National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

IN THIS ISSUE:

1 From the (Former) Chief 

Historian

1 Well Suited

6 News from Headquarters and 

the Centers

13 Other Aerospace History News

14 NASA Headquarters Archives in 

the Time of COVID-19

16 Connections Between Poetry 

and Space

19 “Extra, Extra! All About 

X-Planes!”

22 Research Authorizations

25 Nieberding’s Missions to PostSoviet Russia 

FROM THE 

(FORMER)

CHIEF 

HISTORIAN

SEPTEMBER 2020

Longtime readers of NASA History 

News & Notes may realize that this is my 10th 

anniversary appearance on the masthead of 

our quarterly newsletter. It will also be my last. 

As of 1 August 2020, I retired from NASA. My 

19 years at NASA, 10 as Chief Historian, have 

been the fulfillment of a childhood dream, 

filled with challenges I never could have imagined, and a privilege beyond compare. But 

much as I have loved so many parts of this 

work, it is time to pass the baton to our next 

Chief Historian. During my Air Force and 

NASA careers, I have rarely kept the same job 

for more than 3 years at a time. A decade in 

one place must mean that I really loved the 

work, or that I’ve finally matured a bit—hopefully, it is a bit of both. As your (former) historian, I can’t help but note that there have been 

six Chief Historians in the 62-year history of 

our agency. So, 10 years also seems about the 

right tenure.

Of course, I was incredibly lucky to follow in 

such brilliant and accomplished footsteps. Our 

first Chief, Gene Emme, laid the foundation 

of the NASA history and archival program 

based (at least in part) on his experience with 

the Air Force history program. When Gene 

retired in 1978, after an amazing 19 years 

as Chief Historian, NASA turned to an Air 

continued on next page

WELL SUITED

By Sarah LeClaire

Nobody knows more about spacesuits than—or loves them as much as—

Bill Ayrey.

For over 40 years, Ayrey worked at ILC 

Dover, the prime NASA contractor for 

the design, development, and manufacture of spacesuits since 1965. He retired 

last year as both the manager of the Test 

Lab and the company historian. While 

most people would welcome the respite 

from work and spend their days on a faraway beach with a book and a beer, Bill 

Ayrey definitely isn’t most people. His 

newfound free time was spent writing 

Lunar Outfitters: Making the Apollo Space 

Suit, which tells the remarkable tale of 

the people and events that led to making 

these state-of-the-art garments.

What becomes evident in Lunar Outfitters

is what an unlikely choice ILC was for 

NASA. International Latex Corporation (ILC) was founded in 1937 by Abram N. 

Spanel in Dover, Delaware. Prior to their partnership with NASA, the company 

was known primarily for manufacturing bras and girdles made under the brand 

name Playtex. “ILC was definitely an underdog,” chuckles Ayrey. “NASA was 

accustomed to dealing with your [Northrop] Grummans and North Americans 

[Aviation Group] and these giant companies who employed tens of thousands 

of people. They had to find someone to make spacesuits and chose a small company with a couple of engineers who understood what continued on page 4
2

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

From the Chief Historian (continued)

Force historian again, bringing Monte Wright in from 

the History Department at the Air Force Academy. 

Monte’s relatively short tenure, 1978–82, spanned the 

lean support-budget years of the birth of the Space 

Shuttle Program and also overlapped with his successor’s term on the NASA History Advisory Committee 

(then a standing committee of the NASA Advisory 

Council). From 1983 to 1990, Sylvia Fries brought 

a new attention to the people behind the technology 

and forged wider partnerships with the historical community. Among other things, Sylvia established our 

long-standing fellowship agreement with the American 

Historical Association. Our fourth Chief Historian 

was the indefatigable Roger Launius—a person of 

such insight and productivity that he was eventually 

poached away by the National Air and Space Museum. 

However, that didn’t happen until he had completed a 

dozen phenomenal years (1990–2002) at NASA. I’m 

obliged to mention two things about Roger. First, he, 

like three of his predecessors, had a background as an 

Air Force historian. Second, Roger is the person who 

prompted me to look for a job at NASA as I was retiring from the Air Force in 2001. (Thanks, as always, for 

the advice, Roger.) In 2003, NASA lured astronomer 

and historian Steve Dick away from the U.S. Naval 

Observatory. Steve led the history program through 

the 50th anniversary of the Agency and also brought a 

new focus on the societal impact of NASA through a 

series of conferences and publications. Our fifth Chief 

Historian is also the only one of this august group who 

has a minor planet (6544 Stevendick) named in his 

honor. By the time I was selected as Chief Historian 

in 2010, my five predecessors had laid an incredible 

foundation and had established the NASA history 

program as an exemplar for history programs across 

the Executive Branch. They set an awfully high bar.

MY 19 YEARS AT NASA, 10 

AS CHIEF HISTORIAN, HAVE 

BEEN THE FULFILLMENT OF A 

CHILDHOOD DREAM, FILLED 

WITH CHALLENGES I NEVER 

COULD HAVE IMAGINED, AND A 

PRIVILEGE BEYOND COMPARE.

Yet I think the history team across NASA has done 

reasonably well in some (also) lean years. We have 

made significant strides in adapting to the new digital 

landscape that we all live in. Continuing the focus on 

expanding e-book distribution, our publications now 

reach an audience in the tens of thousands, rather 

than being limited to the couple of thousand copies 

we could afford to print. We’ve also built on the legacy 

of a huge web presence (started during the infancy 

of the internet under Roger Launius) by making our 

earlier titles also available in free, downloadable PDF 

format and, just last year, overhauling our website to 

make it both mobile-friendly and a place where we can 

make our archival materials more readily available to 

the public. We’ve also had pretty good success in the 

realm of social media, despite my skepticism. With 

over 2 million followers on Facebook and nearly a million now on Twitter, our team (thanks here go largely 

to our amazing interns) has made NASA’s history 

a relevant and daily part of the lives of people who 

might otherwise never have noticed. In a decade with 

many highlights, the thing that I am most proud of is 

our small assistance to author Margot Lee Shetterly 

and the production team of the hit movie Hidden 

Figures. The book and movie are gifts that keep on 

giving. My guess is that NASA (and other organizations) will continue to reap the harvest for years to 

come of young women and minorities who will see 

a powerful example of how they can put their talents 

to work in science and engineering (and history too, 

I hope) based on the example of this powerful story. 

From providing a welcoming archive where Margot 

could do her research to feeding the insatiable appetite for detail of movie director Ted Melfi, the history 
3

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

program made a number of small contributions to the 

Hidden Figures phenomenon. It was an investment 

well worth making.

A few years ago, when I first became eligible for retirement, I promised my boss at the time that I would see 

the history program through the 50th anniversary of 

Apollo 11 in 2019. Although I wouldn’t recommend 

retiring in the middle of a pandemic, this year also 

brought home the importance of spending time with 

my family. I am looking forward to doing more of that, 

getting back to flying on a regular basis, and finally 

tackling the long list of history research and writing 

projects that I have had to keep on the back burner for 

the last decade. The good news for NASA is that the 

history team is an incredibly strong one and is in great 

hands with acting Chief Historian Brian Odom. To 

whoever has the honor of serving as NASA’s seventh 

Chief Historian, I wish you every joy and success in 

caring for our amazing legacy and, especially, in taking care of the NASA history family. To everyone, as 

always, I wish you Godspeed.

William P. Barry, D.Phil.

NASA Chief Historian 2010–20

As a bookend, we are reprinting Bill’s first “From the Chief Historian” message from News & Notes, vol. 27, no. 4..

It is such an honor and a delight to be joining the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA) History Program Office. I have had a passion 

(some might say an obsession) with NASA and with 

history for as long as I can remember. In fact, the 

first thing I can remember is sitting in front of our 

black-and-white TV set and worrying about whether 

the heat shield would stay in place on John Glenn’s 

Mercury capsule during reentry. From that day, I was 

hooked on all things aerospace. Much as I tried to 

convince myself to become an engineer, it became 

apparent early on that my inclinations and gifts lay 

elsewhere. I am very much looking forward to putting 

those skills and my breadth of experience to work 

with you and everyone else who shares an interest in 

the history of aerospace. I am particularly pleased to 

be inheriting the post of Chief Historian from such a 

distinguished line of predecessors. The NASA history 

program is in great shape, and I am committed to 

maintaining its long-standing commitment to integrity and creativity in pursuing our task of collecting, 

preserving, and disseminating information about 

NASA and its role in our world. I would particularly 

like to thank Steve Garber, who has (for the second 

time) taken the helm for an extended period as Acting 

Director. Steve has done a remarkable job of juggling 

two full-time jobs, while simultaneously keeping a 

steady hand on the wheel as the History Program 

Office moved from the Office of International and 

Interagency Relations (formerly External Relations) to 

the Office of Communications. Thanks, Steve! As we 

get to know one another in the months ahead, I invite 

you to share your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions 

about the NASA history program. You can always 

reach me at bill.barry@nasa.gov, pick up the telephone 

and call me at 202-358-0383, or drop by room 5N17 

at NASA Headquarters. I am looking forward to hearing from you. Until then,

Godspeed. 

William P. Barry

Chief Historian
4

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

a spacesuit should be. ILC had to work hard to gain 

NASA’s confidence.” 

