What had 

been modest-size sections in Langley’s Power Plants 

Division were expanded to full divisions in Cleveland. 

These divisions, led by experienced Langley engineers, 

included Addison Rothrock’s Fuels and Lubrication 

Division, Benjamin Pinkel’s Thermodynamics 

Division, Ernest Whitney’s Engine Installation 

Division, Charles Moore’s Engine Research Division, 

Oscar Schey’s Supercharger Division, and Joseph 

Vensel’s Flight Research Division.

In a somewhat surprising move, the NACA assigned 

construction manager Ray Sharp the responsibility 

for running the laboratory on a permanent basis. At 

Langley and Ames, technically skilled engineers performed that task. Sharp, who had a law degree but 

no formal scientific or engineering background, was 

assisted by Executive Engineers Carlton Kemper and 

Addison Rothrock. Sharp managed the day-to-day 

activities, while Rothrock and Kemper supervised the 

research. In 1949, Abe Silverstein, who had helped 

I THINK EVERY COUPLE OF YEARS, 

WE WOULD HAVE AN NACA AERODYNAMICS NATIONAL MEETING, AND EACH CENTER WOULD 

PREPARE ITS BEST PEOPLE AND 

PAPERS, AND SEND THEM. WE 

WOULD GET TOGETHER AND PRESENT OUR PAPERS AND SHARE THE 

RESULTS AND TALK ABOUT IT AND 

SAY, ‘WELL, THAT’S PRETTY GOOD, 

BUT I THINK WE CAN DO BETTER. 

WE’LL TRY.’

– Richard “Pete” Petersen, 3 October 2005, 

on friendly competition between Ames 

and Langley

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_

histories/NACA/PetersonVL_10-3-05.pdf
9

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

design and operate Langley’s Full Scale Wind Tunnel, 

became Chief of Research.

Although the AERL was continually hiring new 

researchers in the 1940s and 1950s, the ex-Langley 

personnel provided the laboratory’s backbone. With 

the arrival of the newcomers, more and more of the 

Langley veterans moved into the management ranks. 

Nearly all of the division chiefs and upper-management positions during the NACA era were occupied 

by former Langley people.

The relatively small size of the AERL staff and the 

fact that many of them were new to northeast Ohio 

resulted in a close community. Everyone knew nearly 

everyone else, families were started, and lifelong 

friendships formed. Sharp and his wife Vera were 

parental figures who looked after the employees and 

participated in the staff dances, sporting events, and 

other social activities.

The transition from the NACA to NASA in 1958 

brought a number of changes to the organization, 

including the transfer of Silverstein and a number 

of other key Lewis employees to Headquarters and 

Langley’s Space Task Group. There was also a shift from 

the NACA’s mostly in-house research to NASA’s management of external development contracts. The new 

space agency also dramatically increased the size of its 

staff in the early 1960s. Silverstein, who replaced Sharp 

as Director in 1961, knew the importance of camaraderie and successfully encouraged the older NACA 

veterans to interact socially with the new recruits.

As NASA’s budgets decreased in the late 1960s and 

early 1970s, the era of Langley’s influence on Lewis 

came to a close. To reduce its payroll, NASA began 

to offer employees incentives to retire. The Langley 

expatriates—many of whom had over 30 years of service—ebbed away during the final years of the Apollo 

program. The Center struggled for nearly a decade to 

redefine itself and its culture.

Langley’s legacy is still visible at the Center today in 

its inductees into the Glenn Hall of Fame, a historic 

district containing the original facilities, and the 

campus’s lack of sidewalk plots or tree lawns. The 

Southerners had not anticipated the need to plow 

snow when designing the laboratory.

LANGLEY'S STENNIS CONNECTION

By Jessica Herr

In his May 1961 address before a joint session of 

Congress, President John F. Kennedy said, “I believe 

that this nation should commit itself to achieving 

the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man 

on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”2

Meanwhile, researchers at Langley Research Center 

(LaRC) and other NASA Centers were brainstorming 

how the United States was going to get a human on 

the Moon and back home again. LaRC already had 

been working on a solution with Project Mercury years 

earlier. Using that Center’s knowledge and research, 

NASA successfully sent Alan Shepard to space for a 

15-minute suborbital flight in the Mercury capsule 

Freedom 7. Many ideas were considered for putting 

humans on the Moon, but the choice came down 

to three basic plans: a direct ascent to the Moon and 

return to Earth without an orbital rendezvous around 

Earth or the Moon; an Earth Orbital Rendezvous 

(EOR) with a launch to the Moon from Earth orbit 

after the major components of the launch were 

assembled in orbit around Earth; or a Lunar Orbital 

Rendezvous (LOR) that involved going to the Moon, 

landing, returning to the ship, and then returning 

to Earth. The LOR was the solution that Langley 

researchers proposed. After months of research and 

debate, the LOR was approved and the Saturn V 

rocket was chosen as the launch vehicle. The Saturn 

V rocket engine, and all other rocket engines in the 

Apollo and Space Shuttle programs, would be tested 

in Hancock County, Mississippi, at the National 

Space Technology Laboratories (NSTL—now called 

the John C. Stennis Space Center).

2 John F. Kennedy, excerpt from the “Special Message to the 

Congress on Urgent National Needs,” 25 May 1961, available 

at https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech_text.

html (accessed 18 November 2016).
10

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

In the 1970s, LaRC continued working with NSTL 

in studies of space applications and the development of environmental instrumentation and sensing 

equipment. Interested in matters having to do with 

pollution of the environment, Langley sought information and research from NSTL and the facilities 

that were housed there, including the Earth Resources 

Laboratory, the Gulf Coast Hydroscience Center, 

the Atchafalaya Land and Water Management Study 

being conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

the National Pesticides Monitoring Laboratory, and 

the Oceanographic Instrumentation Center.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan instituted a 

short-lived program called the National Aero-Space 

Plane (NASP), also known as the Orient Express. The 

program was never fully realized and closed about 

10 years after it was announced, but the program 

brought new light and ideas to NASA’s research on 

supersonic and hypersonic vehicles. In the short time 

that NASP was active, LaRC and SSC worked jointly 

on researching and developing the engines that would 

take people on a supersonic flight. The plan was neither monetarily feasible nor physically practical for the 

potential passengers riding in the plane, so the project 

was canceled, but the ingenuity was there.

SSC, working with LaRC over the last 50 years, has 

seen tremendous leaps forward in research and development and will continue to benefit during the current journey to Mars and beyond.

Shown are NACA VIPs at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1939. Bottom row: Walter Reiser, Elton Miller, Orville Wright, Starr Truscutt, Addison 

Rothrock, Eastman Jacobs, and George M. Lewis. Top row: Gus Crowley, Ernie Johnson, Carlton Kemper, H. J. E. Reid, Smith DeFrance, and Theodore 

Theodorsen.
11

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

History Division

By Bill Barry

As I write this, the transition season (which will be in full swing by the time you read it) has 

already begun. Our Associate Administrator for 

Communications, David Weaver, left NASA for a 

job with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) in 

October. He was a great boss and a strong supporter 

of the history program. While we will all miss his skill 

and his ability to make things happen, this is part of 

the natural cycle of government—as political appointees move on with the change from one administration 

to the next, new ones will eventually take their places 

to help shepherd the new President’s policies into 

action. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t sing David’s praises 

a bit for the way he has brought the history team into 

Agency planning. We now have a process in place to 

identify significant anniversary events and prepare for 

them well in advance. This will serve us all well in the 

coming years as we approach the 60th anniversary of 

NASA (October 2018) and the 50th anniversary of 

the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon (July 2019). With 

David now on to a new challenge, the senior civil 

servant in the Office of Communications, Bob Jacobs, 

is the Acting Associate Administrator. We don’t anticipate any other major changes until the new President’s 

team is in place sometime after the inauguration in 

late January 2017.

Although we are also short an editor (since Yvette 

Smith moved to a position on the NASA social media 

team this summer), we have still managed to keep the 

flow of publications going. In September, we released 

an update to our 1997 chronology of spacewalks. 

Volume 2 of Walking to Olympus, by Julie Ta (a former History Division intern) and Robert Treviño, 

picks up where the original volume left off and gives a 

short synopsis of every spacewalk from 1997 through 

2011. This fall, we have also been wrapping up the 

copyediting work on Making the Invisible Visible, a 

monograph on the management of the Spitzer Space 

Telescope project by Renee Rotner. This book should 

go to print soon. The third volume of The Wind and 

Beyond, our documentary history of aerodynamics 

in America, went to our copy editors in July and has 

been keeping them busy since. It is a huge and complicated book to produce, so it will take a while to get 

the manuscript ready for the printer. Nonetheless, we 

expect to see it finished in the new year. Also in copyediting, for publication early next year, is a monograph on how NASA has sought advice on science 

projects. Science Advice to NASA: Conflict, Consensus, 

Partnership, Leadership, by Joe Alexander, will look 

at the Space Science Board, various other advisory 

committees, and NASA’s own efforts to manage the 

advice process with the goal of identifying both what 

makes advice more effective and other lessons learned 

for the future.

Interns Bob Collom (graduate student at American 

University) and Nick Russo (senior at the University 

of Rhode Island) have done a great job since their 

arrival late this summer. They may have gotten started 

with a few more obituaries than they would have liked, 

but their work on our social media output this fall has 

been phenomenal. Metrics on followers and impact 

are all up. If you haven’t checked out our Flickr site 

(NASA on the Commons) lately, you should drop 

by. Bob and Nick have added an amazing number 

of new and interesting images to our online repository of great images from NACA and NASA history. You can see them all at https://www.flickr.com/

photos/nasacommons. Guiding our interns to great 

performance (again) has been Andres Almeida. Andres 

manages to juggle wrangling interns, putting this 

newsletter together, cracking the whip on the annual 

President’s Report, and trying to teach us all a few 

words of Spanish—all without breaking a sweat. He 

gets a lot of help with intern care and feeding from 

“mom-in-residence” Nadine Andreassen. (Though by 

the time you read this, we will have changed her title 

to “grandma-in-residence.”)
12

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Looking ahead into 2017, we are delighted that our 

colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) 

have agreed to host our history and archives program 

review meeting this coming May. This is our annual 

event for historians and archivists from across NASA 

to get together for two days and discuss our mutual 

concerns. We haven’t had a program review on the 

West Coast since Ames Research Center hosted us in 

2009. Having just celebrated (on Halloween 2016) 

the 80th anniversary of the first rocket test by the 

team that would become JPL, we are really looking 

forward to holding our discussions in a place that has 

contributed so much to aerospace history. Between 

the program review in May and the Langley centennial celebrations throughout the year, we expect 

2017 to be another busy year for the Headquarters 

history team.