Well Suited (continued)

Bill Ayrey. (Photo credit: Bill Ayrey)

They did just that. The little company that could grew 

to almost 1,000 employees at the height of the Apollo 

program in the late 1960s, all working together to 

produce the garment that would be the difference 

between life and death for an astronaut. The spacesuit 

had to simultaneously be strong enough to protect 

from radiation and micrometeoroid impacts and comfortable enough to allow for a full range of motion 

while pressurized. It was crafted to be both an intravehicular activity (IVA) and an extravehicular activity 

(EVA) suit. The suits never failed. “The astronauts 

knew and had total faith in the people who made 

the suits,” says Ayrey. “To have that confidence when 

they were bouncing around on the Moon’s surface and 

falling down was critical.”

Unlike many companies of that time, their workforce 

was decidedly diverse. Spanel invested time and money 

in Delaware State University, establishing a program 

to provide the training needed for future employment opportunities at ILC to this predominantly 

black college. Their dedication to hiring, integrating, 

and promoting black workers to all levels was highlighted in the January 1961 issue of Ebony Magazine. 

Additionally, every single part of every Apollo spacesuit 

was expertly and meticulously stitched together by an 

all-female crew.

I first met Bill years ago when working as an intern 

at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum 

Archives. My project was to arrange and describe 

the ILC Dover collection of aperture cards and documents that he had donated. He was there to help 

the Conservation Department on the “Reboot the 

Suit” campaign to conserve, digitize, and display Neil 

Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit. One day, our paths 

crossed, and I asked him about his work. He replied 

with an infectious enthusiasm. Clearly, this was a man 

who loved his job and took obvious pride in ILC’s 

accomplishments. The stories he told me that day are 

captured in Lunar Outfitters.

One such tale was of an unusual yard sale. “ILC had 

such a great run through the Apollo program, but they 

put all their eggs in one basket,” says Ayrey.

By the time ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project] 

and Skylab came around in the 1970s, they 

were down to a skeleton crew because NASA 

didn’t need any more spacesuits. The Space 

Shuttle Program was coming, but that was 

still a few years away. As things wound 

down, the company found itself in financial 

straits because money wasn’t coming in. John 

McMullen [ILC’s Vice President] decided that 

they should get rid of the location in Dover 

and move everything down to the facility in 

Frederica, Delaware, in 1975. They had to get 

rid of a lot, so they had a yard sale of sorts. On 

a cold March Saturday in the parking lot of 

the Dover plant, they laid out all these surplus 

things they had, including a TMG [Thermal 

Micrometeoroid Garment] and multiple 

bubble helmet shells. People came flooding 

in. John [McMullen] told me that a woman 

bought a handful of bubble helmets for $5 or 

$10 each. She told him, “I’m going to put them 

over my tomato plants to protect them from 
5

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

the frost.” In the early 2000s, the guy who 

bought the TMG for $100 came to visit ILC 

and brought it with him. He asked me what I 

thought it was worth now. I laughed and said, 

“I don’t know what it would get at an auction, 

but I bet you could easily get $30,000.” I’d say 

he got the bargain of a lifetime!

Ayrey also writes extensively about the seamstresses 

who played such a critical role in ensuring the astronauts’ safety in the harsh vacuum of space. Roberta 

“Bert” Pilkenton was one of the best. Growing up, 

she was taught to sew by her mother and joined ILC 

in 1963. Once, days prior to Apollo 14, Pilkenton 

arrived at work to find a very atypical assignment. The 

engineers at Cape Kennedy determined that the knee 

convolute in one of the suits was showing signs of 

wear and tear and needed to be replaced immediately 

or else the mission could be scrapped. She was to 

fly to Florida to perform the delicate, complicated 

fix. Pilkenton was young, newly married, and had 

never been on an airplane before. Because this was 

a different time, she called her husband and asked 

permission. He flatly said no. Despite being terrified 

of flying and not wanting to upset her husband, she 

accepted the challenge, knowing exactly how much 

was riding on her decision. While there were other 

qualified seamstresses, she was the one that was asked 

for by name. Within the hour, she found herself on an 

airplane with a briefcase handcuffed to her right arm 

to ensure that she did not get separated from the vital 

components. She spent all that night and most of the 

morning hunched over the table at Kennedy Space 

Center’s suit laboratory. Bert Pilkenton saved both the 

day and the mission.

“I wrote the book because I could see that a lot of the 

folks who were retiring from ILC had no intention 

of writing their memoirs. After working with them 

for so many years, hearing their stories and being the 

big Apollo nerd that I am, I knew that these histories 

would be lost otherwise,” Ayrey explained. “Plus, no 

one to date had documented the technical details—I 

wanted to do so for current and future space enthusiasts and engineers. I had three file cabinets full of 

the original ILC files that luckily never made it to 

the dumpster. I had these hard facts in front of me, I 

had the anecdotes from the retirees who worked on 

Apollo and I put it all together. It had to be done. 

Nobody else had done this—to marry the technical 

data and the personal stories of the men and women 

who made it all happen.” And nobody else was as 

perfectly “suited” to do so as Bill Ayrey.

Bill Ayrey. (Photo credit: Bill Ayrey)

Lunar Outfitters: Making the Apollo Space Suits, by 

Bill Ayrey, was published on 6 October 2020 by the 

University Press of Florida.

This article was written from an interview and does not 

represent a sponsorship by NASA.
6

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

By Brian Odom

While COVID-19 has certainly impacted several aspects of our work in the office, one bright 

spot is the continuation and growth of our NASA 

History virtual “brown bag” talks. This series of online 

talks explores a variety of topics from across the space 

history field. These regularly recurring events, hosted 

on Microsoft Teams, bring the most recent scholarship and current research of aerospace historians and 

practitioners to the public free of charge.

Our first speaker this past quarter was Jordan Bimm, 

a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago’s 

Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge. 

Bimm’s 20 May talk, “A Push-Button Astronaut: 

Isolation, Confinement, and Vigilance in Pre-NASA 

Spaceflight Simulations,” explored a simulated, weeklong spaceflight conducted in February 1958 at the 

U.S. Air Force (USAF) School of Aviation Medicine 

(SAM). During the simulation, a young airman lived 

sealed inside a tiny, cramped mockup of a spacecraft 

with no contact with the outside world. In this experiment, the astronaut was not a pilot, but a lower-skilled 

passive systems monitor, similar to other push-button 

soldiers of the early Cold War.

The 24 June talk “Gateway to the Stars: Fundamentalism, Space Tourism, and the Cape Canaveral 

Bible Conference” was presented by Kari Edwards. 

There, Edwards, a Ph.D. candidate in history at the 

University of Mississippi, discussed radio preacher 

Carl McIntire’s quest to build a community called 

“Gateway to the Stars,” a fundamentalist Bible conference center on a large tract of land in Cape Canaveral, 

Florida. Since the earliest days of the space race, 

McIntire had preached a consistent message, positioning the fight against the Soviet Union for dominance 

in the heavens as a divine mission and NASA’s technological achievements as proof of God’s blessings on 

America. In her talk, Edwards convincingly argued 

that McIntire’s “Gateway to the Stars” community 

was a unique example of the often-precarious marriage 

between religion and scientific progress that characterized the Cold War–era American religious landscape.

This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Europa mission spacecraft, which is 

being developed for a launch sometime in the 2020s. (Image credit: NASA/

Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL]-Caltech)

Michael Neufeld, a senior curator in the Space History 

Department at the Smithsonian’s National Air and 

Space Museum, provided another lunchtime presentation on 15 July. In “NASA, the Search for Life and 

Missions to Europa,” Neufeld discussed the proposed 

NASA “flagship mission” Europa Clipper, a mission 

planned for a mid-2020s launch and intended to 

explore one of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. In 

his talk, Neufeld discussed the history of Europa science and the program’s long and tortuous path to 

an approved mission. He argued that without the 

rise of astrobiology and the life-bearing potential of 

the Jovian moon, it would have been impossible to 

sustain the necessary level of interest and expenditure. 
7

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

Neufeld also used the program’s development as a window into the politics of NASA planetary exploration 

in the 21st century.

Our most recent presentation was given by W. Patrick 

McCray, a professor of history at the University of 

California, Santa Barbara, and author of the forthcoming work, Making Art Work: How Cold War 

Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture

(Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] Press, 

October 2020). In his talk, “Frank Malina: Dreamer 

of Space, Engineer of Art,” McCray explored the life 

and artistic career of Frank J. Malina (1912–81), who 

was a preeminent rocket engineer, a cofounder of the 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a professional artist 

who operated out of a studio in Paris. In his talk, 

McCray argued that Malina’s career was an example 

of how art, technology, and science, often considered 

as separate spheres of creativity, sometimes intersect in 

the form of one individual’s life’s work.

The History Program Office will continue to offer 

these engaging programs over the upcoming quarter. 

Recent speakers and topics include the following:

• 25 August—William Causey, “John Houbolt: The 

Unsung Hero of the Apollo Moon Landings”

• 16 September—Jennifer Levasseur, “Through 

Astronaut Eyes: Photography from Early Human 

Spaceflight”

• 7 October—Kathryn D. Sullivan, “Handprints on 

Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention”

• 28 October—Bill Ayrey, “Lunar Outfitters: Making 

the Apollo Space Suit”

For further information on these talks or to be 

added to the NASA History Listserv, please contact 

Brian Odom at brian.c.odom@nasa.gov or Nadine 

Andreassen at nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov.

On the publication front, the History Program Office 

is seeing considerable progress on numerous projects. Chris Gainor’s excellent operational history of 

the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), entitled Not Yet 

Imagined, has now completed layout and is moving 

toward printing. Abundant stunning images produced over its 30 years of operations highlight the 

observatory’s decades of returns, and this edifying 

account of that history balances both the intricately 

complex operational efforts and the cutting-edge 

scientific returns.

Other forthcoming projects include the FY 2019 

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President, which 

will be available soon thanks to the History Program 

Office’s Cat Baldwin as well as Michele Ostovar and 

the team at the Communications Support Services 

Center (CSSC). Efforts are already under way to collect inputs for the report for FY 2020. Past reports are 

available at https://history.nasa.gov/presrep.html. Final 

touches are also under way on The Wind and Beyond: A 

Documentary Journey into the History of Aerodynamics 

in America, Volume III: Other Paths, Other Flyways,

edited by James R. Hansen and Jeremy R. Kinney. 

This long-awaited third volume to the series highlights 

how the “historical development of aerodynamics has 

always involved options, alternatives, and various ways 

of doing things.” Watch for this one soon as a NASA 

History e-book. With lots of other projects in various 

stages of production on topics ranging from a history 

of near-Earth objects to NASA’s Discovery Program, 

the next year looks to be a busy one.

WITH LOTS OF OTHER 

PROJECTS IN VARIOUS STAGES 

OF PRODUCTION ON TOPICS 

RANGING FROM A HISTORY 

OF NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS TO 

NASA’S DISCOVERY PROGRAM, 

THE NEXT YEAR LOOKS TO BE 

A BUSY ONE.
8

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Office Update

By Catherine Baldwin

We have been so lucky this summer and fall to have 

marvelous interns. Our two interns this summer were 

Michael Plocinik and Alejandro Pérez. Michael is a 

rising junior at Clarkson University, studying mechanical engineering, and Alejandro is a rising senior at 

Columbia University, majoring in Hispanic studies 

and poetry. They did a marvelous job through difficult 

times, working from home and handling quick tone 

shifts in social media to keep up with national news. 

It was exciting to have interns with such different academic backgrounds and interests. We wish them the 

best of luck as they go on to other pursuits. 

This fall, we are sharing our three interns with the 

Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS). Loren Stephens is 

a senior at Smith College studying astronomy; Felicia 

Ragucci is a junior at Dartmouth College studying 

English and literature with a minor in biology; and 

Jade Fischer is a senior at the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology (MIT) studying Earth science and 

American studies (double major) with a minor in 

physics. While they attend our meetings and write our 

social media, each intern is responsible for a different historical research project set by OCS. The topics 

include the Discovery Program, the Neutral Buoyancy 

Simulator, and the Great Observatories Program.

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By April Gage and James Anderson

After more than 73 years in a career devoted to public 

service, cutting-edge aeronautical research, and the 

promotion of NASA history, John W. “Jack” Boyd, 

Senior Adviser for History and Senior Adviser to 

the Center Director, has officially retired. This past 

19 August was not only Jack’s official last day on the 

job, but also his 95th birthday.

The Center collected text and video well-wishes for 

Jack that were shared with him on that day, as an 

in-person gathering to celebrate the occasion had to 

be postponed due to the pandemic. In addition to a 

flag flown over the U.S. Capitol Building that will be 

presented to Jack, congratulatory letters from Ames 

Center Director Eugene Tu and government representatives are also planned. Additional tributes are forthcoming. Knowing Jack, retirement will not slow him 

down and his valuable contributions as a living institutional memory and heart for Ames will continue.

In 1944, three years before Jack Boyd left his home state of Virginia 

for California and Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, he began studying for 

his bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering as a cadet at Virginia 

Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He would later 

tell the Langley recruiter that he did not want to go to Langley but 

preferred instead to go to Ames and see California for the first time.

Jack Boyd came to Ames from Virginia in 1947 as 

an aeronautical engineer. He distinguished himself 

in research that led to the conical camber and the 

development of canard configurations for application 

to supersonic flight. In 1965, Jack was awarded an 

Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Executive Development 

at Stanford University, and he later went on to serve 

as a Deputy Director at both Ames and Dryden 
9

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

(present-day Armstrong) Flight Research Center, an 

Associate Director and an Associate Administrator for 

management at NASA Headquarters, and the Ames 

Center Ombudsperson.

In 2008, Jack received the NASA Headquarters 

History Division Award. The award cited his “energetic outreach and promotion of NASA history and 

for making history relevant to NASA’s present and 

future.” Jack was instrumental in the establishment of 

the Ames History Office in 2003, and he has served as 

the Senior Adviser for History in addition to his role as 

Senior Adviser to the Center Director. Upon receiving 

the history award, Jack paraphrased a favorite quote of 

his, saying that “Historians never finish their work; for 

various reasons they simply abandon it,” as reported in 

the May issue of Astrogram from that year.

Meanwhile, Center historian James Anderson and 

archivists April Gage and Danielle K. Lopez continue work on multiple projects, including the two 

ambitious data collection projects Women of Ames and 

the Ames Research Center Response to COVID-19. A 

separate and complementary proposal has also been 

submitted to the Ames Innovation Fair by the Office 

of Communications. The proposal, titled Voices of 

Ames, is an internal oral history campaign that seeks 

to capture this historic moment from the point of 

view of the Ames workforce, documenting in their 

voices how their work and their lives have adapted 

and changed in the year 2020. This effort also intends 

to help enable the expansion of representation of the 

Ames workforce in our archives and, by extension, our 

Center’s future histories.

Another opportunity for filling in coverage in the 

history archives has arisen as a result of an effort 

under way in records management. The Ames 

Records Manager is undertaking a massive analysis of 

the Center’s holdings in the Federal Records Center 

(FRC) in preparation for processing them out of the 

FRC. This effort will include scheduling material in 

accordance with NASA’s Records Retention Schedule 

and ultimately obtaining authorization to either dispose of it or transfer it to the National Archives. By 

current estimates, the extent of the material is 8 to 10 

thousand cubic feet. The Records Manager is sharing 

documentation about the undertaking with history 

and archives stakeholders at the Center in order to 

provide the opportunity for those groups to also assess 

the holdings and identify portions to capture for local 

reference collections to support future research capabilities. Given the volume of records, the process of 

appraising, selecting, digitizing, and ultimately maintaining a subset of the material would be cost- and 

labor-intensive. The Center historian and archivists 

are working together to consider how to approach 

this task.

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By John Uri

The JSC History Office continues to operate in 

teleworking mode. New face-to-face interviews for 

the Oral History Project continue to be temporarily 

suspended, although the office has discussed the use 

of Microsoft Teams on a trial basis. Jennifer RossNazzal and Sandra Johnson continue to process transcripts from already-completed interviews to be able 

to add them to the JSC History Portal as soon as 

the interviewees approve them for release. During 

this time, the team is also taking advantage of opportunities to attend webinars and other training and 

enrichment events.

The JSC History Office is proud to announce that 

Jennifer’s book Making Space for Women passed a 

major milestone when the Texas A&M University 

Faculty Advisory Committee unanimously approved 

the manuscript for publication by the Texas A&M 

University Press. Using the oral history narratives of 

21 women, this pathbreaking work looks at women’s 

challenges and opportunities at JSC over the past 50 

years. Although much work still lies ahead, we eagerly 

anticipate the publication of this unique, important 

volume that will make a significant contribution to 

the field of women and spaceflight.
10

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

The JSC History Office continues to respond to 

numerous research requests from a variety of sources 

as the need for historical research appears unaffected 

by the pandemic. The team responded to requests 

from within NASA, such as the NASA Headquarters 

History Office, NASA’s Freedom of Information Act 

(FOIA) Office, JSC Starport Operations, and the 

International Space Station (ISS) Program Safety 

Office, as well as those from outside the Agency 

such as universities, academies, and museums. 

Sandra provided audio clips from oral histories to 

several requestors.

The History Office met with representatives from 

JSC’s Engineering Directorate to discuss preserving 

documents related to JSC’s Building 44. Possible ideas 

for collaboration discussed included pairing an intern 

with Engineering to preserve some papers related to 

Building 44 and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). 

Another approach, discussed with JSC’s University 

Affairs Office, might include funding a faculty fellowship for some of this work. We will continue to pursue 

this potential collaboration with JSC Engineering.

Jennifer participated in an interview to be published 

in an upcoming issue of the Society for History in 

the Federal Government’s (SHFG) newsletter, The 

Federalist. She also was interviewed by New Mexico 

Magazine about local places with a significant space 

history connection, including the White Sands Test 

Facility and Apollo astronaut training sites.