Historical Reference Collection (HRC)

One thing that we are hoping will happen before the 

program review is approval to hire a replacement for 

Jane Odom as Chief Archivist. As you may remember, 

Jane retired at the end of May. Unfortunately, NASA 

Headquarters is under a hiring freeze, and we haven’t 

been allowed to backfill that position yet. There are 

indications that we’ll be able to advertise for that position in the near future. So if you are an experienced 

archivist, you might want to polish up your résumé. 

When the position is advertised, we’ll let you know 

on our LISTSERV and our social media accounts, 

but the application will have to be submitted through 

https://www.usajobs.gov. So keep an eye out there. 

In the meantime, Steve Garber continues to juggle 

his regular job as well as archival issues. Fortunately 

for him, Colin Fries and Liz Suckow need very little 

supervision, and they have a very large backlog of 

archival work to keep them busy. Between adding 

to and maintaining our reference collection, Colin 

and Liz continue to answer the nonstop flow of historical questions and help visiting researchers. I will 

note with some pride that the first person mentioned 

by name in the acknowledgments section of Margot 

Lee Shetterly’s landmark book Hidden Figures is none 

other than our own Colin Fries.

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By Glenn Bugos and Jack Boyd

Jack Boyd was inducted into the Academy of AOE 

(Aerospace and Ocean Engineering) Excellence of his 

alma mater, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State 

University (Virginia Tech), as part of the celebrations 

of the 90th anniversary of aeronautical engineering at 

the university. He joins other NASA luminaries and 

Hokies like Chris Kraft and Paul Holloway.

Glenn Bugos presented a talk on the enduring significance of the biological experiment package on 

the Viking Lander, shifting the usual focus from its 

place in the historical trajectory of astrobiology and 

looking instead at how it served as a scientific precursor mission to the exploration of Mars. He presented 

it as part of the Viking 40th anniversary events at 

NASA Langley Research Center on 19 July 2016 and 

then at the American Institute of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics SPACE and Astronautics Forum and 

Exposition (AIAA SPACE 2016) in Long Beach in 

September. It was published as The Viking Biological 

Experiment at 40 Years (AIAA 2016-5286).

Irv Statler, working with Bob Ormiston, has launched 

a project to collect and publish memoirs of all those 

active in the founding years of the Army-NASA joint 

agreement on fundamental research in rotorcraft. 

They have identified many people involved in the early 

years of the Army aeromechanics research laboratories 

at Ames, Langley, AERL, and Fort Eustis. Anyone 

who has not yet been contacted and would like to 

contribute should contact Irv.

We bid good-bye to Dolores Beasley, who, after nine 

eventful years at Ames, is retiring as Director of Strategic 

Communications and Education. Dolores also spent 

six years in public affairs at NASA Headquarters and 

three at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The 

daughter of eminent African American historian 

Edward Beasley, Dolores was attuned to how history 

can illuminate current issues within the Agency. She 

was a big supporter of the Ames History Office and an 
13

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

advocate for celebrating anniversary events that draw 

attention to our legacy. Onward!

The staff of the Aviation Safety Reporting System 

(ASRS)—a partnership of the Federal Aviation 

Administration and Ames—celebrated the partnership’s 40th anniversary with an open house at their 

offices south of Ames. ASRS director Linda Connell, 

who has served with ASRS for 18 of those years, led 

the celebration. Ames Deputy Director Tom Edwards 

introduced a video greeting by NASA Administrator 

Charles Bolden, and both Edwards and Connell 

talked about the importance of the ASRS in making 

American airspace safer. Since 1976, pilots, air traffic controllers, and all others working on the front 

lines of aviation have voluntarily and confidentially 

submitted to ASRS more than 1.6 million incident 

reports on safety concerns, which ASRS staff have analyzed to issue more than 6,200 safety alerts. The ASRS 

has become the world’s largest repository of incident 

reports on aviation human factors and has become 

a model for incident reporting in aviation agencies 

around the world, as well as for incident reporting in 

a wide variety of high-risk industries.

Shown here is Dolores Beasley, who is retiring as Director of Strategic 

Communications and Education at NASA Ames.

Ames Deputy Director Tom Edwards (left) and Aviation Safety Reporting 

System Director Linda Connell hold a plaque commemorating 40 years of 

NASA Ames and Federal Aviation Administration partnership.

The 36-percent scale model of the Space Shuttle orbiter, which underwent 

250 hours of tests in the 40- by 80-foot wind tunnel at NASA Ames, 

now resides at the western end of Shenandoah Plaza, Moffett Field's 

historic district.

The 36-percent scale model of the Space Shuttle 

orbiter—44 feet long and weighing 25 tons—was renovated and installed at perhaps the most visible spot 

on Moffett Field. The model was built in 1975 from 

steel covered with fiberglass epoxy and underwent 

250 hours of tests in the 40- by 80-foot wind tunnel 
14

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

to validate its landing characteristics and study the 

aerodynamic effects of its thermal protection systems. 

Once tests were done, the model toured the world, 

including a stop at the Paris Air Show, and spent time 

at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. It was then 

displayed near the former Ames Visitor Center, but it 

needed to be moved for a widening of R.T. Jones Road 

to handle increased traffic to the northern end of the 

Ames campus. Former Deputy Center Director Lew 

Braxton had grown up on Air Force bases around the 

world, where mounted aircraft often greeted visitors. 

Lew developed a plan to move the Shuttle model to 

the western end of Shenandoah Plaza, Moffett Field’s 

historic district. The Ames Plant Engineering Branch 

repaired and painted it. Now, everyone driving onto 

Moffett Field or the Ames campus sees it; it serves 

as a reminder of Ames’s legacy in supporting NASA’s 

human spaceflight missions.

Reference Collection

By April Gage and Danielle Lopez

This quarter, the Ames archivists were invited to attend 

a weekend symposium at the University of California, 

Berkeley, entitled “Framing the Infinite: The Social 

Science of Space and Cosmology,” organized by the 

university’s Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, 

and Society. April Gage spoke on the archives panel 

with Megan Prelinger of San Francisco’s Prelinger 

Library. April’s presentation, entitled “Scientific 

Collections at NASA Ames Research Center,” provided a guided tour through collections in the History 

Office archives and explored the significance of relationship-building between researchers and archivists 

in the cultivation of mutually informative partnerships.

Greg Schmidt, Deputy Director of NASA’s Solar 

System Exploration Research Virtual Institute 

(SSERVI), and Pascal Lee, planetary scientist for the 

Mars and SETI Institutes, organized a space art exhibition to coincide with two events held at Ames this 

summer: the Third International Conference on the 

Exploration of Phobos and Deimos and the NASA 

Exploration Science Forum. Entitled “Near-Earth 

Worlds,” the space art exhibit displayed works featuring 

asteroids and Martian scenes by a wide range of artists 

from the International Association of Astronomical 

Artists, including Lee himself. Some scientists from 

Ames loaned paintings from their personal collections 

for the show, which was open to the public as well as 

event attendees.

The History Office archivists coordinated with 

Schmidt and Lee to feature a Chesley Bonestell 

From left, Planetary Scientist Pascal Lee (Mars and SETI Institutes), 

SSERVI Deputy Director Greg Schmidt, and Ames History Office Archivist 

April Gage pose in front of Pittsburgh at L-2 by Chesley Bonestell. (Photo 

credit: Danielle K. Lopez)

Shown here is Pittsburgh at L-2 by Chesley Bonestell. Oil on board, 1976. 

In this painting by Chesley Bonestell, a 270-foot machine with international markings is docked at a near-Earth asteroid to conduct mineral 

mining operations. Three astronauts float in acrobatic formation at one 

end of the station, and others perform tasks on the surface of the asteroid, 

while a red-and-white spaceship approaches. The planet Earth is visible in 

the distance. (Image credit: NASA Ames History Office Artifact Collection, 

ART1387.518)
15

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

painting entitled Pittsburgh at L-2. The item, which 

was commissioned by Ames in the mid-1970s, depicts 

mineral mining operations at a near-Earth asteroid.

Chesley Bonestell (1888–1986) is widely considered 

the father of space art. His paintings appeared on 

the covers of popular magazines and science fiction 

novels, as well as in movies such as the 1953 production of War of the Worlds. These works fascinated 

the general public and helped popularize the idea of 

human space travel. Bonestell was also a distinguished 

architectural painter, scientific illustrator, and science 

fiction writer. The many honors bestowed on him 

include a crater on Mars, an asteroid, and a cocktail 

(brandy and white vermouth) all bearing his name. 

Other achievements include membership in the 

International Space Hall of Fame and Science Fiction 

Hall of Fame, the 1951 International Fantasy Award, 

a Special Achievement Hugo Award, and a bronze 

medal from the International Planetary Society.

Pittsburgh at L-2 will also be featured in Doug Stewart’s 

upcoming documentary film about Bonestell entitled 

Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future.

ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH 

CENTER (AFRC)

Edwards Air Force Base, California

By Christian Gelzer

In September, Christian Gelzer was the luncheon 

speaker at the National Space Biomedical Research 

Institute’s (NSBRI’s) annual meeting in Houston, 

Texas. His topic was the development of reaction control systems and the human-machine interaction. He 

also addressed an audience at Edwards Air Force Base 

in California about the history of NASA’s Armstrong 

Flight Research Center that month and spoke at 

Scaled Composites in October, presenting a history of 

AFRC’s past and present activities.

Christian again hosted a summer intern, Christy 

Ailman, who worked on revising a manuscript on 

the Controlled Impact Demonstration. This was a 

Federal Aviation Administration–sponsored project 

that the Agency hoped would validate a fuel additive 

that would prevent post-crash fires. Christy hopes 

to have the manuscript ready for peer review before 

next summer.

Christian is also working with a part-time hire to 

develop a box-level catalog of the history reference 

collection so that the Center can make a decision 

about what to do with the collection. The building in 

which the collection resides (with cataloged material in 

Lektrievers and boxes) is slated for demolition in 2017. 

The Center needs to reduce its footprint as well as its 

costs associated with storage. His preference—and 

what he is advocating—is to digitize the collection.

NASA Armstrong Celebrates 70 Years 

of Flight Research and Testing

By Cam Martin

On 30 September 2016, NASA’s Armstrong Flight 

Research Center observed its 70th anniversary. The 

Center’s origins date back to 1946, when 13 NACA 

engineers and support staff arrived in California’s 

Mojave Desert on a quest for supersonic flight data 

obtained with the first purpose-built research aircraft, 

the Bell X-1—the first aircraft to be designated with 

an “X” for “experimental.” The date was commemorated in Congressman Steve Knight’s Congressional 

Record congratulations:

The Honorable Steve Knight of California 

in the House of Representatives

28 September 2016

MR. KNIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 

celebrate and honor the 70th anniversary of 

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, 

which was founded on September 30, 1946.

In 1946 a group of officials from NASA’s predecessor organization, the NACA, set up an 

operations base for our nation’s effort in the 

race to achieve supersonic manned flight. A 

year later, on October 14, 1947, Air Force 
16

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Captain Chuck Yeager became the first pilot 

to break the sound barrier in the experimental 

Bell X-1 aircraft. This achievement, one of 

many incredible “firsts” in our history, inaugurated a national legacy of excellence in aerospace that defines American power today.

More X-planes followed the X-1, each building 

on our understanding of flight and projecting 

U.S. power further into air and space. Twenty 

years after Yeager, my father, Pete Knight, 

flew the X-15 at Mach 6.7. Even today that 

flight holds the world record for aircraft speed. 

What we learned from the X-programs was 

critical to our journey to the Moon and paved 

the way for the Space Shuttle.

Today NASA Armstrong continues to play an 

important role in the advancement of American 

aeronautics. It is pursuing a new generation of 

X-planes that will validate technology for faster, 

cleaner, quieter, and safer air travel over the 

next ten years. These bold programs are not 

only an exciting next step for our nation’s legacy in aviation pioneering, but a necessary one, 

to renew our technological and competitive 

edge in aviation for the 21st Century.

I congratulate the men and women of NASA 

Armstrong on their outstanding achievements 

over the past 70 years. Their unfailing pursuit 

of useful knowledge in atmospheric flight and 

airborne science is essential to the American 

scientific enterprise, as well as our engagement 

with [the] international science community, 

the competitiveness of our private sector air and 

space companies, and our military’s edge over 

potential adversaries. On behalf of the 25th 

Congressional District of California, I would 

again like to thank the NASA Armstrong team 

for all they do for our country.1

1 This portion of the Congressional Record for the 114th 

Congress, 2nd session, can be found at http://knight.house.

gov/uploadedfiles/congressional_record_statement_-_nasa_

armstrong.pdf (accessed 18 November 2016).

As part of the anniversary festivities, Cam Martin 

gave an hourlong auditorium lecture tracing the operational legacy of the “Round One” X-Planes (X-1, 

D-558-1, D-558-2, X-3, X-4, X-5, XF-92), the role 

of Dr. Hugh L. Dryden in making the Center a permanent NACA installation, Neil Armstrong’s flight 

experience with the early X-planes, and the work of 

Walter Williams as he progressed from NACA project 

engineer on the Bell X-1 to NASA’s Mercury Flight 

Operations Director for the spaceflights of astronauts 

Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn. NASA’s 

early operational experience with piloted rocket-powered flight, pressure suits, telemetry, and control rooms 

traces back to the “Round One” X-Planes and the 

people who conducted high-altitude flight research 

with them. A video showcasing 70 years of NACA/

NASA research at Edwards Air Force Base premiered 

on NASA TV and remains available on YouTube at 

http://www.youtube.com/armstrongtv.

GLENN RESEARCH CENTER (GRC)

Cleveland, Ohio

By Anne Mills

Glenn Research Center wrapped up its year of 75th 

anniversary events with some special recognition of 

our retirees. On 10 August, over 100 retirees and their 

guests gathered at GRC for a retiree reunion. The day 

consisted of several briefings by current researchers, who 

provided some insight into current projects, including 

the Spacecraft Fire Experiment (SAFFIRE), the Space 

Communications and Navigation (SCaN) test bed, 

and a tech-transfer success story integrating flywheel 

technology into heart pumps. The retirees then gathered with current employees for a Center-wide picnic, 

where they were able to reminisce and reconnect.

During the 2015 NACA centennial, GRC established 

a hall of fame and inducted its first class of members. 

To further celebrate our 75th anniversary, our second class of inductees was honored in an induction 

ceremony on 14 September. Nine distinguished individuals were recognized as luminaries and leaders of 

Center success:
17

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

Hall of fame honorees pose for a group photo. Standing, from left to right, are Dr. R. Lynn 

Bondurant, Andrew Stofan, Dr. Julian Earls, Bruce Banks (representing Dr. Harold Kaufman), 

and Joel and Sheldon Gordon (representing Sanford Gordon). Sitting, from left to right, are 

Judy Szabo (representing Steve Szabo), Dr. Lonnie Reid, Dr. Eli Reshotko, and Molly Nesham 

(representing Bonnie McBride). (Photo credit: Glenn Research Center/Rami Daud)

• Dr. R. Lynn Bondurant, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) advocate and 

inspiring educator

• Dr. Julian M. Earls, former Center Director and 

health physics leader

• Sanford Gordon and Bonnie J. McBride, developers of industry transforming chemical equilibrium codes

• Dr. Harold Kaufman, trailblazer of ion propulsion

• Dr. Lonnie Reid, leader in compression research

• Dr. Eli Reshotko, luminary of boundary layer theory and research

• Andrew Stofan, former Center Director and champion of Center revitalization

• Steve Szabo, Jr., leader in program management

We were fortunate to have most honorees and their 

families present for the ceremony. Each honoree was 

presented with a plaque, a duplicate of which will be permanently on display in our Employee Services Building. 

More detailed information about each of this year’s 

inductees is available at http://www.nasa.gov/feature/

nasa-glenn-inducts-new-class-into-hall-of-fame.

We are pleased to announce the release of two new 

resources developed by GRC archivist Robert Arrighi 

(ATS, LLC) that tell the history of the Plum Brook 

Rocket Systems Area. The Rocket 

Systems Area was a series of small facilities that were essential to the early development of liquid-hydrogen propulsion 

systems. This work was completed as part 

of a historic mitigation project in partnership with our Historic Preservation 

Office, and it is key to understanding 

the larger history of the Saturn and 

Centaur upper-stage rockets, as well as 

other developmental rocket programs in 

the 1960s.

The book is titled NASA’s Hydrogen 

Outpost: The Rocket Systems Area at Plum 

Brook Station (NASA SP-2016-628) 

and will be available through the NASA 

Technical Report Server (NTRS). The 

Rocket Systems Area Web site features a full history 

of each facility making up the site, primary source 

documents, photographs, and a research chronology. 

The site is located at http://pbhistoryrsa.grc.nasa.gov.

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By John Uri

I am very excited to join the NASA History team as the 

new Johnson Space Center History Office Manager 

and thrilled to be working with Jennifer Ross-Nazzal 

and Sandra Johnson. In addition to acquiring new 

management, the History Office is relocating both 

organizationally and physically. The organizational 

change, effective 1 October 2016, saw the transfer of 

the History Office from the Information Resources 

Directorate to the Knowledge and Quality Systems 

Management Office within the Safety and Mission 

Assurance Directorate, with the Manager reporting directly to the JSC Chief Knowledge Officer, 

Jim Rostohar. This new arrangement will allow the 

History Office to leverage the resources and assets 

of a larger knowledge-management team. As for the 

physical relocation, that is a bit more complicated. 

Jennifer and Sandra have relocated to temporary office 
18

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

space, where I have joined them, with the ultimate 

end game of moving all of us on-site into Building 

1, the JSC main administration building, once office 

space there is built in early 2017. Physical proximity 

to Knowledge Management team members will no 

doubt be an added asset, as will the higher visibility of 

being on-site. I have spent the first few weeks on the 

job learning names and phone numbers, as well as all 

the great work that has been done by this office to date. 

I look forward to meeting, 

even if initially only via 

electronic media, as many 

members of the Agency’s 

history team as possible 

in the near future. If you 

have any questions or 

helpful suggestions, please 

feel free to contact me 

at 281-244-8213 and at 

john.j.uri@nasa.gov.

Early in 2016, the Orion 

Program contacted the 

History Office about the possibility of a limited oral 

history project. After an agreement on the focus of 

the interviews and the subjects, the history team dedicated the summer to the task. The resulting Orion 

Oral History Project includes 20 interviews with 14 

individuals who have contributed significantly to the 

success of the Orion Program. The oral history sessions reflect experiences and insight on topics such 

as the early days of the Constellation Program and 

its subsequent cancellation, the development of the 

Orion Program and spacecraft, and the challenges 

encountered in working toward the first successful 

launch of Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) on 5 

December 2014. The interview transcripts are available online on the JSC History Portal (http://www.jsc.

nasa.gov/history), along with all the other oral history 

projects that the team has finalized since 1997.

In September, JSC historian Jennifer Ross-Nazzal 

attended the Human Factors and Performance Team 

meeting “Piloting Spacecraft: Guidance and Control 

of Human Space Vehicles” at the National Space 

Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) in Houston. 

The workshop included speakers from across the 

Agency, universities, and the aerospace industry, who 

spoke on a variety of topics. Dr. Christian Gelzer, 

historian for Armstrong Flight Research Center, presented the luncheon address. The NSBRI meeting 

gave Christian and Jennifer an opportunity to discuss 

history matters and snap a few photos with Apollo 7 

crewmember Walt Cunningham.

The JSC History Office 

was invited by the 

NASA Alumni League’s 

JSC Chapter to present an overview of the 

office during their First 

Thursday meeting on 6 

October 2016. During 

the well-attended meeting, 

John Uri reviewed the latest administrative changes 

to the History Office, as 

outlined above. Jennifer 

Ross-Nazzal highlighted the services provided by the 

History Office to numerous customers and shared an 

extensive list of publications, presentations, and other 

products resulting from work done by the History 

Office. Sandra Johnson outlined the cradle-to-grave 

process of the JSC Oral History Project, citing the 

latest statistics of 941 individuals interviewed over 

1,195 sessions, resulting in 1,049 transcripts available 

online covering multiple programs and organizations. 

She also reviewed the contents of the JSC History 

Portal. During the ensuing question-and-answer and 

discussion session, the Alumni League was pleased 

with the new direction of the JSC History Office and 

was impressed with the amount of work that is being 

accomplished and fully supported a continuing working relationship between the two organizations.

In November, the National Trust for Historic 

Preservation held its annual meeting in Houston, 

Texas. Jennifer Ross-Nazzal and our Center Historic 

Preservation Officer, Sandra Tetley, will be presenting two workshops on the restoration of the Mission 

THE RESULTING ORION ORAL 

HISTORY PROJECT INCLUDES 

20 INTERVIEWS WITH 14 

INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE 

CONTRIBUTED SIGNIFICANTLY 

TO THE SUCCESS OF THE 

ORION PROGRAM.
19

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

Operations Control Room (MOCR), a National 

Historic Landmark (NHL), to how it looked in July 

1969, as well as holding a Power Session. Workshop 

participants will tour the MOCR, learn about the restoration plans, and hear from former flight directors. 

They will also see the Center’s other NHL, the Space 

Environment Simulation Laboratory. The 30-minute 

Power Session will be open to all conference attendees 

and will summarize the restoration efforts thus far.

LANGLEY RESEARCH CENTER (LARC)

Hampton, Virginia

By Gail Langevin

Langley Research Center has been preparing for its 

centennial and celebrating with pre-centennial events 

for the past few years. The Center dates its beginning 

from the groundbreaking of the first NACA Langley 

administration and research building on 17 July 1917. 

In 2017, the celebration will culminate with events for 

employees and the public.

The celebration began in 2015 with the NACA centennial. Dr. Roger Launius, Dr. Tom Crouch, and 

Dr. James Anderson of the Smithsonian Institution’s 

National Air and Space Museum presented a history 

panel that looked at aspects of NACA Langley and 

its contributions to advancing aviation. Two presentations and question-and-answer sessions were given, 

one set for employees and one for the public. Langley’s 

very first Hall of Honor class was inducted in 2015. 

Nineteen former employees from the NACA era were 

honored. Their stories are a cross-section of Langley’s 

best accomplishments. The Hall of Honor inductees advanced wind tunnel development, research 

instrumentation, airfoil research, the quantification 

of aircraft handling qualities, aerodynamics research, 

transonic flight, and the very beginning of American 

crewed spaceflight. One inductee led the Center from 

the age of biplanes to the Space Age, and another was 

the first woman to be hired to conduct research.

In 2016, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 

Viking Mission to Mars with a history panel and 

daylong symposium. The history panel featured NASA 

historians Dr. Bill Barry, Dr. Erik Conway, and Dr. 

Glenn Bugos, joined by Dr. Roger Launius from the 

Smithsonian Institution. The panel was presented for 

both employees and the public. We were thrilled when 

C-SPAN decided to record the panel for later broadcast on their American History TV weekend program. 

You can watch it at http://go.nasa.gov/2gYC3Kh. We 

also celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the Earthobserving satellite Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared 

Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) and our 

partnership with the French Space Agency, Centre 

National d’Études Spatiales (CNES). The Langleyled mission also partnered with Ball Aerospace & 

Technologies for the instruments and payload integration. CALIPSO continues to provide a new insight 

into the role that clouds and atmospheric aerosols play 

in regulating Earth’s weather. While most of Langley’s 

early history involves accomplishments in aeronautics, 

these celebrations were a reminder of Langley’s contributions to NASA’s space and science goals.

A new computational facility is under construction at 

Langley and is scheduled for completion in 2017. As 

part of the ongoing centennial celebration, a building-naming ceremony was held on 5 May 2016, the 

55th anniversary of Alan Shepard’s historic spaceflight, 

when he became the first American in space. The 

building will be named the Katherine G. Johnson 

Computational Research Facility. Katherine Johnson, 

a Langley “human computer,” computed the trajectory of Shepard’s flight before the common use of 

electronic computers. Johnson celebrated her 98th 

birthday this year, and she and her family joined in the 

building-naming celebration.

The story of Katherine Johnson’s career is the subject 

of the nonfiction book Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee 

Shetterly, which was published in September. Shetterly 

also tells the stories of NACA-era Langley computers 

Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, as well as the 

experiences of several other women who were computers at the time. The book brings to light the little-known story of the women, many of them African 

American, who performed thousands of calculations 
20

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

NASA Langley Deputy Director Clayton Turner presents Katherine Johnson 

with a replica of the plaque that will be placed in the lobby of the Katherine 

G. Johnson Computational Research Facility.

to turn raw research and theoretical data into usable 

data. The accuracy of their work is directly reflected 

in the Center’s accomplishments. 20th Century Fox 

Studios produced a film based on the book, which is 

expected to be in theaters nationwide January 2017.

Langley history author Joe Chambers is at work on a 

centennial book that will tell Langley’s story through 

the years with photographs from our photo archive. 

The book is expected to be complete in spring 2017. 

Also in production is a centennial documentary film 

that is being produced in-house. Smithsonian historians Dr. Tom Crouch and Dr. Roger Launius will 

be featured in the film, along with former Langley 

historian and current Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology (MIT) Museum Director Dr. Deborah 

Douglas and meteorologist Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd 

of the University of Georgia. Additional plans include 

an employee picnic, a technical symposium, a second 

class of Langley Hall of Honor inductees, and the 

opening of a time capsule. The time capsule was buried 

in 1992 during Langley’s 75th anniversary and will be 

reburied with additional items during the centennial 

year. The final part of the celebration will be an open 

house for the public in 2017. During the open house, 

buildings will be open for tours and will feature a look 

at Langley’s past, present, and future.

Planning for the centennial events has provided an 

opportunity for many who have joined the planning 

teams to learn about Langley’s 100 years of contributions to the nation’s goals in aeronautics, space, and 

atmospheric science. Many times, the difficulty has 

been in choosing which stories to tell and which contributions to feature. Even as we at Langley pause to 

reflect on the accomplishments of those who came 

before us, we continue their work in making aircraft 

safer and more environmentally friendly, in studying 

our home planet, and in making the Journey to Mars 

a reality.

MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER 

(MSFC)

Huntsville, Alabama

By Brian Odom and Jordan Whetstone

The Marshall History Office recently teamed up with 

Marshall’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity 

and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, 

Alabama, to develop a panel discussion marking the 24 

September grand opening of the National Museum of 

African American History and Culture in Washington, 

DC. The panel, entitled “African-American Voices 

from Marshall Space Flight Center,” included four 

former and current Marshall employees and was 

moderated by Gerald L. Vines, director of the STEM 

Knowledge Center at Alabama A&M University. 

Included on the panel were Dr. Donald Frazier, Dr. 

Ruth Jones, Lewis Wooten, and Markeeva Morgan. 

Dr. Frazier retired from Marshall after holding the 

offices of Chief Scientist for Physical Chemistry and 

Deputy Chief Technologist. Dr. Jones currently 

serves as Mishap Investigative Specialist at the NASA 

Safety Center in Huntsville and is the second African 

American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics in the 

state of Alabama. Lewis Wooten is the director of 

the Mission Operations Laboratory at Marshall and 
21

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

previously served as payload operations director for the 

Spacelab missions and flight director of the Chandra 

X-ray Observatory. Markeeva Morgan is currently the 

Core Stage Avionics Hardware Manager for NASA’s 

Space Launch System. The panel discussed the importance of STEM education in the African American 

community, as well as the significance of the opening 

of a museum dedicated to African American history 

and culture. The event also included a ribbon-cutting and remarks by Alabama State Representative 

Laura Hall.

The History Office has also started the process of 

updating its Web site. One of the first important 

updates to the site was the development of a page 

devoted to Power to Explore oral history interviews. 

These interviews were conducted in the late 1980s 

and early 1990s during research for the book Power 

to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 

1960–1990, by Andrew J. Dunar and Stephen Waring. 

The interviews were conducted with Marshall managers whose time in service represented the years from 

the Saturn program to the Shuttle era, and the discussions cover diverse topics in between. According 

to Waring, a major goal of the interviews was to “get 

the perspectives of older Marshall retirees while they 

remained in good health” and “preserving memories 

of the Marshall Space Flight Center.” These interviews can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/centers/

marshall/history/power_to_explore.html.

In this photo, Alabama State Representative Laura Hall, center, cuts a ceremonial ribbon at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville on 24 September 

in celebration of the opening of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. She is joined 

by participants of the “African-American Voices from Marshall Space Flight Center” panel discussion held earlier in the day. From left are Gerald Vines, 

Markeeva Morgan, Dr. Ruth Jones, Dr. Donald Frazier, Lewis Wooten, and Loucious Hires, director of Marshall’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. 