NASA Alumni League (NAL) JSC Chapter members presented an endowment check to UHCL. From left and behind the check are NAL representative 

Cyndi Draughon, UHCL Associate Director of Development for University Advancement Richard Zalesak, NAL representative Denny Holt, JSC archivist Mark 

Scroggins, and NAL representative Sylvia Stottlemyer. In front, holding the check, are Neumann Library Executive Director Dr. Vivienne McClendon and NAL 

representative Greg Blackburn. (Photo courtesy of UHCL)

On 22 June, NASA Alumni League (NAL) JSC 

Chapter representatives presented the University of 

Houston–Clear Lake (UHCL) with a check outside 

the Alfred R. Neumann Library to kick off a student 

internship to provide archival support for the JSC 

Collection within the UHCL Archive. Approximately 
11

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

20 years ago, JSC established a Space Act Agreement 

with the UHCL Archive to maintain custody of 

historically significant records accumulated by JSC’s 

History Office. The agreement provides archival space 

for the JSC records, provides public access for these 

materials, and lays out other requirements. UHCL’s 

processing of donated retiree records supplements 

the previous archival work completed on the various 

series, including Apollo and Shuttle. Beginning in 

fall 2020, the student intern will work alongside the 

UHCL archivists to formally process donations into 

the growing JSC Collection, along with responding to 

research requests. JSC archivist Mark Scroggins, who 

manages the Space Act Agreement with UHCL for the 

JSC History Collection, participated in the ceremony.

To capture the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic 

on the JSC workforce, our production coordinator, 

Sandra Johnson, continues to spearhead an effort to 

gather information in real time from the JSC community. By benchmarking efforts by several museums, 

universities, and libraries, the web-based content management system, still under development, will capture 

personal experiences, stories, and multimedia submissions provided by employees on the internal JSC 

Knowledge Management website. The information 

will be archived for future research and used as the 

first step in determining and preparing for a follow-on 

oral history project to capture how this unprecedented 

event affected people, processes, and procedures across 

the Center. We look forward to rolling out this project 

in the near future.

The JSC History Office continues to actively participate in an effort led by the JSC External Relations 

Office (ERO) to commemorate key moments leading 

up to the 20th anniversary of permanent occupancy of 

the International Space Station (ISS) on 2 November 

2020. Feature articles summarized extravehicular activities on the ISS; celebrated Flag Day with a look at the 

American flag flown aboard the first and last Shuttle 

flights and then stowed aboard the ISS for nine years 

while awaiting the next American spacecraft; remembered the first Shuttle-Mir docking during STS-71; 

and described preparations for the first ISS expedition 

during the summer of 2000, including the arrival of 

the Zvezda Service Module.

We continue to work with the JSC ERO to publish 

a series of articles commemorating other significant 

historical milestones, such as the 50th anniversaries 

of Apollo 14 and follow-on Moon landing missions, 

the 45th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project 

in July 2020, and the 40th anniversary of STS-1 in 

April 2021. The content is posted on the www.nasa.

gov website and JSC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

Select articles are posted on JSC’s Roundup Reads, and 

abstracts of the articles appear online in JSC’s Roundup 

Today. The features often highlight the anniversaries of 

less-celebrated events and people that were nevertheless important in the various spaceflight endeavors. 

We would like to thank history and archive personnel at other NASA Centers for their valued help and 

contributions to many of these products. We would 

especially like to thank Elaine Liston at Kennedy 

Space Center for her unending supply of Spaceport 

News back issues, uninterrupted by the coronavirus 

pandemic. In early August, we reached a significant 

milestone with the publication of the 285th article 

since the series began three years earlier.

MARSHALL SPACEFLIGHT CENTER 

(MSFC)

Huntsville, Alabama

By Brian Odom

At the Marshall History Office, work continues on 

multiple projects despite the significant impact of 

COVID-19. The telework status of the History Office 

staff has limited our ability to support some research 

projects. However, thanks to previous work digitizing 

important collections within the archives, limited support for reference requests has been possible.

Planning continues for the upcoming March 2021 

symposium—“NASA and the Rise of Commercial 

Space.” The successful return of SpaceX’s Crew 

Dragon carrying astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug 

Hurley for DM-2 serves as a reminder of the changing 
12

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

nature of space exploration. By exploring the long 

history of how we got to this point, the symposium 

seeks contributions exploring a range of questions 

including the following:

• How has the concept of “commercial space” evolved 

in different fields and disciplines?

• What have been the major events and milestones in 

the emergence and evolution of commercial space 

activities in the United States and internationally?

• How has the U.S. government assisted or impeded 

the emergence and evolution of the commercial 

space activities?

The planning committee collaborated with the 

editor in chief of NewSpace: The Journal of Space 

Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Ken Davidian, on 

an explanatory overview piece for a forthcoming issue 

of the journal. There, committee members discuss the 

key themes of the symposium as well as the evolving 

nature of how scholars and participants have defined 

what exactly we mean by commercial space. For more 

information on the symposium, visit the web page at 

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/nasaand-the-rise-of-commercial-space-symposium.html or 

contact Brian Odom at brian.c.odom@nasa.gov.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft is seen as it lands with 

NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard in the Gulf 

of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, Sunday, 2 August 2020. 

(Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Work also continues on the edited volume of essays 

entitled NASA and the American South. COVID-19 

has impacted that project by limiting the ability of 

some authors to access key archival collections—a 

common experience of many researchers over the past 

months. Emerging from the 2019 symposium of the 

same name, this collection of essays examines factors 

shaping the impact NASA has had on the South over 

the past 60 years and explores how that Southern 

“accent” has affected the development of NASA’s 

organizational culture, technology development, and 

programmatic goals. Despite the delays, editing for 

this volume should conclude by late fall.

This artist’s concept of the Lunar Prospector shows the spacecraft in lunar 

orbit. Instrument masts are fully deployed. (Photo credit: NASA)

In the archives, efforts are under way to develop 

new collections to support future research projects 

related to the Discovery and New Frontiers Programs 

such as Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource 

Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer 

(OSIRIS-REx); Juno; New Horizons; and many more. 

Started in 1992, the Discovery Program was intended 

as a complement to NASA’s larger “flagship” planetary science explorations with the goal of achieving 

outstanding results by launching a greater number 
13

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

of smaller missions using fewer resources and shorter 

development times. The purpose of those projects is 

to deepen human understanding of the solar system 

by exploring the planets, their moons, and small bodies such as comets and asteroids. Building upon the 

innovative approach of the Discovery Program, the 

New Frontiers Program missions tackle specific solar 

system exploration goals identified as top priorities by 

the planetary science community. The strategy is to 

explore the solar system with medium-class spacecraft 

missions that conduct high-science-return investigations that add to our understanding of the solar system. The archival collections being developed in the 

Marshall History Office will include documentation 

related to key decision points and program results as 

well as oral histories with project and program team 

members. For more information on the Discovery and 

New Frontiers Programs, visit the NASA Planetary 

Missions Program Office site at https://www.nasa.gov/

planetarymissions/index.html.

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS

AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY 

(AAS) HISTORY COMMITTEE

By Michael Ciancone

2019 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature 

The Emme Award, named for NASA’s first 

Chief Historian, recognizes outstanding 

books that advance 

public understanding of astronautics 

based on originality, scholarship, and 

readability. The Emme 

Award Panel, chaired by 

Dr. Don Elder, is in the process of 

reviewing submitted titles. Other members of the Panel 

are Dr. Rick Sturdevant, Dr. Jennifer Levasseur, and 

Dr. De Witt Kilgore.

International Academy of Astronautics (IAA)

History Series

The series editor, Dr. Rick Sturdevant, reports that 

the edited papers for the International Astronautical 

Congress (IAC) 2017 (Adelaide, volume editor: 

Michael Ciancone) are in the hands of Univelt. Univelt 

reports that they expect to complete work on the 2017 

volume by August 2020 and publish by October 2020. 

The edited papers from IAC 2018 (Bremen, volume 

editor: Hannes Mayer) are in work with the volume 

editor. Otfrid Liepack expects to provide Univelt with 

the edited papers from IAC 2019 (DC, volume editor: 

Liepack) by September 2020.

2020 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) preparation and/

or presentation of exhibits; or 3) production for distribution through film, television, art, or other nonprint 

media. The award is managed by the Ordway Panel 

of the AAS History Committee. Members of the 

Panel are Michael Ciancone (Chair), Robert Godwin, 

Dr. Valerie Neal, Ron Miller, Dr. John Logsdon (2019 

recipient), and John Noble Wolford (2019 recipient). 

The Panel is in the process of considering nominated 

candidates and plans to inform AAS Headquarters of 

selection(s) by September 2020.
14

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

NASA HEADQUARTERS ARCHIVES IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

By Robyn Rodgers

On the last day in the office, there was a fair round of cleaning and packing up. In a sense, it was a 

bit like going on vacation; one does not want to come 

home to trash not taken out, dishes in the sink, or 

laundry in the washer. Archival staff dusted shelves, 

wiped chairs and other flat surfaces, pulled plugs, 

sorted drawers, forwarded phones, and ran a visual 

inspection down every aisle and shelf in the facility. 

In case there is any truth to the movie Night at the 

Museum, some boxes received instructions about playing nicely with others. (Still looking at you, Mercury 

files.) Staff made notes about 

textual processing projects as 

reminders for where things 

left off. Precise disaster kit 

locations were memorized in 

the dark so that if something 

happened, I could verbally 

walk security to exactly where 

it sits. Somewhere along the 

line, we got the idea that we 

would be away for “something like a month-ish.” That 

was five months ago at the 

time of this writing.

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE 

LINE, WE GOT THE IDEA 

THAT WE WOULD BE AWAY 

FOR ‘SOMETHING LIKE A 

MONTH-ISH.’ THAT WAS 

FIVE MONTHS AGO....

In the early days, there was a lot of checking in. 