(Photo credit: NASA)
22

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Over the last few months, several archival collections 

have been processed, one of which is the Uwe Hueter 

Papers. The German-born Hueter, as the son of an 

original member of Dr. Wernher von Braun’s rocket 

team, moved with von Braun to the United States 

in 1945. Hueter graduated from the University of 

Alabama with a degree in mechanical engineering and 

began work at Marshall in 1960, where one of his 

first assignments was working on a sound-suppression 

system for Saturn V testing. Later, he worked on the 

Skylab Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM), Spacelab, 

and the International Space Station. The Uwe Hueter 

Papers contain unique photographs of the ATM 

during its development from 1969 to 1971, as well as 

technical memoranda pertaining to the ATM.

In September, the History Office continued the process of transcribing and editing oral history interviews 

with members of the Chandra X-ray Observatory team. 

Among the subjects of those edited interviews are Dr. 

Martin Weisskopf, project scientist for Chandra; Dr. 

Harvey Tananbaum, former director of the Chandra 

X-ray Center; Dr. Roger Brissenden, manager of the 

Chandra X-ray Center and former flight director of 

the Chandra mission; Lewis Wooten, former operations manager for Chandra; and Dr. Belinda Wilkes, 

current director of the Chandra X-ray Center. Each 

interview provides great insight into the development 

of the observatory from its proposal in the late 1970s 

to launch and “first light” in 1999. These interviews 

are part of the Chandra Oral History Project and will 

eventually be posted on the Marshall Oral Histories 

Web page.

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS

NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM 

(NASM)

By Valerie Neal and Jennifer Levasseur

Harvard astronomer David Charbonneau delivered the fourth and final lecture in the 2016 Exploring 

Space series; his topic was “How To Find an Inhabited 

Exoplanet.” He argued for an armada of ground-based 

and space-based missions, including the Giant Magellan 

Telescope in Chile (with Smithsonian involvement) and 

the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

Cathy Lewis led a nine-day Smithsonian Journey to 

Moscow and Star City in Russia, as well as Baikonur, 

Kazakhstan, where the tour group witnessed a Soyuz 

launch carrying crew to the International Space 

Station. During the tour, she presented several lectures 

and narrated visits to training and simulation facilities, 

museums, and monuments related to the history of 

the Soviet/Russian space program.

David DeVorkin led a weeklong “Northern Lights” 

Smithsonian Journey to Iceland and presented lectures 

on the nature of aurorae and research methods for 

studying the Sun, solar wind, magnetosphere, and 

Sun-Earth connection.

NASM curator Cathy Lewis and conservator Lisa 

Young traveled to London to install William Anders’s 

Apollo 8 spacesuit at the Victoria and Albert Museum 

for their “Revolutions” exhibition.

The Smithsonian Digital Projects Office (DPO) team 

spent a week completing the first phase of high-resolution 3D digital scanning of the Space Shuttle orbiter 

Discovery. Three more weeks of scanning are scheduled during the fall and winter to accumulate the multilevel data that will constitute a digital model of the 

vehicle. Discovery is the largest artifact yet attempted 

for this process. This project follows the successful 

scanning and modeling of the Wright 1903 Flyer and 

the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia.
23

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

Michael Neufeld presented a paper titled “The Difficult 

Birth of NASA’s Pluto Mission” at the combined meeting of the American Astronomical Society/Planetary 

Sciences Division and European Planetary Science 

Conference in Pasadena, California. He then gave the 

talk as a colloquium at the Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Margaret Weitekamp participated in a panel discussion 

at TIFF Bell Lightbox, the year-round cultural organization that supports the Toronto International Film 

Festival. The event in Toronto, titled “Trek Talks: Space, 

Diplomacy and the United Federation of Planets,” 

featured a moderated discussion between Weitekamp, 

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and 

Star Trek screenwriter and director Nicholas Meyer 

about Star Trek’s depictions of diplomacy. She also participated in two presentations at “Mission: New York,” 

a Star Trek convention held in New York City, and a 

number of other events related to the 50th anniversary 

of the debut of the original Star Trek television series. 

The Smithsonian Channel aired a 2-hour televised documentary entitled “Building Star Trek” that featured 

Weitekamp, conservator Malcolm Collum, and the 

studio model of the starship Enterprise.

Three NASM Space History curators presented papers 

at the annual Artefacts conference, hosted this year 

from 2 to 4 October 2016 by the Science Museum 

in London. Artefacts is jointly organized by NASM, 

the Science Museum, and the Deutsches Museum 

(Munich). NASM presenters included Martin 

Collins, who gave the opening keynote address, titled 

“The Problem of the ‘Self ’: Museums, Materiality, 

Imaginaries...and Other Stuff (Users! Artefacts!).” 

Jennifer Levasseur discussed “When Seconds Count: 

Astronaut Personal Timekeeping Devices“ as part of a 

panel on questioning everyday objects, and Margaret 

Weitekamp presented “Teaching Visitors To Think 

Like Historians: The Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall 

at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum” 

as part of a session on museum users as historians.

2017 FELLOWS SELECTED

By Andres Almeida

Michelle Grisé, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, 

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). Her dissertation, a transnational project drawing on work in 

archives from Washington to Moscow to Islamabad, 

examines the evolving role of scientific development 

in Pakistan’s national development and national security planning between 1947 and 1990. The history 

of Pakistan’s space program, the Space and Upper 

Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), is 

central to this narrative. Michelle received her J.D. 

from the University of Michigan Law School and her 

A.B., with honors, from the University of Chicago.

Brian Conway, a doctoral candidate at Stony Brook 

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

Science Society (HSS) Fellowship in the History of 

Space Science. Brian is a Cold War historian with 

an emphasis on diplomacy, strategy, and decolonization. His dissertation, “Bread and Bombers: US 

Military Bases in Morocco, 1948–1964,” builds a 

narrative concerning the negotiations for American 

air and naval bases in Morocco during the 1950s and 

’60s. This work also forms a subset known informally 

as “base studies”: the examination of the strategic, 

economic, cultural, diplomatic, and other aspects of 

military bases on other nations’ soil. Brian has a B.A. 

in history from Providence College (1994) and an 

M.A. from Queens College (2010). He would like 

to relocate to Washington, DC, and finish his Ph.D. 

while working in the field of American foreign relations and diplomacy.

Greg Eghigian, associate professor of modern history 

and former director of the Science, Technology, and 

Society Program at Pennsylvania State University, is 

the recipient of this year’s NASA-supported Fellowship 

in Aerospace History offered by the American History 

Association. Greg will work on his upcoming book, 

After the Flying Saucers Arrived: A History of the Rise 

and Fall of the UFO and Alien Contact Phenomenon. 
24

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

The book will be the first 

to contextualize the rise 

and fall of unidentified 

flying object (UFO) and 

alien reports as a global 

phenomenon, argu -

ing that Cold War–era 

reports of UFO and alien 

contact originated from 

more complex cultural 

concerns and developments than previously 

believed. After the Flying 

Saucers Arrived will be 

the first English-language 

monograph on extraterrestrial contact by an 

academic historian since 

1975. Greg received his 

Ph.D. in 1993 from the 

University of Chicago.

AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY 

(AAS) HISTORY COMMITTEE

By Michael Ciancone, Chair

New Members

The AAS History Committee welcomes Rob Godwin 

to its ranks.

Ordway Award

The AAS Ordway Selection Panel has considered 

the pool of nominees for the 2016 Ordway Award 

for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. The 

Ordway Award is named in memory of Frederick I. 

Ordway III (1927–2014), 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) preparing and/or presenting 

exhibits; or 3) producing for distribution through 

film, television, art, or other nonprint media. The 

award is managed by the History Committee of the 

AAS. The recipients of 

the 2016 Ordway Award 

are as follows:

Chuck Lundquist 

(Archivist)

Toni Myers (Audiovisual)

Pat Rawlings (Artist)

Frank Winter (Author)

Emme Award for 

Astronautical Literature

The AAS Emme Selection 

Panel, chaired by Don 

Elder, has been busy this 

past summer reviewing 

titles submitted for consideration. After careful 

consideration, the panel 

has selected the following recipient of the 2015 

Emme Award: Monique 

Laney, for German Rocketeers in the Heart of Dixie: 

Making Sense of the Nazi Past During the Civil Rights 

Era (Yale University Press).

MUSEUM OF ART & HISTORY (MOAH)

By Cam Martin

A 70th anniversary exhibition of NASA aerospace 

art was on display from 13 August to 2 October 

2016 at MOAH in Lancaster, California, to celebrate 

the establishment of what would become NASA’s 

Armstrong Flight Research Center.

Armstrong’s Cam Martin served as the museum’s guest 

curator for “NASA Flight Research: Probing the Sky” 

and gave an hourlong lecture highlighting the highspeed flight research legacy of the 1946 NACA Muroc 

Flight Test Unit.

“NASA Flight Research: Probing the Sky”

In late 1946, 13 engineers and staff from the NACA 

Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia 

THE BOOK WILL BE THE 

FIRST TO CONTEXTUALIZE 

THE RISE AND FALL OF 

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT 

(UFO) AND ALIEN REPORTS 

AS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON, 

ARGUING THAT COLD WAR–

ERA REPORTS OF UFO AND 

ALIEN CONTACT ORIGINATED 

FROM MORE COMPLEX 

CULTURAL CONCERNS AND 

DEVELOPMENTS THAN 

PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED.
25

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

arrived at Muroc Army Airfield to establish what is now 

known as NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center 

(AFRC), participating in the first NACA transonic 

and supersonic research flights by the Navy’s Douglas 

D-558-1 Skystreak and the Air Force’s legendary Bell 

X-1 rocket plane. Just a year later, on 14 October 1947, 

Chuck Yeager flew his rocket-powered Bell X-1 over 

Muroc Dry Lake (now Rogers Dry Lake), making the 

first supersonic flight in aviation history. Today, AFRC 

is the primary hub of atmospheric flight research and 

operations in the United States, housing some of the 

most advanced aircraft in the world. Critical to carrying out missions of space exploration and aeronautical 

research and development, the Center continues to 

accelerate advances and make important discoveries 

in the fields of science, technology, operations, and 

testing. The Center also houses a fleet of piloted and 

robotic environmental science aircraft that support 

new developments in the fields of astrophysics and 

Earth science, fulfilling NASA’s goals of enhancing 

education, knowledge, innovation, economic vitality, 

and stewardship of Earth.