Checking on direct reports, checking on Center 

History staff, checking on local coworkers, and—yes—

checking on senior leadership because they are people, 

too. There were meetings—so many meetings. There 

were new patterns to learn regarding one’s bandwidth, 

household noise, pets, and other family members 

working at home. Those who have kids still in school 

faced unique challenges, too. There were lessons about 

your mic, other people’s mics, who is echoing and why, 

how webcams actually work, and that angles are not 

just an Instagram thing. I learned to put my laptop up 

on two thick books or folks got a fabulous view of my 

three chins. Introverts faced different challenges than 

extroverts, and some were surprised at what they were 

learning about themselves and their partners/housemates/pets/neighbors. As this way of working became 

the new norm, the checking in due to COVID-19 

became less necessary, but far more necessary for many 

other reasons. The year 2020 will not leave historians 

with nothing to do.

In early March 2020, when it became apparent that 

COVID-19 was going to cause a drastic shift in 

the way the government did business, information 

changed quite literally by the minute. Decisions made 

early in a meeting would shift 

partway through because a 

staff member brought something new in. Senior staff 

would leave a leadership 

briefing, and somewhere 

between the ninth floor and 

their office door, that information would change. All 

the notes they had sent via 

e-mail to their staff to start 

drafting were now only partially applicable, or nor at all. 

In the middle of the redraft, 

information and decisions reverted based on communications coming in from Centers, details released 

by public health officials, and decisions made by the 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM). To ensure 

that properly vetted information went out in a timely 

manner, drafts were started, abandoned, restarted, 

and then edited. Frankly, they had to have labels. To 

do otherwise just about guaranteed that superseded 

information would go out. NASA cares about people, 

and the reputation for veracity is vital. Public Affairs 

staff needed to do their utmost best to ensure that 

information was as accurate as it could be at the time 

of release. They were talking to the country. They were 

talking to their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and 

children. They were talking to themselves. It had to be 

as right as it could be.
15

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

In years to come, historians, researchers, and students 

will seek to answer the question “How did NASA react 

during the pandemic?” Each office, from the ninth 

floor down to the concourse level, has its own story 

to tell. The press releases, official statements, e-mails, 

and drafts only tell a small part of that. There are still 

program office records from across the Agency and 

peoples’ experiences that require consideration. Across 

the industry, archivists are doing something that contradicts many of our best practices: we are collecting 

in real time. While there are many opinions about 

it, it is happening. The federal government is still in 

COVID-19 response mode, so those efforts will continue for quite some time. There are going to be gaps 

and conflicting information, especially in the earliest 

days. Interviews will have stories that do not line up, 

even from people who were in the same meeting. Each 

Center has its own stories that will create the whole. 

There will be similarities and differences. There will be 

direct conflict. There will come a time where researchers working through a collection will be aghast that 

we didn’t retain something and that we “should have 

known!” They will likely be right, too. Archives and 

history reflect the human experience, and normally 

collection practices come with the benefit of the long 

view. We do not have that right now, which in itself 

is going to make for interesting professional research 

for future archivists. For now, we are working to get it 

right knowing that the informational labyrinth reflects 

the actual experience and tells a story of its own.

Exterior view of Mobile Quarantine Facility MQF-001, including the transfer tunnel. Credits: NASA
16

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN POETRY AND SPACE

By Alejandro Pérez, NASA History Intern, Summer 2020

PART 1: TRACY K. SMITH AND THE 

HUBBLE TELESCOPE

Floyd William Smith, the father of the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States, Tracy K. Smith, was 

an optical engineer who worked on NASA’s Hubble 

Space Telescope.

In her Pulitzer Prize–winning book Life on Mars, Tracy 

K. Smith explores her sense of wonder regarding the 

vastness and enigmatic nature of the universe: the 

same sense of wonder her father probably felt while 

working on the telescope.

Perhaps the most important theme in Smith’s book 

is the unknowability of the universe: how it is our 

home, but also something completely foreign to us. In 

her poem “My God, It’s Full of Stars,” she imagines 

that “space might be choc-full of traffic / bursting 

at the seams with energy we neither feel / nor see.”1

1 Tracy Smith, Life On Mars (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2011), p. 10.

She further expands on this idea that the universe is 

something we cannot fully understand in her poem 

“The Universe Is a House Party.” In the beginning of 

the poem, she writes that it is “the kind of party / your 

neighbors forget to invite you to,” and at the end of 

the poem, she says “it’s ours.”2

2 Ibid., p. 13.

 To her, the universe is 

a strange party because it is our own and also not. We 

belong to it but are not in control; we are a part of it 

but do not know how it works.

Through her writing, Tracy K. Smith demonstrates 

that the job of the poet is not that different from that 

of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space 

Telescope. Poetry, she suggests, is an attempt to question what we know and explore the unknown; it is an 

attempt to place ourselves within a larger landscape 

and try to make sense of who we are.

The discoveries of the Hubble Telescope have undoubtedly provided us with a better understanding of the 

space we inhabit. Thanks to it, we have discovered 

that there are at least 10 times more galaxies than 

previously thought, that most galaxies contain massive black holes, that the universe is accelerating and 

expanding, and that it is approximately 13.8 billion 

years old.

THROUGH HER WRITING, TRACY 

K. SMITH DEMONSTRATES 

THAT THE JOB OF THE POET IS 

NOT THAT DIFFERENT FROM 

THAT OF THE ENGINEERS WHO 

WORKED ON THE HUBBLE 

SPACE TELESCOPE. POETRY, 

SHE SUGGESTS, IS AN ATTEMPT 

TO QUESTION WHAT WE KNOW 

AND EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN; 

IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO PLACE 

OURSELVES WITHIN A LARGER 

LANDSCAPE AND TRY TO MAKE 

SENSE OF WHO WE ARE.

To this day, the telescope, which Floyd William Smith 

once worked on, is still active, orbiting Earth at a 

speed of approximately 5 miles per second, uncovering the secrets of our galaxy and beyond.
17

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

The brilliant tapestry of young stars flaring to life resembles a glittering fireworks display in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The sparkling centerpiece 

of this fireworks show is a giant cluster of thousands of stars called Westerlund 2. The cluster resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as 

Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 pierced through the dusty veil shrouding the 

stellar nursery in near-infrared light, giving astronomers a clear view of the nebula and the dense concentration of stars in the central cluster. The cluster 

measures between 6 light-years and 13 light-years across. (Photo credit: NASA, the European Space Agency [ESA], the Hubble Heritage Team [Space 

Telescope Science Institute (STScI)/AURA], A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team)

PART 2: NERUDA, WHEELOCK, 

AND WORDEN

Pablo Neruda’s book Memorial de Isla Negra, published in 1963, features a poem entitled “The Future 

Is Space,” possibly inspired by the space race taking 

place at the time.

In this poem, Neruda says that in our earthly life 

we are like fish in a suffocating river. Meanwhile, he 

claims that space is a removal from Earth’s oppressive 

and claustrophobic nature. For Neruda, space is an 

idyllic place because it is uninhabited; because all the 

streets, forests, and homes there are empty.

Neruda’s poem suggests that there is a clear connection 

between poetry and space. Just like the astronaut, the 

poet is driven by a desire to imagine other, possibly 

better worlds. And maybe the poet, writing alone 

in some far-off corner, free from every distraction, 

experiences a sense of solitude—a sense of freedom 

and bliss only comparable to that which an astronaut 

may feel.

Al Worden, a Command Module pilot on the 

Apollo 15 mission, wrote about his space travel in 

his poem “Rising from Earth.” In it, he writes, “We 

climb on plumes of thunder / Into a rising sun / And 

away from reality.”3

3 Al Worden, “Rising from Earth,” available at http://www.collectspace.com/resources/fallingtoearth_risingfromearth.html (accessed 

5 November 2020).

 With these verses, it seems as if 
18

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Worden is mirroring Neruda’s thoughts that space 

travel is a form of escapism, of leaving behind all the 

troubles of Earth. Also, in a similar manner to Neruda, 

Worden’s poem seems to celebrate solitude. He says 

that in space he is “floating in nothingness” and is 

“insignificant,” and that upon leaving Earth, “everything is suddenly right.”4

However, Worden’s space is not the idyllic place that 

Neruda imagined it to be. It is also a place of longing. 

Worden says, “Goodbye my friends / You are gone” 

and “Earth is floating aimlessly, serenely.” It is clear 

that even in space, Worden cannot help but miss his 

friends; throughout his journey, he keeps looking back 

at Earth, like a man moving out of the only home he 

has ever known, struggling to leave it behind.

Worden suggests that space travel is part escapism, part longing. And maybe writing a poem is 

4 Ibid.

the same—partly entering a different realm, partly 

remembering and clinging to the past.

Another NASA astronaut who has written many poems 

about his space travels is Doug Wheelock, veteran of 

mission STS-120, Expedition 24, and Expedition 25. 

To him, poetry and space go hand in hand because 

“[a]ll the great poets wrote from a sense of loss,” and 

space travel is filled with loss. Wheelock says that in 

space, “[y]ou begin to miss the sights and sounds and 

smells of the Earth.” And maybe in space, you are 

able to remember the smells and sounds that on Earth 

you barely even noticed, and maybe these memories 

lead to a desire to write. For Wheelock, “[e]veryone 

becomes a poet when they’re in space.”

Ultimately, what is clear is that poetry and space are 

not two opposite worlds that never collide. Their relationship is symbiotic. Space travel leads to poetry, and 

poetry finds inspiration in space.

On 24 June 2016, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams of NASA photographed the brilliant lights of an aurora from the International Space Station. 

(Photo credit: NASA/Jeff Williams)
19

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

“EXTRA, EXTRA! ALL ABOUT X-PLANES!”

By Michael Plocinik, NASA History Intern, Summer 2020

I

f you’re like me, and you’re passionate about airplanes, or aeronautics, or flying in general, then 

prepare yourself for (hopefully) one of the most 

exciting articles you’ll read this week. But, if your 

passions lie elsewhere, don’t worry—you’ll still learn 

some awesome history, and you’ll have some fun 

information for your next trivia night. I’ll be talking 

about a series of aircraft called the X-planes, and we’ll 

discuss how they’ve shaped our past and are framing 

our future. I’d also like to mention that for all my 

enthusiasm, I can only cover the tip of this subject’s 

iceberg, and this article is meant to be a fun overview 

and introduction, not a comprehensive fact sheet. For 

those entirely unfamiliar, allow me to “ex-plain” (get it, 

because, “X-plane” and “explain,” and, hah...oh, boy): 

the X-planes are a diverse group of aircraft engineered 

to explore and push the boundaries of aeronautical 

sciences. They’re also probably the coolest things to 

ever exist, but maybe I’m a little biased. Perhaps the 

epitome of my personal definition of the 

X-planes is the very 

first aircraft in the 

series, the Bell X-1.

The Bell X-1 was the 

first-ever crewed aircraft to achieve supersonic flight. I could 

bore you with the specifics of its design, but 

I think it’d be more 

fun to do a sort of 

thought experiment. 

Imagine a fairly large 

bullet. Now, add thin, 

straight wings to it. 

Put on a proportionally sized tail for stability. Hollow it out and 

throw a rocket engine 

into it. And finally, add a small capsule at the front for 

a tiny pilot to rest comfortably at the controls. Now 

scale it up to the size of a functional fighter airplane 

of the 1940s era, and there you have it: a Bell X-1 

supersonic aircraft.

The Bell X-1 supersonic aircraft in flight in 1947. (Photo credit: U.S. Air Force [USAF]/Lieutenant Robert A. Hoover)

This straightforward but effective design was especially 

clever for its simplicity. Instead of trying to design a 

completely new shape for speeds exceeding Mach 1, 

engineers modeled the plane after a 0.50 caliber round 

from a machine gun, which was already known to 

be stable when flying faster than sound. Similarly, 

backward-swept wings, like the ones we see on 

modern aircraft, were considered for the design, but 

straight wings were chosen because more was known 

about their behavior at the time. A rocket engine was 

chosen in part because air-breathing jet engines and 

propellers were not yet advanced enough to produce 

the desired thrust. Combining the body shape with 
20

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

the propulsion system (and not forgetting to add the 

wings!) resulted in an aircraft that not only shattered 

physical boundaries but also began one of the most 

revolutionary series of projects in aeronautical history.

Another aircraft that I believe embodies the spirit of 

the X-planes program is the X-14. Like all X-planes, 

the information we gained from the development of 

the X-14 has influenced major design choices since 

its creation (and if you turn your head and squint, it 

looks like it has giant nostrils, so that’s a fun bonus). 

This aircraft stands out to me in the array of X-planes 

because of its unique and almost sci-fi-like ability 

to take off and land completely vertically while still 

resembling a conventional aircraft. Let’s see how such 

a design can manage this feat.

As we can all imagine, a jet engine effectively produces 

a force in the direction it is “pointing.” Usually, the 

engines are fixed so that they “point” in one direction 

at all times. The generated force is large enough to 

push the aircraft forward, and the shape of the wings 

generates a force to lift the aircraft upward, and so the 

aircraft can accelerate on a runway and take off. But 

what if we could point some of that force in any direction we wanted without moving the engine? Could we 

push the airplane directly up, without needing a runway for takeoff? The X-14 answered that question. Its 

two engines were installed directly inside its fuselage, 

with the inlets centered on the nose. By using complex internal systems, the engines were able to create 

“vectored thrust,” which allowed the aircraft to push 

the force from its jet engines in different directions. 

In a couple of test flights, the X-14 demonstrated 

that vertically taking off, hovering, transitioning into 

forward flight, and vertically landing were all possible 

by carefully positioning these directed forces.

The Bell X-14B aircraft on ramp at NASA’s Ames Research Center on 

2 August 1971. (Photo credit: NASA/Lee Jones)

This accomplishment of engineering was achieved in 

the late 1950s, and its applications can be easily found 

today. Perhaps the most notable examples of “vectored 

thrust” are in our modern fighter jets, such as the 

F-35 series. The F-35 aircraft are some of the most 

advanced aircraft to date, and they feature practical 

vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities via a 

large fan and other outlets for directed thrust in their 

fuselages. F-35 aircraft routinely use this technology 

to land safely on oceanic aircraft carriers. Other modern aircraft use a similar technology to direct exhaust 

backward, creating “reverse thrust,” which can be 

useful for decelerating after touchdown while landing. 

Similarly, some aircraft direct afterburner exhaust by 

changing the shape of the cone-like nozzle to achieve 

tighter turns and steeper ascents. By experimenting 

with new concepts, the designers of the X-14 created 

an aircraft that looks like it has huge nostrils produced 

the potential for amazing future designs.

But while it’s nice to marvel at our successes, it’s 

important to examine our failures as well. And while 

the X-29 certainly was not a failure, we don’t see many 

aircraft like it nowadays for good reasons. We can all 

picture a modern passenger airplane, with the wings 

swept backward in a cool, aerodynamic fashion. Well, 

the X-29 experimental fighter aircraft was basically the 

living model of “hey, what if we did that...except in 

reverse?” The X-29 featured uniquely forward-swept 

wings, which were supposed to reduce aerodynamic 

drag, create a more efficient weight distribution, and 

allow for superior maneuverability. However, the 

design also came with a plethora of challenges, such 

as aerodynamic instability and additional twisting and 

bending forces.

While creating an aircraft with these disadvantages 

may seem counterintuitive, it was the perfect opportunity to test new technologies to compensate for the 
21

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

flaws. Newly conceived composite materials were used 

to construct the body to account for the twisting and 

bending loads. Advanced computerized systems were 

implemented to help maintain control and provide 

maneuverability despite the aircraft’s inherently unstable body shape. Most uniquely, vortex flow control 

(VFC) as a concept was tested in practicality. VFC 

isn’t what happens when you swirl your straw around 

in your chocolate milk to make that fun little whirlpool—instead, it is essentially injecting air into the 

vortices created by the shape of the aircraft. These 

injections would change the direction of vortex flow 

and “create corresponding forces on the nose of 

the aircraft to change or control the nose heading.”1

Successful testing showed promise and potential for 

VFC’s incorporation into future designs.

The Grumman X-29 experimental fighter aircraft in flight over California’s 

Mojave Desert in 1985. (Photo credit: NASA)

Despite the numerous tests conducted and advancements made, it was found that a forward swept-wing 

configuration did not demonstrate the reduced 

1 NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, “X-29 Advanced Technology Demonstrator Aircraft,” Fact Sheet, 5 November 2015, https://

www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-008-DFRC.html (accessed 5 November 2020).

2 NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, “X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator,” Historical Fact Sheet, https://www.nasa.gov/centers/

marshall/news/background/facts/x33.html (accessed 5 November 2020); NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, “X-34 Advanced 

Technology Demonstrator,” Fact Sheet, 28 February 2014, https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-060-DFRC.

html (accessed 5 November 2020).

3 NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, “ X-48 Hybrid/Blended Wing Body,” Fact Sheet, 28 February 2014, https://www.nasa.gov/

centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-090-DFRC.html (accessed 5 November 2020).

4 NASA, “X-59: Quiet Supersonic Flight,” https://www.nasa.gov/specials/X59/ (accessed 5 November 2020).

aerodynamic drag as earlier studies had theorized. The 

disadvantages of forward swept wings outweigh the 

benefits, and so designers usually take more conventional and practical approaches when creating modern 

aircraft. (In other words, backward wings look really 

cool, and we learned a lot, but “normal” wings just 

work a bit better in most cases.) The X-29 exemplifies an ambitious and curious design that, while not 

optimal for its original purpose, could be seen again 

in the future.