“Probing the Sky” featured artwork and sculptures 

borrowed from the Center’s collection, detailing the 

people and hardware that make up the vibrant history of aviation innovation in southern California. 

Featured works included exhibiting artist Robert 

Schaar’s painted portraits of the NACA/NASA 

pilots inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor 

on Lancaster Boulevard, as well as various paintings, 

drawings, and sculptures by artists known for their 

work in and about the aerospace industry. Schaar is a 

highly regarded portrait painter who is one of an elite 

group of artists composing the NASA Art Program; 

his work was included in NASA’s “Visions of Flight” 

program, viewed in museums worldwide. Schaar’s 

“Walk of Honor” portraits feature test pilots whose 

aviation careers were marked by significant achievements beyond one accomplishment. Dr. Robert T. 

McCall’s “The Apollo Story” is a suite of five original 

cold stone lithographs depicting the legacy of the 

Apollo Moon-landing program. The display incorporated many individual fine art paintings of classic early 

X-planes such as the Bell X-1, the Douglas Skystreak 

and Skyrocket, the Douglas X-3 Stiletto, and the 

Northrop X-4 Bantam. Shown together, these works 

formed a vivid retelling of some of the most significant 

figures and achievements in aeronautics.

MOAH is located at 665 West Lancaster Boulevard, 

Lancaster, California 93534.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN: 

EUROPE IN THE AGE OF SPACE

By Constanze Seifert, Freie Universität 

Berlin, c.seifert@fu-berlin.de

After half a decade of intense work, the Emmy 

Noether Research Group called “The Future in the 

Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life 

in the Twentieth Century” at Freie Universität Berlin 

organized their final conference. “Futuring the Stars: 

Europe in the Age of Space” was a three-day event 

organized by Alexander Geppert, Jana Bruggmann, 

and Tilmann Siebeneichner from 17 to 19 March 

2016.1 In 2010, the group set out to investigate the 

cultural history of outer space between the 1920s and 

the 1970s in order to gain a new perspective on the 

history of 20th-century Europe. The final conference 

featured 13 presentations that examined the ways in 

which outer space has been used in different, competing visions of the future. The group members and 

invited guests, many of whom had already taken part 

in earlier symposia, recalled their collective work on 

the historicizing of outer space.2

1 A more comprehensive version of this article can be 

found at http://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/

tagungsberichte-6621; for a detailed program and abstracts 

of all presentations, please consult http://www.geschkult.

fu-berlin.de/futuring.

2 Friederike Mehl, “Berlin Symposium on Outer Space and the 

End of Utopia in the 1970s,” NASA History News & Notes 29, 

nos. 2–3 (2012): 1–15; Katja Rippert, “The Sonic Dimension 

of Outer Space, 1940–1980,” NASA History News & Notes 30, 

no. 2 (2013): 17–20; Tom Reichard, “Battlefield Cosmos: The 

Militarization of Space, 1942–1990,” NASA History News & 

Notes 31, no. 3 (2014): 20–21.
26

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

In his introduction, Alexander Geppert (New York/

Shanghai) presented the group’s main findings and 

achievements. Having previously coined the umbrella 

term “astroculture” to analyze and mark interconnections between space-related products and their cultural 

significance, the conference revisited ongoing questions and challenges behind the conceptualization and 

periodization of the Space Age and the exploration 

of outer space in science and fiction. The selection of 

presentations was intended to address different case 

studies of political, cultural, technological, and transcendental aspects of space thought and spaceflight.

Investigations of the history of astrocultural places 

and the belief in technological progress were combined with questions regarding the visual history 

of the imagination and exploration of outer space 

on the conference’s first day. Correlating with 

the “Raketenrummel,” Katherine Boyce-Jacino 

(Baltimore) drew attention to the history of planetaria 

and the desire for a cosmic experience in the Weimar 

Republic. In contrast, Philipp Aumann (Peenemünde) 

encouraged critical reflection about the belief in technological innovation and the mythologization of the 

“Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde” as the birthplace 

of space travel. Following the institutionalization of 

space research in West Germany after 1945, Daniel 

Brandau (Berlin) showed how rocketry had lost its 

utopian characteristics by 1960. Subsequently, Robert 

Poole (Preston, England) emphasized the influence of 

space advocates like Arthur C. Clarke in encouraging public enthusiasm for space programs. Bringing 

the first day to a close, Jana Bruggmann (Berlin) and 

Natalija Majsova (Ljubljana, Slovenia) compared the 

influence of iconic space imagery on the rise of global 

self-awareness, focusing on the visual history of outer 

space from the 1880s to the 1990s.

The conference’s second day provided insight into the 

public reception of European and American space 

Shown is a group of “Futuring the Stars: Europe in the Space Age” presenters and participants. (Photo credit: Bernd Wannenmacher, Freie Universität 

Berlin, 18 March 2016)
27

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

projects. Ralf Bülow (Berlin) illustrated the spirit of 

the Space Age in West German television, recalling the 

first German space documentaries and the 1960s TV 

series Raumpatrouille: Die phantastischen Abenteuer 

des Raumschiffes Orion. Shifting the gaze toward the 

post-Apollo period, Tilmann Siebeneichner (Berlin) 

analyzed media coverage of the first Spacelab flights 

in the 1980s, showing how contemporary hopes for 

international cooperation collided with the American 

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). A concluding presentation drew attention to a new perspective on outer 

space history. Thore Bjørnvig (Copenhagen) provoked 

much debate with his concept of “outer space religion” 

as an interpretative tool for studying astroculture and 

different ways of extraterrestrial encountering.

Seeing the making of a globally imagined community 

and the planetization of Earth, a global consciousness 

concept coined in 1946 by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 

as a direct consequence of the classical Space Age, 

Geppert argued for a more global view of astroculture, 

space thought, and spaceflight. Bringing astroculture 

and the historiographies of the modern era together, 

Martin Collins (Washington, DC) suggested a more 

spatial and temporal demarcation. A concluding panel 

discussion examined the conceptualization and potential characteristics of a European Space Age from the 

interwar years through the post-Apollo period. This 

led to different perspectives and periodizations concerning the “transatlantic century” (especially by Molly 

Nolan, New York). Michael J. Neufeld (Washington, 

DC) drew attention to the ongoing expansion of space 

infrastructure and the “New Space Age,” while Dirk 

van Laak (Gießen, Germany) emphasized the lack of 

public support and enthusiasm in Europe since the 

1970s because a future in the stars could not prove its 

necessity to everyday life.

“Futuring the Stars” was an extraordinary end to an 

exciting project and uncovered new research directions, 

like the need for more close readings from other geopolitical areas and movements, as well as further studies about the rise of space powers in Asia. The group 

created a community of interdisciplinary scholars 

who contributed to de-exoticizing the study of outer 

space and integrating it into mainstream historiography. In addition to the due-to-be-reissued Imagining 

Outer Space, two forthcoming volumes will address 

astroculture during the conflict-ridden 1970s and its 

dystopian and “violent” dimension, thus completing a 

trilogy that documents the research group’s efforts and 

research interest over the past half decade.3 Their last 

symposium revealed an atmosphere of gratitude and 

strong mutual support among the participants.

3 Alexander C. T. Geppert, ed., Imagining Outer Space: European 

Astroculture in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, U.K.: 

Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); idem, ed., Limiting Outer Space: 

Astroculture After Apollo (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); 

Alexander C. T. Geppert, Daniel Brandau, and Tilmann 

Siebeneichner, eds., Militarizing Outer Space: Astroculture and 

Dystopia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Pictured is a “Futuring the Stars: Europe in the Space Age” conference 

poster. (Artwork by Goesta Roever, Freie Universität Berlin)
28

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

COMMERCIALLY PUBLISHED WORKS

By Chris Gamble

In the Footsteps of Columbus: European Missions to 

the International Space Station, by John O’Sullivan 

(Springer-Praxis, June 2016). The European Space 

Agency (ESA) has a long history of cooperating with 

NASA in human spaceflight; for example, the ESA 

developed the Spacelab module that was sometimes 

carried in the Space Shuttle’s payload bay. This book 

tells of the development of the ESA’s Columbus microgravity science laboratory on the International Space 

Station and the European astronauts who work in it.

The International Atlas of Mars Exploration: Volume 

2, 2004 to 2014: From Spirit to Curiosity, by Philip 

J. Stooke (Cambridge University Press, May 2016). 

Beginning with the 2004 landing of the Spirit and 

Opportunity rovers in 2004 and concluding with the 

end of the Curiosity mission in 2014, this second 

volume of The International Atlas of Mars Exploration

serves as a reference source on Mars and its moons, 

combining scientific and historical data with detailed 

illustrations to provide a thorough analysis of 21st-century Mars mission proposals, spacecraft operations, 

landing site selections, and surface locations.

The Future of Human Space Exploration, by Giovanni 

Bignami and Andrea Sommariva (Palgrave Macmillan, 

August 2016). This book analyzes the move toward 

planet hopping, which sees human outposts moving 

across the planetary dimensions, from the Moon to 

near-Earth asteroids and Mars. It critically assesses the 

intention to exploit space resources and how successful these missions will be for humanity.

Mars: Making Contact, by Rod Pyle (Andre Deutsch, 

Ltd., September 2016). This book offers a visually 

stunning insider’s look at how Mars has been explored 

and the challenges facing future missions. The book 

discusses the many challenges faced, from the design 

of the spacecraft to the physical and psychological 

impact of space travel on the human body.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space & Space 

Exploration: Discovering the Secrets of the Universe, 

edited by Giles Sparrow (Amber Books, July 2016). 

From the creation of the solar system to the Moon 

landings, and from the chances of life on other planets 

to how stars shine, this book investigates the cosmos 

and humankind’s efforts to understand it. Every spread 

is filled with artwork, photographs, data tables, and 

explanations of the workings of the stars and planets, 

moons, rockets, and satellites. 

All These Worlds Are Yours: The Scientific Search for 

Alien Life, by Jon Willis (Yale University Press, August 

2016). Long before space travel was possible, the idea 

of life beyond Earth transfixed humans. In this fascinating book, astronomer Jon Willis explores the 

science of astrobiology and the possibility of locating 

other life in our own galaxy.

NASA Saturn V Manual, by David Woods (Haynes 

Publishing, August 2016). Few launch vehicles are 

as iconic and distinctive as NASA’s behemoth rocket, 

the Saturn V, and none left such a lasting impression 

on those who watched it ascend. Developed with 

the specific purpose to send humans to the Moon, 

it pushed rocketry to new scales. Woods’s Saturn V 

Manual tells the story of how each of the vehicle’s 

three stages worked: Boeing’s S-IC first stage with a 

power output as great as the United Kingdom’s peak 

electricity consumption; North American Aviation’s 

troubled S-II second stage; and McDonnell Douglas’s 

workhorse S-IVB third stage, with its instrument unit 

brain—as much a spacecraft as a rocket.

The Ethics of Space Exploration, edited by Tony 

Milligan and James Schwartz (Springer, July 2016). 

This book aims to contribute significantly to the 

understanding of issues of value (including the 
29

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

ultimate value of space-related activities), which 

repeatedly emerge in interdisciplinary discussions 

on space and society. One of the volume’s aims is to 

promote a more robust and theoretically informed 

approach to the ethical dimension of discussions on 

space and society.

Principles of Nuclear Rocket Propulsion, by William J. 

Emrich, Jr. (Butterworth-Heinemann, August 2016). 

This book provides an understanding of the physical principles underlying the design and operation 

of nuclear fission–based rocket engines. Most of the 

book’s emphasis is on nuclear thermal rocket engines, 

wherein the energy of a nuclear reactor is used to heat 

a propellant to high temperatures and then expel 

it through a nozzle to produce thrust. Emrich also 

touches upon other concepts, such as the nuclear 

pulse rocket, wherein the force of externally detonated 

nuclear explosions is used to accelerate a spacecraft.

Historical Guide to NASA and the Space Program, 

by Ann Beardsley (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 

August 2016). This book contains a chronology, an 

introduction, appendices, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on space missions, astronauts, technical 

terms, satellites, Space Shuttles, and the International 

Space Station. This book is an excellent access point 

for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know 

more about NASA and space exploration.

Eyes on the Sky: A Spectrum of Telescopes, by Francis 

Graham-Smith (Oxford University Press, August 

2016). Four centuries ago, Galileo first turned his 

telescope to look up at the night sky. His discoveries opened the cosmos, revealing the geometry and 

dynamics of the solar system. Today’s telescopic equipment, stretching over the whole spectrum from visible 

light to radio and millimeter astronomy, through infrared to ultraviolet, including x rays and gamma rays, 

has again transformed our understanding of the whole 

universe. In this book, the author explains how this 

technology can be engaged to give us a more in-depth 

picture of the nature of the universe. Looking at both 

ground-based telescopes and telescopes on spacecraft, 

he analyzes their major discoveries, from planets and 

pulsars to cosmology.

Spaceman, by Mike Massimino (Crown Archetype, 

October 2016). Many children dream of becoming 

astronauts when they grow up, but when a six-yearold Mike Massimino saw Neil Armstrong walk on the 

Moon, he knew what he wanted to do when he became 

an adult. Eventually, he applied to NASA’s astronaut 

corps, but NASA rejected him. After he applied again, 

they turned him down because of his poor eyesight. 

For the next year, he trained his eyes to work better 

until finally, after applying for the third time, NASA 

accepted him, beginning Massimino’s 18-year career 

as an astronaut. In this memoir, he reveals the hard 

work, camaraderie, and sheer guts involved in the life 

of an astronaut. He vividly describes what it is like to 

strap yourself into the Space Shuttle and blast off into 

space, along with the sensation of walking in space, 

as he did when he completed a mission to service the 

Hubble Space Telescope. He also talks movingly about 

how it felt to step into the Space Shuttle again after 

the Columbia accident.

Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American 

Women Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot 

Lee Shetterly (William Morrow, September 2016). Set 

against the backdrop of the Jim Crow South and the 

civil rights movement, Hidden Figures recalls NASA’s 

groundbreaking successes through the experiences of 

five courageous, intelligent, determined, and patriotic 

women: Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine 

Johnson, Christine Darden, and Gloria Champine. 

Drawing on oral histories, personal recollections, interviews with NASA executives and engineers, archival 

documents, correspondence, and reporting from the 

era, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of scientific achievement and technological innovation with 

the intimate stories of five women whose work forever 

changed the world—and whose lives show how out of 

one of America’s most painful histories came one of its 

proudest moments. This American story will also be 

told in a soon-to-be-released feature film.
30

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of 

Other Worlds (Experimental Futures), by Lisa Messeri 

(Duke University Press Books, September 2016). In 

this book, Lisa Messeri traces how the place-making 

practices of planetary scientists transform the void 

of space into a cosmos filled with worlds that can be 

known and explored. Creating simulations on Earth 

of the terrain of planets and other celestial bodies is 

central to the daily practices and professional identities of the astronomers, geologists, and computer 

scientists Messeri studies. She takes readers to the 

Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station, showing 

how scientists transform Earth into a Martian place 

and use the Utah desert to create narratives of Martian 

exploration. At NASA Ames Research Center, she 

traces how scientists inscribe senses of place within 

digital maps of Mars. Messeri also joins scientists at 

Chile’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and 

in MIT’s labs as they discover exoplanets and combine 

telescopic data with their planetary imagination to 

capture both a planet’s past and future and what it 

would be like to visit and live there.

StarTalk: Everything You Ever Need To Know About 

Space Travel, Sci-Fi, the Human Race, the Universe, 

and Beyond, edited by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jeffrey 

Simons, and Charles Liu (National Geographic, 

September 2016). This beautifully illustrated companion to celebrated scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s 

popular podcast and National Geographic Channel 

TV show is an eye-opening journey for anyone curious about the complexities of our universe. Tyson’s 

pioneering, provocative book will take the greatest 

hits from the airwaves to the page in one smart, richly 

illustrated compendium. Featuring vivid photography, 

thought-provoking sidebars, enlightening facts, and 

fun quotes from science and entertainment luminaries 

like Bill Nye and Dan Aykroyd, StarTalk reimagines 

science’s most challenging topics—from how the 

brain works to the physics of comic book superheroes.

Blueprint for a Battlestar: Scientific Explanations 

Behind Sci-Fi’s Greatest Inventions, by Rod Pyle 

(Sterling, October 2016). From transporters to fully 

functioning androids, science fiction expands our 

imaginations, spurring us to think about what the 

future might hold. But what would it take to bring this 

fictional technology to fruition? Here, in an irresistible 

analysis, is the real science behind 25 inventions from 

the most popular sci-fi movies and TV series. Rob 

Pyle explains and dissects each concept—including 

time machines, warp drives, cyborgs, nanomachines, 

lightsabers, jet packs, exoskeletons, cloaking devices, 

and more—featuring 75 specially commissioned blueprint-style illustrations, as well as a center gatefold.

Sigma 7—The Six Mercury Orbits of Walter M. 

Schirra, Jr., by Colin Burgess (Springer-Praxis, June 

2016). Colin Burgess offers a comprehensive yet 

personal look at the 1962 orbital mission of Wally 

Schirra aboard the spacecraft Sigma 7. The book, 

which explores the astronaut’s life and accomplishments, continues the Pioneers in Early Spaceflight 

series, the volumes of which form an excellent record 

of Project Mercury’s groundbreaking early phase of 

the Space Age.

In this tightly cropped image, the NASA space shuttle Atlantis is seen in 

silhouette during solar transit, Tuesday, May 12, 2009, from Florida. This 

image was made before Atlantis and the crew of STS-125 had grappled 

the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)
31

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

How To Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, 

an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Space Flight, 

by Julian Guthrie (Penguin Press, September 2016). 

Julian Guthrie thought she knew about obsessive 

pursuits, but the XPRIZE race spurred another level 

of drama, sacrifice, and technical wizardry. With 

Peter Diamandis’ cooperation, Guthrie had access to 

all of the players—from Richard Branson and John 

Carmack to Burt Rutan—and has melded their stories into a spellbinding narrative, a combination of 

“Rocket Boys” (Homer Hickam) and The New New 

Thing (Michael Lewis). In the end, as Diamandis 

dreamed, the result was not just a victory for one 

team; it was the foundation for a new industry, including SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and others. 

Today, Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne hangs in 

the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum, 

above the Apollo 11 capsule and next to Charles 

Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis plane.

Waiting for Contact: The Search for Extraterrestrial 

Intelligence, by Lawrence Squeri (University Press of 

Florida, October 2016). Waiting for Contact tells the 

story of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence 

(SETI) movement, which emerged in 1959 as new 

technological developments turned what once was 

speculation into science: astronomers began using 

radio telescopes to listen for messages from space. 

Boosted by support from Frank Drake, Philip 

Morrison, and Carl Sagan, the SETI movement gained 

followers and continues to capture imaginations today.