Authors could write endlessly about the history and 

contributions of the X-planes. I could say that the 

X-15 Hypersonic Research Program alone deserves 

pages about its contributions to aeronautics. I could 

say that each and every X-plane has made profound 

contributions—the technology tested in the X-33 

was used in developing future reentry vehicles, and 

the X-34 was supposed to demonstrate the capabilities of reusable launch vehicles, and so forth.2

 Or, I 

would love to write paragraphs about the X-48 and 

its attempts to create a blended wing-body as a model 

for futuristic airliners (okay, seriously, that one’s pretty 

cool; you should look it up).3 I could talk for an almost 

annoying amount of time about the X-59’s quieted 

supersonic boom and how my university has plans to 

make a small scale model to hang in the atrium of one 

of our buildings.4

I am running out of my allotted space, but I implore 

you to research more about the X-planes. If I’ve succeeded in my purpose of writing this article, then 

maybe you’ll give it a look. If not, then hey, at least 

maybe you’ll be able to help us finally win our next

trivia night.
22

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

RESEARCH AUTHORIZATIONS

By Robyn Rodgers

I

n a 15 May 2013 article in Langley’s Researcher News, 

“Through a Scanner Carefully: NACA’s Delicate 

History” (found at https://www.nasa.gov/centers/

langley/news/researchernews/rn_NACAScanning.

html), Jeremy Vann talks about some of the work 

required to take a single page of a National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Research 

Authorization (RA) file through to the scanner. “Just 

to even get to this document right here, I have to go 

through these staples.... Then there are these staples 

behind these.” At the time, Vann, now a Records 

Operations Analyst, was working to scan about 50 feet 

of the more than 220 feet of the National Advisory 

Committee for Aeronautics Research Authorizations 

from 1919 to 1952. Since then, the RAs have come to 

live at the NASA Headquarters Historical Reference 

Collection (HRC). There is a great deal of processing 

work for it, and in this time of working remotely, that 

cannot happen. With 220 cubic feet to process, a 

finding aid that spans over 250 pages, and that many 

staples, what is in the collection that makes it so worth 

the investiture of resources? What will the HRC do to 

make the collection into something that is not only 

purposeful but also functional in a way that users not 

only can use it, but also want to do so?

Jim Hansen’s book Engineer in Charge: A History of the 

Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917–1958 addresses 

that exact question. As he is a far greater writer than 

myself, rather than paraphrasing, I will let those words 

stand here on their own:

...[T]he single most important source for 

aeronautical history at Langley is the NACA 

research authorization files. These files permit the historian to recreate the entire NACA 

research procedure for a given project from 

the raw research idea through the final 

polished report.

The Historical Reference Collection at NASA Headquarters in Washington, 

DC. (Photo credit: Catherine Baldwin)

Government contracting is now its own profession, 

and today, “Statements of Work” define a project. 

Some consider these RAs the predecessor of that concept. In a sense, that is true, but there is so much more 

for a researcher to work with. Upon approval, the 

chair of the executive committee signed the authorization. In theory, that gives a researcher the sense 

that senior leadership had eyes on all the work going 

on. Hansen notes in chapter 2 that such approval 

was often a formality and there was great leniency in 

the process, with engineers going ahead with projects 

without approval in place. In itself, what sort of project 

was explicitly approved and what prompted managers 

to look the other way tells a fascinating story about the 

dynamics of the NACA, especially as the United States 
23

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

moved toward World War II (WWII). There are often 

handwritten notes in the margins that give evidence 

about what each link in the chain may be thinking 

about the project. That does not happen on today’s 

Statement of Work. Because a paper was expected out 

of the authorization, there was more attention paid to 

the administrative details such as title and numbering than there is today, because that information is 

used differently now. The sequential style of ordering 

makes it easier to see the bigger picture of priority and 

research directions. Finally, correspondence regarding the authorization stays in the file. Names of staff, 

especially those who do not always make it to the first 

page of Google, become discoverable, and one can see 

how those early names progressed up the ladder—or 

didn’t, depending on one’s gender, education, marital 

status, and ability to get one’s name on reports. These 

names, both unknown and known, become especially 

illustrative when examined against larger trends, such 

as post–World War I developments, the recruitment of very young talent, employment during the 

Depression, and the ramp-up to WWII. None of the 

RAs have been examined for this kind of storytelling. 

An example of this recruitment of very young talent 

is Frederick Norton, who at age 25 became Langley’s 

Chief Physicist.

Hansen notes that the RA files are not easy to work 

with, even with the administrative information intact. 

This is especially true when doing technical rather than 

social research. Much of this work was exploratory. 

The conceptual nature means that there was not a 

taxonomy in place and requires researchers to think 

differently about their search. In our keyword-driven 

society, that can be frustrating. For example, the 

word “aeroacoustics” emerged in the 1950s when jet 

engine noise became a field of study. In the RAs, that 

early information may or may not have a lead under 

“Sources of Noise in Aircraft” with nine separate files; 

“Developments of Noise-Making Device for Use 

on Dive Bombers,” with two files; “Investigation of 

Aerodynamic Characteristics of Noisemaker,” with 

three files—but one is empty; or “Investigations To 

Reduce Noise Emanations from Airplanes,” with 

five files.

As NASA goes forward with Artemis, it is easy to 

understand how the study of past work may inform 

future technology, but there is research potential 

beyond that. The NACA’s research focused on work 

intended for the use of others. For example, both the 

1933–38 research on “Resistance of Plates Coated 

with Ship Bottom Paint” and 1937’s “Experimental 

Investigation of the Problem of Surface Roughness” 

were of importance to the Navy during WWII, and 

they are still being discussed under the guise of 

frictional resistance and antifouling coating. As the 

NACA became NASA in 1958, the business model 

changed. Outside entities now engage in research and 

development for the benefit of NASA and its mission. 

This evolution comes via changes in politics, technology, and cost-benefit analysis, among other things. As 

the Agency carries out the mission and commercial 

space becomes even more of a norm, it opens the door 

for the questions of returning to the previous method 

of doing business.

FROM TECHNICAL, SCIENTIFIC, 

BUSINESS, AND SOCIOLOGICAL 

PERSPECTIVES, THE RESEARCH 

POTENTIAL OF THE RA COLLECTION IS BOUNDLESS, BUT NOT IF 

IT CANNOT BE USED, AND NOT 

IF PEOPLE CANNOT SEE THE 

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE 

PAST WORK AND THE FUTURE.

From technical, scientific, business, and sociological 

perspectives, the research potential of the RA collection is boundless, but not if it cannot be used, and not 

if people cannot see the connections between the past 

work and the future. In the aforementioned article 

about the collection, Gail Langevin notes that some 

research areas in the past stopped due to technology 
24

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

gaps, price considerations, or imagination. As technology has moved far past where those gaps occurred, 

researchers have an opportunity to connect all of the 

pieces together in a way that stimulates new ideas. 

Langevin uses the hybrid wing concept to explain. It 

was a popular area of study after WWII, hit a technology block, and was abandoned. Technology resolved 

itself, and researchers were back to testing a hybrid 

wing aircraft in the 14- by 22-foot tunnel in 2012; 

it was just a new kind of hybrid wing. In an effort 

to help researchers make these connections, archivist 

Sarah LeClaire has taken several disparate sources and 

created a fully text-searchable finding aid (available at

https://history.nasa.gov/rg-6_naca.html), available on 

the website under Record Group 6 National Advisory 

Committee on Aeronautics. As one of her first projects 

after coming on board, she took the several sources of 

information, all created by different people for different purposes, along with the handwritten notes, and 

(without Adobe!) created the finding aid. It is worth 

noting for future generations that this finding aid was 

created during the days of COVID-19 mandatory 

telework, so there may be small changes made once 

staff are able to return to on-site work. At approximately page 274, depending on how one’s screen 

parses, is appendix A. This is the “Assessment and 

Comments on Historical Value” on some of the very 

earliest of the Research Authorizations. The description gives a very detailed explanation of the earliest 

RAs. It had been part of the Milton Collection. The 

box numbers no longer match after rehousing, but the 

information is still very valuable.

By now, the question of digitization must be rattling 

about one’s head. At the time of this writing, there 

are several challenges to that idea. As former Chief 

Historian Bill Barry has noted several times in the past 

year, NASA does not have an electronic document 

management system in place to be able to support 

the preservation portion of digitizing this collection. 

Without that system, spending the money to digitize 

is wasteful because there is no platform to manage 

the description, access, or continued preservation of 

the files not just of this collection, but of all of them. 

In keeping with the construction analogy I am so 

fond of, the money is better spent on acquiring a real 

estate agent, the land, and a good contractor before 

buying shutters, paint, and the landscape company. 

The second challenge is that staff members are off-site 

and have been since March 2020; as of this writing, 

there is not a date when we will be back. In “Through 

a Scanner Carefully: NACA’s Delicate History,” Vann 

noted the physical mechanics of this work. The average age of this paper is 70 years old. Removing staples 

is a delicate task, especially if they were Navy issue, 

circa WWII. Those staples were serious, and there is 

a particular method to lifting them, which requires a 

steady hand, some patience, and a bit of vocabulary 

that would secretly make the Navy proud. Policy prohibits the removal of the documents from the facility, 

and best practices require specific environmental controls and line-of-sight security, among other things. 

Until all of those things happen, this collection will 

not undergo further digitization beyond what Vann 

accomplished.

REMOVING STAPLES IS A 

DELICATE TASK, ESPECIALLY 

IF THEY WERE NAVY ISSUE, 

CIRCA WWII.

This collection is something of which to be proud. The 

research value is immense, and not just to historians 

looking to document the past. This collection is the 

thing on which our Agency built itself, yes; it is also 

part of the thing on which we build our future. The 

material holds promise for today’s historians; science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) 

researchers; and students—but also tomorrow’s 

administrators, who want to know “how;” labs that 

want to know “if”; program offices that want to know 

“why”; and the public, who are entitled to know all 

of that.
25

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

NIEBERDING’S MISSIONS TO POST-SOVIET RUSSIA 

By Bob Arrighi

“It must be a slow day at the Center,” quipped Joe Nieberding as he stepped to the podium 

before a full auditorium of colleagues at NASA’s 

Lewis Research Center (now called Glenn) on 28 July 

1992. The crowd was anxious to hear from the veteran 

engineer and launch vehicle expert about his recent 

fact-finding missions to Russia, just months after the 

collapse of the Soviet Union. For the next 80 minutes, 

Nieberding discussed interactions with Russian space 

officials and shared personal video that provided rare 

glimpses into the former Cold War foe’s aerospace 

facilities and cultural sites.