Project Apollo: The Early Years, 1961–1967, by Eugen 

Reichl (Schiffer, September 2016). This volume, part 

of the America in Space Series, covers the early years 

of the Apollo program (1961–67). In a very short time, 

NASA developed the mighty Saturn rockets and the 

Apollo Command and Service Module and Lunar 

Module. This breathtaking development came at a cost, 

however: in 1967, astronauts Virgil Grissom, Roger 

Chaffee, and Edward White lost their lives during a test 

on the launch pad. Ten months after the catastrophe, 

however, the Saturn V, America’s Moon rocket, made 

its triumphal uncrewed maiden flight. After that, just 

20 more months would pass before humans set foot on 

another celestial body for the first time.

TIME Mission to Mars: Our Journey Continues, by the 

editors of TIME (TIME, September 2016). TIME’s 

special edition takes you inside the science and the 

debate of getting to Mars. This edition explores how 

American astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year on the 

International Space Station to measure the effects of 

prolonged space travel, the exciting technology being 

developed to make the journey to Mars, and conceptual plans for establishing a permanent settlement on 

the Red Planet.

LIFE The Great Space Race: How the U.S. Beat the 

Russians to the Moon, by the editors of LIFE (LIFE, 

September 2016). The Great Space Race is an epic 

drama filled with triumphs and tragedies, both technological and deeply human, that riveted the United 

States even as it seemed that the fate of the free world 

(perhaps even the world itself) hung in the balance. 

The book features rarely seen, exclusive photographs, 

reflecting LIFE’s insider access to the astronauts, their 

families, and their missions.

The Art of Flight, by John Watkinson (American 

Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, September 

2016). In The Art of Flight, part of the Library of Flight 

series, John Watkinson chronicles the disciplines 

and major technologies that allow heavier-than-air 

machines to take flight. He explains how airplanes 

actually fly via a qualitative understanding of the 

underlying process, rather than a heavy reliance on 

mathematics. After providing historical and technical 

background, the author in turn examines aerodynamics, the power plant, flight information, control, performance, surface effect, and more. The Art of Flight

will appeal to the technically minded reader who seeks 

a reflective, thoughtful introduction to the concepts 

that allow flight.

Disclaimer: The History Division wishes to thank volunteer Chris Gamble, who compiles this section for us 

every quarter. Please note that the descriptions have been 

derived by Chris from promotional material and do not 

represent an endorsement by NASA.
32

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA) will be held 5–8 January 2017

in Denver, Colorado. Visit https://www.historians.org

for details.

The American Institute for Aeronautics and 

Astronautics (AIAA) Science and Technology Forum 

and Exposition (AIAA SciTech 2017) will be held 

9–13 January 2017 in Grapevine, Texas. Visit https://

www.aiaa-scitech.org for details.

The 55th American Astronautical Society (AAS) 

Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium will be 

held 7–9 March 2017 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Visit 

http://astronautical.org/events/goddard for details.

The “NASA in the ‘Long’ Civil Rights Movement 

Symposium” will be held 16–17 March 2017 at the 

University of Alabama in Huntsville. Visit https://www.

nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/call-for-papersnasa-in-the-long-civil-rights-movement-symposiumuniversity-of-alabama.html for details.

The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) 

Spring Meetings will be held 21–23 March 2017 in 

Paris, France. Visit http://www.iafastro.org for details.

The annual meeting of the Organization of American 

Historians (OAH) will be held 6–9 April 2017 in New 

Orleans, Louisiana. Visit http://www.oah.org for details.

The annual meeting of the National Council on Public 

History (NCPH) will be held 19–22 April 2017 in 

Indianapolis, Indiana. Visit http://ncph.org for details.

The AIAA Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and 

Exposition (AIAA Aviation 2017) will be held 5–9 

June 2017 in Denver, Colorado. Visit http://www.

aiaa-aviation.org for details.

The Kenneth E. Behring National History Day (NHD) 

Contest will be held 11–15 June 2017 in College Park, 

Maryland. Visit https://nhd.org/kenneth-e-behringnational-contest for details.

The annual meeting of the Society for Historians of 

American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) will be held 

22–24 June 2017 in Arlington, Virginia. Visit https://

shafr.org for details.

The NASA Langley Centennial Symposium will be 

held 12–14 July 2017 in Hampton, Virginia. Visit 

https://www.nasa.gov/langley/100 for details.

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

Chief Archivist (Vacant)

Andres Almeida andres.almeida@nasa.gov

Editor 202-358-0044

Elizabeth Suckow elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0375

Robert Collom robert.b.collom@nasa.gov

Intern 202-358-0680

Nicholas Russo nicholas.p.russo@nasa.gov

Intern 202-358-2577
33

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

OBITUARIES

FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT AND 

SPACE MEDICINE PIONEER DUANE 

GRAVELINE DIES

By intern Robert Collom

NASA and the space medicine community lost a true pioneer on 5 September 2016 with the 

passing of Duane Edgar Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., at 

the age of 85. 

After medical school, Dr. Graveline completed an 

aerospace medicine residency at the U.S. Air Force 

School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio in 1960. 

He began his career with NASA after service as an Air 

Force flight surgeon; graduate studies at the Johns 

Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health; and 

work as a researcher at the Aerospace Medical Research 

Laboratory, where he studied the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Graveline’s research interest 

set the stage for the development and use of the Lower 

Body Negative Pressure device used on Mir and the 

International Space Station. Graveline was the author 

of 15 publications on the microgravity environment, 

which included original work on the deconditioning 

of astronauts after prolonged stays in space.

Duane Edgar Graveline

GRAVELINE WAS THE AUTHOR OF 15 

PUBLICATIONS ON THE MICROGRAVITY 

ENVIRONMENT, WHICH INCLUDED ORIGINAL WORK ON THE DECONDITIONING 

OF ASTRONAUTS AFTER PROLONGED 

STAYS IN SPACE.

Starting in July 1962, Graveline served on the flight 

control team for both the Mercury and Gemini programs. During this time, he was assigned as a medical 

monitor for every mission up until his own selection 

as an astronaut. In 1965, Graveline was selected from 

a pool of over 1,400 applicants as one of six scientist-astronauts in the fourth astronaut selection group. 

That summer, Graveline began supersonic jet training 

at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona.

Several months later, Graveline resigned from NASA 

and the astronaut program for personal reasons. He 

returned to his home state of Vermont and entered 

private medical practice. At the dawn of the Space 

Shuttle flights, Graveline served as the Director of 

Medical Operations at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) 

for the first four Space Shuttle launches. From 2003 to 

2005, he served as space medicine consultant to KSC 

in the area of cosmic radiation based on his research at 

the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Graveline is among only a handful of selected astronauts who never flew in space. He is also the only 
34

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

astronaut so far to hail from Vermont. Graveline’s 

passion for space and space medicine leaves a legacy 

for NASA and the space medicine community.

APOLLO-ERA HERO JOHN “JACK” 

GARMAN DIES

By intern Nicholas Russo

The space community lost a hero from the Apollo 

era when John “Jack” Garman passed away on 20 

September 2016 at the age of 72. He had held many 

positions at NASA, wrapping up his 34-year career 

in 2000 as the Chief Information Officer for NASA’s 

Johnson Space Center.

While Garman made numerous contributions to 

NASA during his long career, as well as after his retirement as a contractor and consultant, he will be forever 

renowned by the Agency for his pivotal calls on 20 

July 1969. Just three years after being hired by Johnson 

Space Center in 1966, the 25-year-old Garman found 

himself making a key decision during the incredibly 

intense descent of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, Eagle, 

to the surface of the Moon. Minutes before landing, 

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were surprised by 

...HE WILL BE FOREVER 

RENOWNED BY THE AGENCY 

FOR HIS PIVOTAL CALLS ON 

JULY 20, 1969. ... 25-YEAROLD JACK GARMAN FOUND 

HIMSELF MAKING A KEY 

DECISION DURING THE 

INCREDIBLY INTENSE DESCENT 

OF THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR 

MODULE, EAGLE, TO THE 

SURFACE OF THE MOON.

Jack Garman receives an award from Chris Kraft, director of flight operations in Mission Control, for his role in the Apollo 11 mission.

a computer alarm that they had never seen in their 

training. What did a 1202 alarm mean? (The unspoken question: should they abort the landing?) The 

alarm question came directly from Eagle to Steve Bales, 

guidance officer at Mission Control. Bales immediately called to Garman, who was working in the “back 

room” supporting him. In preparation for the landing, Garman had made a list of all of the computer 

alarms, and he knew immediately that a 1202 was just 

a warning that the guidance computer was temporarily 

overloading. The landing could continue. Garman’s 

preparation and clarity under pressure prevented an 

abort. Armstrong and Aldrin made history that day.

Garman was born near Chicago, Illinois, and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1966 with a 

bachelor’s degree in engineering physics. Hired directly 

out of college by NASA to work in the Flight Support 

Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center (renamed 

Johnson Space Center in 1973), he worked there until 

1986. He spent two years at NASA Headquarters 

in Washington, DC, as the Director of Information 

Systems Services for the Space Station Program. In 

1988, he returned to Johnson Space Center; he was 

named Chief Information Officer in 1994. In 2000, 

he retired from NASA and spent the next 10 years as 

a contractor still supporting NASA. Garman’s most 

notable accomplishment may have happened early in 

his career, but his lifelong dedication to NASA is an 

inspiration to all of us who follow in his footsteps.
35

Volume 33, Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2016

IMAGE IN NASA HISTORY 

A 1-inch scale model of a typical supersonic airplane design is examined before being installed for sonic boom studies in the 4-foot 

supersonic tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center ca. 1960. Pressure measurements are made in the tunnel up to 50 inches away 

from the model, simulating altitudes of up to 40,000 feet. (Photo credit: NASA)
CREATED AND PRODUCED BY:

Andres Almeida, Newsletter Editor

Lisa Jirousek, Editor

Michele Ostovar, Graphic Designer

Trenita Williams, Mail Coordinator

Carl Paul, Distribution

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