Lewis would soon work with the Russians on several 

space programs, including the Spacebridge to Moscow 

telemedicine effort, microgravity experiments on the 

Mir space station, and the design of a new power system for Mir. The Center also led NASA’s interactions 

with Russia during the design of the International 

Space Station. The first exchanges, however, were 

Nieberding’s 1992 trips to Moscow.

Space Station Freedom option A showing two Soyuz Assured Crew Return 

Vehicle (ACRV) capsules docked at berthing ports. (Image credit: NASA)

WITH THE DISSOLUTION OF 

THE SOVIET UNION, WHICH 

CULMINATED IN DECEMBER 

1991, U.S. INSTITUTIONS 

RECOGNIZED OPPORTUNITIES 

FOR COLLABORATION.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which culminated in December 1991, U.S. institutions recognized opportunities for collaboration. At the time, 

NASA was struggling with the design and costs of 

Space Station Freedom (SSF). The early SSF designs 

included a safe area where the crew could shelter 

during emergencies until a Space Shuttle arrived. 

The grounding of the Shuttle fleet after the 1986 

Challenger accident, however, prompted NASA to 

pursue a “lifeboat” vehicle that would remain docked 

at the station.

In October 1991, Russia’s NPO Energia offered the 

use of its workhorse Soyuz TM stage, which performed 

this role on Mir. The Soyuz, however, would require 

significant modifications to meet U.S. requirements. 

During appropriations hearings in February 1992, 

members of Congress urged NASA to explore the 

Soyuz option until the United States could develop a 

larger rescue vehicle of its own.

Russian launch vehicles could not reach the SSF’s 

planned orbital inclination of 28.5 degrees, so it was 

necessary to determine the feasibility of launching 

the Soyuz from Florida using U.S. expendable launch 

vehicles or the Shuttle. The Agency issued a preliminary report in early 1992 based on available Russian 

documents, but additional data were required.
26

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

It was at this point that NASA sent Nieberding and 

a handful of other experts to Russia to obtain the 

information. As Chief of the Advanced Space Analysis 

Office, Nieberding was responsible for helping plan 

the Center’s roles in future space missions. In addition, 

he had 20 years of launch vehicle integration and 

trajectory experience with Atlas-Centaur and TitanCentaur programs.

With only a few days’ notice, the delegation traveled 

to Moscow from 20 to 25 March 1992 to assess the 

feasibility of pairing the Soyuz TM and its cargo version, Progress, with U.S. launch vehicles. Nieberding 

gathered information 

on the spacecraft’s propulsion system, power 

requirements, shroud, and 

trajectories from enthusiastic Russian counterparts. 

Yuri Semenov, head of 

NPO Energia, stated, “I 

didn’t find any questions 

[for] which our specialists 

cannot give you the right 

answer. And maybe it 

was a secret, but it is not

a secret now.” From the 

data, Lewis engineers created performance models 

that indicated that the 

vehicles could be paired 

with either Titan III or 

Atlas IIAS.

In June 1992, new NASA Administrator Dan Goldin 

and the head of the new Russian Space Agency agreed 

that space was an ideal venue to demonstrate the new 

collaborative relationship between the former rival 

nations. This led to the signing of a presidential space 

agreement that outlined future cooperation in space. 

In addition, NASA and NPO Energia formally initiated studies of the Soyuz as a rescue vehicle.

On 12 July 1992, Goldin and a contingent that 

included Nieberding and representatives from several 

U.S. agencies began a five-day Moscow visit during 

which Goldin signed an agreement to develop joint 

Earth observation and life sciences programs, use 

Russian networks to obtain data from Galileo, and 

plan future astronaut exchanges.

ON 12 JULY 1992, GOLDIN AND 

A CONTINGENT THAT INCLUDED 

NIEBERDING...BEGAN A FIVEDAY MOSCOW VISIT DURING 

WHICH GOLDIN SIGNED AN 

AGREEMENT TO DEVELOP JOINT 

EARTH OBSERVATION AND 

LIFE SCIENCES PROGRAMS, 

USE RUSSIAN NETWORKS TO 

OBTAIN DATA FROM GALILEO, 

AND PLAN FUTURE ASTRONAUT 

EXCHANGES.

Nieberding followed up his earlier Soyuz inquiries and 

reviewed Russian launch vehicles. Eager for business, 

the Russian firms promised reduced rates for hardware, 

launch services, and advanced test facilities. Between 

the tours and socializing, however, there was limited 

time to discuss the important technology questions. 

While grateful for the willingness of the Russians 

to share information, 

Nieberding was frustrated 

by the loss of precious 

time dealing with translations, cultural misunderstandings, and extended 

lunches. Nonetheless, 

the trip yielded valuable 

information regarding 

their vehicles.

A week later, Nieberding 

was back at NASA Lewis 

describing his travels to 

the assembled Lewis staff. 

During the March trip, 

he had taken 3 hours of 

personal video that was 

subsequently edited down 

to 60 minutes for the presentation. The video contained remarkable footage of key meetings, renowned 

veterans of the Soviet space program, the Star City 

training site, and the Mir Control Center. Nieberding 

also documented the Moscow subway, the Kremlin, 

and everyday life on the streets.

In October 1992, Larry Diehl and John Sankovic of 

the Space Propulsion Technology Division traveled to 

Moscow to further review Russian chemical engines 

and launch vehicles. Sankovic’s fluency in Russian 

expedited the talks. The Advanced Space Analysis 
27

Volume 37, Number 3 Third Quarter 2020

Office soon enlisted the services of a Russian-speaking 

Center librarian, Irene Shaland, and her husband, 

Alex. Shaland, who was well versed in both Russia’s 

language and ethos, served as a key interpreter and 

valuable liaison. She helped integrate the interactions 

with the Russians and created a class to teach Lewis 

personnel about Russian culture.

U.S. engineers generated 12 different designs for 

their own rescue vehicle between 1986 and 1995, 

but the lack of funding prevented any development. 

Meanwhile, NASA’s first Soyuz feasibility studies were 

completed in late 1992 and early 1993.

In February 1993, newly elected President Bill Clinton 

gave NASA three months to reinvent the space station 

with a significantly reduced budget and schedule. He 

also directed the Agency to explore ways to allow the 

Russians to launch their own laboratory and habitation modules to the station. As part of the redesign 

team, Nieberding focused on Russian launch vehicles, and Shaland facilitated the discussions during a 

Russian delegation’s three-week visit.

A White House advisory committee reviewed the 

proposals and selected a new design in June. Since 

the development of a U.S. rescue vehicle was stalled, 

they recommended using the Soyuz. Lewis trajectory 

analysis clearly determined that the station’s orbital 

inclination had to be aligned with that being used 

for Mir. The alteration of the station’s inclination to 

51.6 degrees permitted the launching of Soyuz and 

modules from launch pads in Russia but significantly 

degraded the Shuttle’s lift capability. NASA’s Soyuzintegration studies effectively ended, as there was no 

longer a need to pair Soyuz with U.S. launch vehicles 

or the Shuttle.

In December 1993, President Clinton announced that 

Russia would be a full partner in what was now called 

the International Space Station. An improved Soyuz 

TM-A was approved as the rescue spacecraft. In 1995, 

NASA pursued the use of the X-38 lifting body as a 

rescue vehicle. The effort was canceled in 2001, and 

the Soyuz continues to serve as the ISS’s lifeboat today.

Nieberding retired in 2000 after 34 years at the Center. 

He has since held numerous consulting positions for 

NASA and other agencies and formed Aerospace 

Engineering Associates with fellow NASA alumnus 

Larry Ross.

NASA HEADQUARTERS HISTORY DIVISION 

STAFF CONTACT INFORMATION

Brian Odom brian.c.odom@nasa.gov

Acting Chief Historian 256-541-8974

Nadine Andreassen nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov

Program Support Specialist 202-358-0087

Catherine Baldwin catherine.e.baldwin@nasa.gov

Editor 202-358-4397

Stephen Garber stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

Historian (on detail) 202-358-0385

Sarah LeClaire sarah.k.leclaire@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-1380

Jade Fischer jade.n.fischer@nasa.gov

Intern 

Felicia Ragucci felicia.ragucci@nasa.gov

Intern

Loren Stephens loren.stephens@nasa.gov

Intern
CREATED AND PRODUCED BY:

Catherine Baldwin, Newsletter Editor

Lisa Jirousek, Editor

Michele Ostovar, Graphic Designer

DOWNLOAD THIS AND OTHER RECENT 

EDITIONS OF NEWS & NOTES AT 

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

JOIN THE

NASA HISTORY 

DIVISION 

ONLINE ON 

OUR SOCIAL 

NETWORKS! 

Get short, timely messages and stay updated on a wide 

variety of topics by following @NASAhistory on Twitter.

Learn the history of NASA’s exploration of the universe 

and its many discoveries about our home planet by 

liking the Facebook page at 

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

Find our collection of great images from NASA 

history at NASA on the Commons on Flickr at 

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

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street SW 

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov