NASA History DIVISION

Office of External Relations

volume 24, number 3 August 2007

FROM

THE CHIEF

HISTORIAN

With the publication of a history of the Galileo 

project, the selection of authors for histories 

of deep space navigation (Andrew Butrica) 

and Cassini (to be announced shortly), the 

forthcoming publication of Doug Mudgway’s 

biography of William Pickering, and a major 

program jointly sponsored by the Science 

Mission Directorate and the History Division, 

we are well on our way to filling a huge gap in 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) history: the history of the Earth 

and space sciences. 

As a further step in this direction I have 

recently been discussing space science history 

in my Why We Explore series. The latest one, 

on Galileo, follows. Other essays in the series 

may be found at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_

pages/exploration/whyweexplore/index.html.

The publication in the NASA History Series of 

Michael Meltzer’s Mission to Jupiter: A History 

of the Galileo Project details another extraordinary voyage of exploration and highlights 

the trials, tribulations, and triumphs in the long 

process required for success in planetary science. The Galileo spacecraft was launched on 18 

October 1989, arrived at Jupiter on 7 December 

1995, and undertook its tour of Jupiter over 

the next two years. This Prime Mission would 

have been quite enough to declare success, but 

it was followed by the Galileo Europa Mission, 

which extended the spacecraft’s tour for two 

more years, until December 1999. During this 

time, the spacecraft studied not only Europa, 

but also other Jovian satellites, especially (and 

appropriately) the other “Galilean satellites” 

continued on page 3

Preview of William H. Pickering: 

America’s Deep Space Pioneer

NASA SP-2007-4113 

by Douglas J. Mudgway, NASA JPL (Retired)

Introduction

On the first day of February 1958, three 

men at the focus of an early-morning press 

conference in Washington, DC, held aloft a 

model of Explorer 1, America’s first Earth 

satellite, for the press photographers. In 

the public euphoria that followed the successful launch of Explorer 1, that image of 

William Pickering, Wernher von Braun, 

and James Van Allen became an icon for 

America’s response to the challenge for 

preeminence in space engendered by the 

Soviet Sputnik three months earlier, as 

well as a symbol for the dawn of the age 

of space.

The careers of von Braun and Van Allen 

have been covered elsewhere. This book 

presents a personal view of the life and 

times of William H. Pickering.

Pickering, von Braun, and Van 

Allen show Explorer 1 to the 

world on 1 February 1958. (GRIN 

Image GPN-2000-000478)

continued on next page

IN THIS ISSUE:

From the Chief Historian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Preview of William H. Pickering: 

America’s Deep Space Pioneer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

News from Headquarters and the Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Call for Fall Interns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Remembering the Space Age Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Annual NASA History Program Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2007 NASA History Award . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

New Online Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Calls for Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Upcoming Meetings and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Image in Space History . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
NASA HISTORY DIVISION

William Pickering was the Director of NASA’s renowned Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, from 1954 until he retired in 1976; he was recognized 

nationally and internationally for his significant contributions to the beginning of 

the Space Age and for the first robotic explorations of the Moon, Venus, and Mars.

Preview of William H. Pickering: America’s Deep Space Pioneer (continued)

Origin and Education

William Pickering was born in New Zealand in 1910 and received his primary and 

secondary school education there. Early in life, he developed an intense interest in 

science and technology—particularly the then-new technology of radio communication. He decided to become an electrical engineer and began a course in electrical 

engineering at the University of New Zealand. 

In 1928, a fortuitous family connection brought him to California, where he continued his electrical engineering studies at the then-new California Institute of 

Technology and quickly established himself as an outstanding student. A brilliant 

college career soon followed.

By 1936, he had earned a Ph.D. (cum laude) in physics and become a member of the 

Caltech faculty. In 1944, he became a professor of electrical engineering. 

Cosmic-Ray Research

At Caltech, Pickering worked under the famous physicist Robert Millikan as a 

researcher on cosmic-ray experiments, a relatively new field of physics at the time. 

He developed new electronic techniques for returning cosmic-ray data from highaltitude balloons to Earth. As part of Millikan’s team, he carried out extensive 

observations in India, Canada, and Mexico searching for the “latitude effect” in 

cosmic-ray intensity at high altitudes.

A succession of papers published in Physical Review, Review of Scientific Instruments,

and Reviews of Modern Physics reflect his work in this period. 

Guided Missile Development

During World War II, Pickering served as an electrical engineering instructor for the 

United States Navy at Caltech but in 1944, when Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

(JPL) was developing rocket propulsion systems for the U.S. Army, Pickering joined 

the workforce as a technical manager. He quickly established himself as an outstanding 

leader, and in 1954, at the height of the Cold War with the USSR, Caltech named him 

Director of JPL.

As Director of JPL, Pickering oversaw the development and testing of the U.S. 

Army’s first two Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile weapon systems, the Corporal 

and Sergeant.

And then, suddenly, the world changed. In October 1957, the first Soviet Sputnik 

startled the world with its blatant demonstration of Soviet supremacy in space. The 

United States was outraged and demanded a powerful response. 

Pickering led the JPL effort, which, together with teams led by von Braun and 

Van Allen, promptly set about answering the Soviet challenge. Eighty days later, 

on 31 January 1958, America’s first satellite roared into Earth orbit. It was named 

Explorer 1 and marked the beginning of the Space Age. Pickering, von Braun, and 

Van Allen became instant heroes and the darlings of the media throughout the 

free world.

continued on page 6
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

From the Chief Historian (continued) 

discovered by Galileo almost 400 years before. Aside from satellites, the Galileo 

spacecraft also studied the magnetic fields, particles, and atmosphere of Jupiter itself, 

notably with its releasable Atmospheric Probe. Even then, Galileo’s explorations 

were not over; its lifetime was further extended by the Galileo Millennium Mission, 

which ran from January 2000 through the end of mission operations in January 2003. 

Galileo’s destruction occurred by design when it was sent on a collision course with 

Jupiter on 21 September 2003 and burned up in Jupiter’s dense atmosphere. 

Galileo represented a new phase in the study of the outer planets. The Pioneer 

probes and Voyagers 1 and 2 together completed the preliminary reconnaissance 

of those gas giants. But Galileo undertook a much more systematic, in-depth, and 

holistic analysis of the entire Jupiter system, featuring close flybys of its satellites 

and intense study of its particles and fields. And even before the spacecraft reached 

Jupiter, it visited Venus and two asteroids, and it twice returned to Earth, observing 

a spectacular celestial crash along the way. 

The Space Shuttle Atlantis, carrying the 

Galileo orbiter and atmospheric probe, 

lifts off from Kennedy Space Center on 

18 October 1989. (http://solarsystem.nasa. 

gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ ID=2057) 

Like many spacecraft, Galileo had an extended and 

painful birth. The total mission, from launch to 

destruction, lasted 14 years, but the “Jupiter Orbiter 

Probe” project from which it emerged had begun 

another 14 years before launch. Funding was won 

from Congress in 1977, and the project was renamed 

Galileo the following year. The spacecraft was originally scheduled to be deployed in 1984 aboard the 

Space Shuttle, which would not fly its first mission 

until April 1981. Once deployed in Earth orbit, the 

plan was for it to be launched by a Centaur upper 

stage toward Jupiter. Meanwhile, in the early 1980s, 

the ever-watchful Office of Management and Budget 

proposed not only that Galileo should be canceled, 

but that planetary exploration should be halted and 

the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) shut down. All 

three made it through that crisis, and in December 

1985, the spacecraft was transported to Kennedy 

Space Center for launch on Space Shuttle Atlantis. 

The following month, in one of NASA’s tragic and 

memorable moments, the Space Shuttle Challenger 

and its entire crew were lost at launch. The Shuttle program’s return to flight would 

take almost three years. During that time, it was decided that the liquid-hydrogenfueled Centaur was too dangerous to take aboard the Shuttle and that a solid-fueled 

Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) would be used instead. Because of the lower thrust of 

the IUS, and in order to minimize fuel consumption, Venus and two Earth gravityassists (affectionately termed VEEGA) replaced the direct trajectory, greatly lengthening the travel time to Jupiter. 

Like its birth, Galileo’s journey was full of drama—as full as any of the ocean voyages in the Age of Discovery. Four months after launch, it reached Venus for the first 

gravity-assist. By December 1990, the spacecraft had returned to Earth for another 

gravity-assist. Several months later, the mission encountered a major problem: now 

that it was far enough from the Sun, mission controllers attempted to deploy its 

continued on next page 

3

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

From the Chief Historian (continued)

high-gain antenna, but to no avail. That meant data return would be severely limited. Engineers were forced to use the low-gain antenna, analogous to using a dim 

lightbulb in place of a powerful searchlight. Nevertheless, in due course and with a 

great deal of patience and ingenuity, 70 percent of the mission’s scientific goals were 

completed. In the midst of this problem, the spacecraft proceeded to the asteroid 

belt, where Galileo encountered Gaspra on 29 October 1991, capturing spectacular 

images. A year later it was back to Earth for its second Earth gravity-assist.

On 28 August 1993, Galileo was in the asteroid belt again, encountering Ida at a 

distance of only 1,500 miles. Among other surprises, images examined months 

later revealed a moon of Ida, later named Dactyl. Finally, Jupiter was in Galileo’s 

sights, but meanwhile, unprecedented events were unfolding at Galileo’s final destination. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had broken up, and from 16 to 29 July 1994, 21 

pieces of the comet collided with Jupiter, giving it a spectacular series of “black 

eyes.” Still 140 million miles from Jupiter, Galileo captured images nonetheless, 

even as most telescopes on (and orbiting) 

Earth were trained on the event from their 

much more distant vantage point. At the U.S. 

Naval Observatory, where I was working at 

the time, I recall our astonishment that we 

could see the dark splotches on Jupiter, even 

with small telescopes and from the middle of 

Washington, DC. A year later, at a distance of 

39 million miles from Jupiter, Galileo survived 

the most intense interplanetary dust storm 

ever recorded. At about this time, with 147 

days to go before arrival at Jupiter, the Jupiter 

Atmospheric Probe separated from Galileo 

and headed toward its destination in freefall.

By the time Galileo finally arrived at the 

Jupiter system in December 1995, the comet 

impact sites had dissipated. But the spacecraft had plenty to observe. On the day of 

arrival, the Atmospheric Probe plunged into 

Jupiter, slowed by drogue parachutes, while 

Galileo flew by Europa and Io. The spacecraft then settled down to its Prime Mission 

Orbiter tour, which consisted of 11 orbits of 

Jupiter. They were not normal orbits, but 

orbits that unfolded in a flower-petal pattern while maximizing scientific visits to the 

Jovian moons. Thus, the first orbit lasted 7 

months, culminating in a close encounter 

with Ganymede. Galileo visited Ganymede, 

Callisto, and Europa multiple times over the 

next two years as part of the Prime Mission. 

During the extended Galileo Europa Mission, 

the spacecraft also visited Io and mapped its cloud of charged particles and the density 

of sulfur streaming from Io’s erupting volcanoes. 

In the Vertical Processing Facility (VPF), the spacecraft Galileo is 

prepared for mating with the Inertial Upper Stage booster. Galileo was 

launched aboard the orbiter Atlantis on Space Shuttle mission STS-34, 

12 October 1989, and sent to the planet Jupiter on a journey that took 

more than six years to complete. (GRIN Image GPN-2000-000672)
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

Further observations of Io and Jovian system dynamics were made during the 

Millennium Mission extension, including the eruptions of Io’s Loki volcano, the 

largest and most powerful in the solar system. Europa proved no less fascinating, 

with its water-ice surface and large ocean lurking beneath. And the Atmospheric 

Probe results proved revolutionary. As Meltzer puts it, Probe data “made it necessary 

for scientists to revisit many of their beliefs about the formation and evolution of our 

solar system’s giant gaseous planets. Measurements of atmospheric composition, 

wind velocities, temperatures, cloud characteristics, electrical storms and elemental 

and molecular abundances painted a very different picture of Jupiter from what was 

expected.” Galileo found a turbulent Jovian atmosphere, complete with lightning 

and thunderstorms a thousand times the size of those on Earth. Distinct from the 

Pioneer and Voyager planetary flyby missions, Galileo was the first to orbit the giant 

planet and completed a total of 34 orbits by the end of its mission in 2003. 

Meltzer also makes clear how complex spacecraft development has become, not 

only in terms of institutions and technology, but also in terms of highly trained 

individuals interacting at many levels. The lead NASA Field Center for the project 

was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, with oversight from the 

Solar System Exploration Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA’s 

Ames Research Center developed the Jupiter probe that entered the planet’s atmosphere. NASA’s Lewis Research Center (now Glenn) in Cleveland helped design the 

spacecraft propulsion system and integrate the payload with the Shuttle. The Shuttle 

itself, as well as the astronauts, was under the jurisdiction of Johnson Space Center in 

Texas, while Kennedy Space Center provided the launch facilities. The Department 

of Energy provided the controversial plutonium-powered electrical generators for 

the spacecraft. Finally, the Galileo project involved international cooperation with 

the Federal Republic of Germany, which provided instrumentation, propulsion for 

the orbiter, and additional telemetry from the German Space Operations Center. 

Galileo the man would have marveled at Galileo the machine. And we should marvel, 

too, at what we can do and see in the new Age of Discovery. 

Further Reading 

Meltzer, Michael. Mission to Jupiter: A History of the Galileo Project (Washington, 

DC: NASA SP-2007-4231, 2003). Available for purchase from the NASA Center for 

Aerospace Information, 301-621-0390, or online at https://www.sti.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ 

ordersti.pl. This book is also available online at http://history.nasa.gov/sp4231.pdf. 

Steve Dick 



NASA HISTORY DIVISION



Preview of William H. Pickering: America’s Deep Space Pioneer (continued)

Deep Space Exploration

A few months later, in October 1958, NASA was established. JPL severed its connection to the Army and, while retaining its affiliation with Caltech, became a private 

contractor to NASA. Under the direction of NASA, and with Pickering’s leadership, 

JPL carried out NASA’s ambitious program for the exploration of the solar system, 

Moon, and planets.

Within its first decade, JPL-built spacecraft sent back the first close-up photographs 

of the lunar surface, while others journeyed far beyond the Moon to examine Venus. 

Later still, others returned the first close-up views of the surface of Mars.

Later in Pickering’s tenure at JPL, NASA’s programs called for even more complex 

space missions to carry out soft-landings on the Moon and on Mars. 

In all, during the period of Pickering’s directorship of the laboratory, JPL 

designed and conducted 16 lunar missions using Ranger and Surveyor spacecraft and 10 missions to Venus and Mars using Mariner spacecraft. All were 

high-risk missions, and not all were successful, but three Ranger missions, five 

Surveyors, and seven Mariner missions succeeded in achieving their 

full mission objectives.

Pickering was an eloquent proponent 

of NASA’s Apollo program in its early 

years, but he later came to criticize 

the diversion of funds to the manned 

program at the expense of unmanned 

exploration using robotic spacecraft. 

Technology Transfer

In the late 1960s, Pickering became 

interested in transferring space-age 

technology to the solution of prevalent problems in the civil sector. 

This was driven, in part, by his need 

to find viable alternatives for JPL’s 

unique technical resources in light of 

the dwindling congressional support 

for major robotic space projects. 

As a result of these efforts, many 

new, non-space-related projects ran 

in parallel with the ongoing NASA 

programs at JPL. These projects were 

funded, with NASA concurrence, by 

independent agencies. Projects in 

the fields of urban mass transportation, city government, education, 

law enforcement, and biomedics and 

solar energy are examples.

William H. Pickering receives the 1975 National Medal of Science 

from President Gerald R. Ford on 18 October 1976. (Presidential 

Library Photo B1907-17)
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

Although he saw some viable results, particularly in the medical field, Pickering 

was disillusioned by his overall experience with technology transfer as a successful 

enterprise for JPL. 

Management Approach 

Throughout his tenure as Director, Pickering’s relaxed, university-like management style came into constant conflict with the more rigid, civil service–like mode 

of management demanded by NASA for its time-sensitive programs. 

In the end, though, and despite initially turbulent beginnings, Pickering forged 

an enduring and remarkably productive relationship between JPL and NASA. As 

Associate Administrator Homer Newell said, “Men of goodwill made it work.” 

Pickering in Public 

As the director of a world-class establishment constantly in the media spotlight, 

Pickering became the voice, and the face, of JPL. In hundreds of speeches and 

articles, delivered both in the United States and internationally, Pickering gave 

voice to his vision for space, society, and education. 

His strong and widely disseminated advocacy for the space program and its 

benefits to humanity brought him an enormous amount of public recognition. 

Throughout his career, William Pickering received many prestigious honors from 

military, civilian, and academic organizations around the world. He was also a 

member of the National Academies of the Sciences and Engineering and very 

active in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). 

Business Enterprise 

Pickering retired as Director of JPL in 1976, and for several years thereafter, he 

assisted the government of Saudi Arabia in establishing an institute of advanced 

technology in that country. In later years, his concern for environmental issues 

led to the founding of a small company to manufacture wood pellets for domestic 

heating stoves, using pressure-treated sawdust. 

Return to His Roots 

Despite the fact that he built his career and reputation in the United States, William 

Pickering never lost touch with his New Zealand roots, and he made many highly 

publicized return visits. 

His sudden death in March 2004 was widely reported in United States and overseas. 

He was 93. 

Speaking at William Pickering’s memorial service, a NASA official said, “His pioneering work formed the foundation upon which the current program for exploring 

our solar system was built.” 

The Director of JPL described him as “one of the titans of our nation’s space program.” 

He was indeed. 

7

NASA HISTORY DIVISION



NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND

THE CENTERS

Headquarters 

Nadine Andreassen worked on logistics for the upcoming conference on the 50th 

anniversary of the Space Age, to be held in Washington, DC, 22–23 October 2007, 

in conjunction with the 50th anniversary meeting of the Society for the History of 

Technology (SHOT).

Colin Fries and John Hargenrader continue the ongoing task of scanning and adding the Current News collection to the database. Colin recently completed work on 

news articles from 2000 through 2002. John is currently scanning NASA Current 

News for 1991 through 1997 and is filling in gaps in our collection by scanning 

issues of Current News borrowed from the Headquarters Library. Colin and John 

also continue to work jointly to process a large, 40-cubic-foot collection of NACA 

material. Colin is processing the subject files and John the biographical files. John 

and Colin also share reference duties such as answering inquiries sent to the public 

e-mail account on the History Division Web site and assisting walk-in researchers. 

Additionally, they fact-checked several items for our office and Public Affairs, 

including captions for several chapters of a forthcoming NASA 50th anniversary 

publication, a Defining Events chronology, and an appendix to the 2005 Aeronautics 

and Space Report of the President.

Colin revised the NASA History Organizational Charts Web page by providing PDFs 

and editing hyperlinks. In April, Colin attended the annual NASA History Program 

Review meeting at Dryden Flight Research Center, and in June, he attended a two-day 

National Archives–sponsored workshop on “Disaster Preparedness and Response” in 

Baltimore, Maryland.

John is nearing completion of the preservation photocopying of all the old newspaper clippings in the human spaceflight files.

We welcome Elizabeth Suckow, who joined the NASA Headquarters History 

Division as a contract archivist at the end of May. She was previously employed 

as an archives technician at History Associates, Inc., in Maryland. Liz obtained a 

master’s degree in 20th-century American history and public history at American 

University and a bachelor’s degree in American history at Wisconsin Lutheran 

College (Milwaukee, Wisconsin).

Liz appraised 13 cubic feet of Code Z, Office of Policy and Plans, files and copied 

numerous items for inclusion in the Historical Reference Collection. She is preparing the official files for transfer to the National Archives and is describing in the 

database the chronological files that will be retained in our office. Liz also has 

assisted in answering a few reference requests.

Steve Garber completed his participation on a Source Evaluation Board team that 

helped select a new graphics contractor for NASA Headquarters. Now he is enjoying 
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

working with the new contractor team, Media Fusion and SAIC, which started in 

May. Steve also is very glad to have Abe Gibson, our summer intern, aboard. 

Abraham Gibson, a master’s student in history from Virginia Tech, is working as a 

part-time summer intern in the NASA History Division. He has quickly come up to 

speed and helped out on a variety of publications and other projects. 

Jane Odom continues to acquire and appraise new material for the Historical 

Reference Collection. The latest additions include microgravity and life sciences 

chronological correspondence files; external relations chronological files, books, 

and reports; and a collection of memos detailing technical observations on the 

Shuttle and Station. Jane appraised several cubic feet of material on Shuttle-Mir, 

as well as material donated by the Office of External Relations and the Office 

of Institutions and Management. She continues to answer reference requests and 

facilitates the entry of our international visitors into the building. An intern is 

working under her direction to describe former Administrator James Fletcher’s 

chronological correspondence files from the early 1970s. Jane is working with the 

information technology (IT) staff on a database change that will allow selected 

PDFs in the database to be published to an external Web site accessible to all. 

Ames Research Center (ARC) 

San Jose State University (SJSU) honored April Gage, archivist with the NASA 

Ames History Office. April’s Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) 

thesis, an oral history of the Freedom to Read Foundation, was named the outstanding thesis university-wide at the 2007 SJSU graduation ceremonies. The SJSU 

School of Library and Information Science is the largest accredited program in the 

country. April has recently been busy curating an influx of artifacts uprooted by the 

continuing movement of offices around Ames. 

Steve Adrian, an intern from the MLIS program at San Jose State University, completed the processing and a finding aid for the Alvin Seiff papers. Seiff and his work 

on atmospheric probes will be honored this summer with the first award of the Alvin 

Seiff Memorial Award by the International Planetary Probe Workshop. 

Chris Grech of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Stephen Rock 

of the Stanford University Aeronautics Department lectured at Ames on 31 January 

about the expedition to the debris field of the USS Macon, once stationed at Moffett 

Field, and about the remotely operated vehicle used in the expedition. 

Jack Boyd and Glenn Bugos are preparing two papers for presentation at the “Space 

2007” conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “What 

is a NACA-Style Organization?” grew out of a discussion held through the Space 

Portal at NASA Ames; other topics included how the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics (NACA) might serve as a model for their efforts to lend organizational and research support to the entrepreneurial space community. “Robotic Lunar 

Precursors to Apollo” will explore the Ranger, Surveyor, and Lunar Orbiter series of 

spacecraft and how, even though designed for scientific explorations of the Moon, they 

generated valuable engineering data to support the engineering of Apollo. 

continued on next page 



NASA HISTORY DIVISION

10

News from Headquarters and the Centers (continued)

Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC)

Curtis Peebles’s manuscript on the lessons learned from the X-43 program has 

cleared the export control reviewers and is on the next step toward publication. He 

has drafted an article to appear in the International Test and Evaluation Journal on 

satellite reconnaissance and the stabilization of the Cold War. In addition, he has 

begun work on a paper about the role of the aerospace industry in the growth of the 

Antelope Valley, a portion of the Mojave Desert that includes Rogers Dry Lake, site 

of Edwards Air Force Base and the NASA Hugh L. Dryden Flight Research Center. 

Later this fall, he is to present the paper at a conference sponsored jointly by the 

University of Southern California and the Huntington Library.

Peter Merlin has just completed his monograph on the design and development of 

the family of aircraft known as the Blackbirds, as well as the lessons learned from 

that process. The manuscript is now undergoing its own review for export control. 

He will now have a chance to focus on the archives again, until his next project is 

more narrowly defined.

Christian Gelzer has spent time working with classes of NASA Explorer School 

teachers during their initial training and induction into the program. He has begun 

the preliminary work on a history of the Center’s Flight Loads Laboratory, which 

he expects will develop into a monograph. Dryden’s Loads Lab played key roles in 

determining structural and thermodynamic loads sustained by aircraft flying at 

increasingly higher altitudes and speeds, beginning with the X-15. It was the capacity for testing thermal loads that set the lab apart from the few other loads labs in 

existence when it was first established, and the lab has expanded its capabilities to 

include nondestructive testing of composite materials commonly used on, and as 

major components of, aircraft. When he finds time, he continues work on his truck 

fairings monograph.

All three members of the history office were called upon as support personnel to the 

Outreach and Public Affairs office when the Space Shuttle Atlantis concluded STS117 at Dryden in June, as well as for the debut of the Stratospheric Observatory for 

Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) Boeing 747 a mere six days later.

Glenn Research Center (GRC)

Archivist Bob Arrighi (of RSIS) is working on the production of a number of 

materials capturing the history of the Altitude Wind Tunnel. Currently, a monograph, a short documentary, and a multimedia CD-ROM have been approved by 

Glenn Historic Preservation Officer, Les Main. Two interactive Web sites are also 

in the works for the Altitude Wind Tunnel. Bob will also be attending the “Cultural 

Resource Management” workshop at Glenn in August.

Archivist Nora Blackman (RSIS) continues to ready the collection for our move 

into new quarters in late 2007. Work on a large collection of Wind Energy Program 

Office materials donated by retiree David Spera will be the focus of the remainder 

of this year’s processing projects. In July, Nora addressed the issue of reappraisal of 

material in the archives as a panel speaker at the National Association of Archivists 

and Records Managers annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri. She also 

attended a workshop on vital records and several conference sessions on managing 

electronic records.
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

A greater understanding of the Center’s post–World War II land acquisitions was 

gained during Arrighi’s visit with Bob Boone and his guests in June. Mr. Boone’s 

father, a wealthy local publisher, developed the farm that bore the family name from 

1935 to 1951. Boone Farm was notable for its manor house, in-ground swimming 

pool, tennis courts, and riding stables. Bob and his childhood friend Gene Norris 

recounted tales of air races overhead, NACA property negotiations, and the general 

development of the area from farm land to federal laboratory in the late 1940s and 

early 1950s. The Boone Farm was purchased by the Guerin family in 1951 and then 

sold to the Center in 1957. Today it is known as “The Guerin House” and serves as 

an informal conference center. 

Johnson Space Center (JSC) 

Last fall, when talking with a former longtime JSC employee, the Johnson Space 

Center History Office learned about a series of Public Affairs Office (PAO) files 

that documented the Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab missions. These series included 

original transcripts from press conferences and briefings, change of shift briefings, 

technical briefings, and other related events that spanned from the beginning to the 

end of each mission during those time periods. After a number of phone calls and 

e-mail inquiries, their search led them to the PAO Vault housed in Building 2, which 

was about to be vacated due to the building’s refurbishment. 

Knowing that the contents of the entire vault would be boxed and inaccessible for 

an unspecified time, the History Office talked to PAO and offered to pack up the 

collection of transcript folders, as well as a number of other selected materials, and 

agreed to prepare these documents for electronic conversion and future preservation. JSC Archivist Mark Scroggins had the 16 large boxes of documents transferred 

to Building 412, the JSC Archives Repository, to wait for processing. 

The History Office requested and received two college students to work as history 

research interns for the summer. The history staff compiled instructions for the 

students and trained them to prepare the documents for conversion and future 

historic preservation. The students also conducted a series of electronic searches 

to ensure that the materials had not been previously scanned. After the conversion 

has been completed, the materials will be returned to and housed in Building 412 

until the PAO Vault reopens. The History Office and JSC Archivist will be reviewing the electronic contents to recommend sections to be added to the JSC History 

Portal for Web access. 

The JSC History Office team continues to interview individuals for the NASA at 50 

Oral History Project, sponsored by the NASA Headquarters History Office, and for 

the NASA JSC Oral History Project. They are also assisting with a project to collect 

information through oral history for a proposed book reflecting on the accomplishments of the Space Shuttle Program. 

The History Office at the NASA Johnson Space Center received a unique honor 

earlier this year when Rebecca Wright, History Coordinator, was awarded the Silver 

Snoopy. During a surprise ceremony held at the Houston Center, astronaut Barbara 

Morgan expressed appreciation for Wright’s outstanding support of the space program through her work with the JSC History Office and the Oral History Project. 

continued on next page 

11

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

12

News from Headquarters and the Centers (continued)

The Silver Snoopy is a NASA Space Flight Awareness (SFA) award personally 

presented by a member of the astronaut corps since it represents the astronauts’ own 

recognition of excellence. In keeping with the tradition of presenting the award as a 

surprise, Morgan and a contingent of Rebecca’s coworkers, colleagues, and family 

members interrupted a meeting to make this presentation. 

In her remarks, Morgan said, “Your commitment to NASA and your tireless 

efforts to record and preserve the accomplishments and the spirit of the Agency 

have earned you the respect, admiration, and gratitude of your colleagues at virtually every Center and every office you have visited in your pursuits. 

“As a driving force behind JSC and Headquarters Oral History Projects, you have 

captured for posterity the knowledge, wisdom, anecdotes, and witticisms of the 

leaders of America’s space programs from the days of NACA through the tragedy of 

Columbia and the Return to Flight. In addition to far-ranging technical understanding, your illumination of the human side of spaceflight—so inspiring but so difficult 

to capture in traditional texts—has produced a priceless treasure trove of information that will be mined by scholars, 

engineers, and budding astronauts for 

generations to come,” she said.

She also added that the award is a “testimony to your expertise and skill that 

you and the members of your team are 

recognized throughout the Agency for the 

quality of the work that you do,” providing the opportunity for Rebecca to recognize her two team members, Sandra 

Johnson and Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, for 

their significant contributions to NASA’s 

history program. 

Also participating in the award presentation 

was Duane Ross, Head of the Astronaut 

Selection Office, who was instrumental in 

the implementation of the JSC Oral History 

Project and has served as a senior adviser 

to the History Office staff for more than 

10 years. 

During the ceremony, Morgan took the opportunity to share with those attending the 

history of the Silver Snoopy Award and explained that the pin being awarded had been 

aboard STS-103 during its mission from 19 to 27 December 1999, allowing “this Snoopy 

to log 3.25 million miles in space.” Along with the pin, Wright received a letter of commendation and a signed certificate.

Rebecca Wright began leading the JSC Oral History Project soon after it was 

created, and the continual efforts from this project have resulted in more than 

1,150 hours of audio recordings from 550 individuals. The project, ongoing since 

mid-1996, gathers at least 30 new interviews a year and posts the transcripts to the 

Center’s History Portal (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history). Other projects conducted 

Rebecca Wright (center), History Coordinator at Johnson 

Space Center, received the Silver Snoopy Award during a 

surprise ceremony in Houston. Presenting the award were 

astronaut Barbara Morgan (left), Educator Astronaut and 

mission specialist for STS-118, and Duane Ross, who has 

served as a senior adviser to the JSC History Office for more 

than a decade.
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

by the team have included those for the history of Shuttle-Mir and the Columbia 

Recovery Project. Also, for the NASA Headquarters History Office, projects include 

HerStory, NACA, NASA Administrators, Aviatrix Pioneers, and their current 

project of collecting information for the NASA at 50 Oral History Project in commemoration of the space agency’s golden anniversary. 

In December 2004, Wright became the JSC History Coordinator when the responsibilities of the History Office were assumed by the Oral History Project team. 

While continuing with the oral history efforts, the three-person staff also provides 

answers to reference and research issues; assists in reviewing documents containing historical information; conducts outreach events; and works closely with the 

archivists at JSC, NASA Headquarters, and the University of Houston-Clear 

Lake, where the JSC History Collection and the audio recordings from the oral 

history projects are housed. 

Langley Research Center (LaRC) 

Two history students in the 2007 Langley Aerospace Research Summer Scholars 

(LARSS) program are working at Langley for the summer. Laura Freeze, a student 

at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, is sponsored by the Aeronautics 

Research Mission Directorate. She is archiving the papers of Mr. Jim A. Penland. 

Mr. Penland was a member of the NACA design and wind tunnel testing team for 

the X-15. In addition to archiving his papers, Laura is recording and transcribing 

conversations with Mr. Penland about his X-15 work. 

Lynne Fors, a student at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, 

is working in the Langley Archives. She is adding to the database of NACA research 

authorizations. She has found a research authorization for work relating to the 

dirigible U.S.S. Los Angeles in 1927. Tucked in another research authorization file 

was a letter from Orville Wright, signed by his secretary, regarding a spin tunnel at 

Langley. In the file for RA-290, a l937 letter was found that congratulated Eastman 

Jacobs for winning the Sylvanus L. Reed Award. At the request of a journalist, 

Lynne looked for evidence of a visit in 1935 of the Russian aircraft designer Andrei 

Tupolev. While no photographs were located, his signature was found in the visitor 

log book for 1 April 1935. 

The Virginia Space Grant Consortium sponsors the LARSS program. 

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) 

An important series of records related to Dr. Wernher von Braun, the first Director 

of Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), has been located at the National Archives 

in Atlanta after years of presuming that the records no longer existed. 

The records are informally known as “Von Braun’s Weekly Notes.” They cover the 

period of von Braun’s tenure in Huntsville from the early 1960s until the 1970s. The 

notes have been recognized by many historians as a valuable source of information 

relating to the Saturn/Apollo era at Marshall and throughout NASA. They were 

used to track both programmatic and institutional issues and events at the Center. 

Over the years, many NASA and space historians have located scattered copies of 

the notes and made reference to them in their work. It is believed that the collection 

in Atlanta represents a complete set of the notes. 

continued on next page 

13

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

News from Headquarters and the Centers (continued)

14

During the Saturn era, Marshall line managers solicited weekly notes from each of 

their subordinate organizations. As the notes passed through the chain of command 

at Marshall, additions or deletions were made based upon the importance of the 

issue. Each Monday, von Braun reviewed the notes and made his own notations in 

the margins. The notes, with von Braun’s comments, were then filtered back to the 

organization deemed responsible for responding to von Braun’s inquiry. 

The notes have attracted attention from space historians as well as historians of 

organizational communications and management.

An inquiry from the Exploration Launch Vehicle Program Office prompted the 

renewed search to find the notes. MSFC records management personnel working with 

National Archives personnel in Georgia were responsible for relocating the notes.

Historians from MSFC plan to travel to the archives in Georgia in the near future to scan 

copies of the weekly notes electronically for retention in the Center’s history office.

Stennis Space Center (SSC)

In May, NASA announced its decision to build a new rocket engine test stand at 

Stennis Space Center (SSC). Tree clearing for the site of the new A-3 Test Stand at 

SSC began on 13 June. The construction of the A-3, NASA’s first new large rocket 

engine test stand to be built since the 1960s, begins a historic era for America’s largest rocket engine test complex. The SSC History Office is very involved in documenting this massive project through photographing, videotaping, and capturing oral 

history accounts for this important time in SSC’s history.

The 300-foot-tall structure is scheduled for completion in August 2010. The A-3 will 

perform altitude tests on the Constellation’s J-2X engine that will power the upper 

stage of the Ares I crew launch vehicle and the Earth departure stage of the Ares V 

cargo launch vehicle. The Constellation Program is NASA’s plan for carrying out 

the nation’s Vision for Space Exploration, which will return humans to the Moon 

and eventually take them to Mars and beyond.

CALL FOR FALL INTERNS

The NASA History Division is looking for capable undergraduate or graduate 

students to work as interns this coming fall. More information is available at http://

history.nasa.gov/interncall.htm online. The deadline for fall 2007 applications is 15 

August 2007.
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007

15

REMEMBERING THE SPACE AGE

Conference on the 50th Anniversary of the Space Age 

Sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration (NASA) and National Air and Space 

Museum (NASM) Divisions of Space History

22–23 October 2007

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Auditorium 

Washington, DC

Please see http://www.tisconferences.com/aaas/ for more information (registration, 

logistics, and updated agenda).

Agenda

DAY 1 NATIONAL AND GLOBAL DIMENSIONS OF THE SPACE AGE

Has the Space Age fostered a new global identity, or has it reinforced distinct 

national identities? How does space history connect with national histories and with 

the histories of transnational or global phenomena such as the Cold War or the rise 

of global markets or global satellite communications? 

8:30 a.m. Opening Remarks: Steven J. Dick (NASA) and Roger D. Launius

 (NASM)

9:00 a.m. Keynote: John Robert McNeill (Georgetown University)

9:30–11:30 a.m. Session 1: Invited Papers and Commentary

 Steven J. Dick, Chair

 30 min. Asif Siddiqi (Fordham University)—National Aspirations on a

 Global Stage: Fifty Years of Spaceflight

 30 min. John Krige (Georgia Institute of Technology)—Building National 

 Capability Through Regional and International Collaboration: The 

 European Experience

 30 min. Commentator: John Logsdon (George Washington University)

 30 min. Panel/Q&A: Steven J. Dick, Moderator

1:00–3:00 p.m. Session 2: Contributed Papers

 Michael Neufeld (NASM)—Creating a Memory of the German 

 Rocket Program for the Cold War

 Monique Laney (University of Kansas)—Operation Paperclip in 

 Huntsville, Alabama

 James Hansen (Auburn University)—China’s Human Spaceflight 

 Program and Chinese National Identity

 Dwayne Day (Space Studies Board/National Research Council)— 

 The Central Intelligence Agency and Freedom of Space

continued on next page
NASA HISTORY DIVISION

1

Remembering the Space Age (continued)

Andrew Butrica—The “Right” Stuff: The Impact of the Reagan 

Revolution and the Conservative Space Agenda on the U.S.

Space Program

 Jonathan Coopersmith (Texas A&M University)—The Railroad 

and the Space Program: A View from the 21st Century

3:30–5:00 p.m. Roundtable 

DAY 2 REMEMBRANCE AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATION OF THE 

SPACE AGE

How is the historical record of the Space Age collected, preserved, displayed, and 

interpreted around the world, especially in the United States, Russia, the European 

Union, Canada, and China? What purpose do space museums serve, and what 

message do they convey? How accessible are space archives? How do the “official” 

versions of events square with the document trail and with eyewitness accounts? How 

is the Space Age represented in the arts, in the media, in the movies, in propaganda 

discourse, and so on?

9:00 a.m. Keynote: Emily S. Rosenberg—Far Out: The Space Age in 

American Culture 

9:30–11:30 a.m. Session 1: Invited Papers and Commentary 

 Roger D. Launius, Chair

 30 min. Constance Penley (University of California at Santa Barbara)— 

Film, Arts, and the Media

 30 min. Martin Collins (NASM)—A Second Nature Rising: Spaceflight in a 

Time of Representation

 30 min. Commentator: Slava Gerovitch (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

 30 min. Panel/Q&A: Roger D. Launius, Moderator

1:00–3:00 p.m. Session 2: Contributed Papers

 Amy Nelson (Virginia Tech)—Lost in Space: Global Echoes of 

Sputnik 2

 Cathy Lewis (NASM)—Cosmonaut Nostalgia in Film

 James Oberg—Cosmonauts and Cosmo-NOTS: Image Falsification

in the Soviet Manned Space Program

 Michael Soluri—Discovering the Iconic in Space Exploration 

Photography

 Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles (Yale University)—Space Art and 

Art in Space

 Robert Kennedy—Robert Heinlein’s Influence on Spaceflight

3:30–4:30 p.m. Roundtable

4:30–5:00 p.m. Closing Keynote: Roger D. Launius
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

ANNUAL NASA HISTORY PROGRAM 

REVIEW 

by Christian Gelzer 

This year’s NASA History Program Review took place from 24 to 26 April and was 

hosted by Dryden Flight Research Center’s history office. This year, NASA’s historians and archivists were joined by independent scholars and a corporate archivist; 

the combination provided a nice blend of perspectives and experiences. Events 

were split between NASA’s Aero Institute in Palmdale, California, and the Dryden 

Center itself, on Edwards Air Force Base. 

Events began with a year-in-review address by Chief Historian Steve Dick, which 

included news of volume three of Boris Chertok’s remarkable memoirs, the publication of the proceedings of the “Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight” 

conference the previous year, and notes on the upcoming Agency-wide celebration 

of NASA’s 50th anniversary in 2008. 

The NASA History Division at Headquarters remains a pivotal archival resource with 

its continually growing collection, supervised by Jane Odom. Her work is complemented by the constantly expanding list of publications, which the History Division 

itself edits, supervises, commissions, and writes. The release of Michael Meltzer’s 

Mission to Jupiter is but one example. The list of titles we can look forward to includes 

Thor Hogan’s Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative and 

John Logsdon’s seventh volume of Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the 

U.S. Civil Space Program. 

PapersfromtheconferenceincludedJoe 

Bassi’s “The Sun Earth Connection,” 

Douglas Mudgway’s evolving biography of William Pickering (which 

is much anticipated in Pickering’s— 

and Mudgway’s—home town in New 

Zealand), and Jennifer Ross-Nazzal’s 

intriguing and delightful “Skylab and 

the Women’s Christian Temperance 

Union.” Colin Fries presented a paper 

on space-related music over the last 

century; Bonnie Smith talked about 

producing history and developing the 

archives for the Aerospace Corporation; and Bob Arrighi’s “Documenting NASA’s 

Historic Facilities” shed light on current historic preservation efforts at NASA’s 

Glenn Research Center. NASA Dryden historians spoke about various projects 

under way or recently completed. Curtis Peebles’s recent X-43 manuscript highlighted the troubles inherent in writing about projects recent enough to fall under 

export control, while Peter Merlin recounted the evolution of the Dryden history 

program itself. Christian Gelzer talked about the truck fairing research done at 

the Center in the 1970s and its influence on commercial vehicles. 

continued on next page

17

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

1

Annual NASA History Program Review (continued)

Lunches on two of the three days featured speakers: Al Bowers, a senior engineer at 

Dryden, talked about the Wright brothers, and Dill Hunley, former Chief Historian 

at Dryden, talked about a passel of books he has authored on American rocket 

development, books to be published by the University of Florida Press.

Updates from each Center continue to reveal the diversity of activities undertaken by 

NASA archivists and historians, and they run the gamut from unusual public inquiries to university press publications. Steve Dick’s closing remarks included general 

discussion about what various Centers plan to do in recognition of the Agency’s 50th 

anniversary, along with an enlightening and revealing account of the recent NASA 

Culture Survey, which echoed one done by Howard McCurdy in 1988.

Next year’s meeting is slated to be hosted by Langley Research Center.

2007 NASA HISTORY AWARD

The annual NASA History Award is given to a civil servant or contractor at one of 

NASA’s Centers who has excelled in the promotion of NASA history to our internal 

and external audiences. It is with great pleasure that the Headquarters History Division 

presents the 2007 NASA History Award to Sallie Bilbo, Rebecca Strecker, and Shelia 

Reed of Stennis Space Center. These three deserving individuals in the Stennis History 

Office are to be commended for their efforts to document the impact of Hurricane 

Katrina on SSC and the surrounding community. In August 2005, during the aftermath 

of one of the greatest natural disasters in this country’s history, the SSC team focused 

on capturing the significant events that took place during and after the hurricane. The 

Center was used as a shelter for thousands in the community and was also used as the 

staging ground for recovery efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency 

(FEMA) and rescue agencies from 15 states. 

SSC History Office employees worked to record 

this event in a number of ways: through the use 

of a blog for all employees to input their personal 

stories and images; by conducting oral history 

interviews with key individuals who were at SSC 

during and after the storm; by creating video and 

photo documentation of the site and SSC volunteers working in the surrounding communities; 

and by offering, in conjunction with the Records 

Management Office, a special briefing on the 

proper documentation of significant materials to ensure that important information was 

accounted for during and after the storm. Additionally, they researched the Hurricane Camille 

recovery efforts to assist management in benchmarking the extent of relief and recovery activities in which Center personnel were involved 

for Hurricane Katrina; they also collected and 

provided significant information to the Katrina Report, a historical record produced by 

SSC of the impact Hurricane Katrina had on both Stennis and the Michoud Assembly 

Facility in Louisiana.

Dr. Steven J. Dick presents Shelia Reed with the 

annual NASA History Award at the NASA History 

Program Review meeting in Palmdale, California, 

on 24 April 2007.
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming Publications 

The Wind and Beyond: A Documentary Journey into the History of Aerodynamics 

in America, Volume II: Reinventing the Airplane, edited by James R. Hansen, with 

Jeremy Kinney, D. Bryan Taylor, and J. Lawrence Lee. The second volume in The 

Wind and Beyond series discusses the airplane design revolution of the 1920s and 

1930s and the quest for improved airfoils. 

Mars Wars: A Policy History of the Space Exploration Initiative, by Thor N. Hogan. 

This provocative book argues that the failure of President George H. W. Bush’s 

Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) was the result of a flawed policy process. 

Facing the Heat Barrier: A History of Hypersonics, by T. A. Heppenheimer. This 

book documents the history of hypersonics research in great detail. It should be 

published in early 2007. 

Dictionary of the Space Age, by Paul Dickson. This new book will augment and 

update The Origins of NASA Names (NASA SP-4402, 1975) by including terms not 

in common usage approximately 30 years ago, as well as extensive etymological 

information. 

Flights of Discovery: The History of the Dryden Flight Research Center, by Lane E. 

Wallace. This history of the first 50 years at the NASA Dryden Flight Research 

Center captures the spirit of the role flight research has played in aeronautical 

research and development and provides insightful accounts of most of the major 

flight research projects from 1946 to 1996. 

NEW ONLINE RESOURCES 

NASA History Web Sites 

The Aeronautics and Space Report of the President, Fiscal Year 2005 Activities, is 

available online from http://history.nasa.gov/presrep.htm. 

Abe Gibson has prepared a useful guide for NASA History authors on how to create an index for their books. It is available at http://history.nasa.gov/indexprep.htm. 

Links to this and other similar guides for authors are available at http://history.nasa. 

gov/program.html. 

Other New Electronic Resources 

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History produces History Now, a quarterly 

online journal for history teachers and students available at http://www.historynow.org. 

The 12th issue (June 2007) focuses on the classical age of exploration and may be of 

particular interest to readers. 

1

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

20

CALLS FOR PAPERS

Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly

David Arnold, editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly, is seeking 

articles for publication. For more about the journal, see http://www.spacebusiness.

com/quest/. Dr. Arnold just sent a note to the editorial board indicating that he has a 

terrific issue coming together for the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Space 

Age and that he is looking for additional items, either related to the anniversary or 

not, for the fall 2007 issue and subsequent ones. If you would like to submit articles 

for publication or know of people who might have articles about ready for publication, please contact Dr. Arnold at historyofspace@aol.com.

International Test and Evaluation Association 

(ITEA) Journal

The ITEA Journal is looking for history articles. Each quarter, there is a column entitled 

“Historical Perspectives” that includes short historical sketches of up to 1,200 words, 

accompanied by three or four photographs. Longer historical pieces have also been published in the main part of the journal for subjects of special interest to the association.

The subject matter for these columns has been intentionally broad. The editors are 

appealing to a wide range of test and evaluation (T&E) practitioners—not so much 

professional historians—so it is important to publish subjects that are varied and 

novel to keep the readers interested. The journal has done one about an incident 

involving flight testing during World War I, another on truck fairing tests designed 

to increase fuel economy during the energy crisis of the 1970s, and a third on the 

human factors—not just the machinery—involved in the near-fatal crash of a pilot 

of one of the NASA lifting bodies. All have endnotes and, although short, offer good 

scholarship to pique further reading and fresh perspectives.

All periods of history are open, and T&E is defined liberally: in the modern sense 

of complex, computerized experiments, but also the much less complex T&E as 

understood in earlier periods. For example, articles can be about specific aircraft (or 

subsystem) tests, influential individuals in the field of testing, technological turning 

points, or unique supporting subjects (for instance, the T&E of airline food!). It can 

also be a first-person account. Moreover, submissions need not be dominated solely 

by test and evaluation; ideally, they will feature T&E in some broader context.

Finally, the journal is informal in its editorial process. The journal gives the historical editor wide latitude to find submissions, so once he makes contact with a potential author and hashes out a subject, it is very likely that it will indeed be published. 

For more information, please contact Michael Gorn, Ph.D., NASA Dryden Flight 

Research Center, at michael.gorn@dfrc.nasa.gov.

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS

14–19 August 2007, the International Committee for the History of Technology’s 

(ICOHTEC) 34th Symposium will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark. “Fashioning 
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 MBER 3 MBER 3 August 2007 

21


Technology: Design from Imagination to Practice” is the symposium’s general 

theme. For details, see http://www.icohtec2007.dk. 

29 August–2 September 2007, the Society of American Archivists will be holding 

its 71st annual meeting at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. For additional 

conference information, visit http://www.archivists.org/conference/index.asp. 

20–22 September 2007, the U.S. Naval Academy will host the 2007 Naval History 

Symposium in Annapolis, Maryland. The symposium is open to the public, but 

registration is mandatory. For more information, please see http://www.usna.edu/ 

history/symposium/ or call 410-293-6250. 

16–17 October 2007, the Air Force Historical Foundation will host a symposium 

entitled “The Evolution of Air and Space Power: Know the Past, Shape the Future,” 

in Arlington, Virginia. See http://www.afhistoricalfoundation.org for more information on the symposium. 

17–21 October 2007, the Society for the History of Technology will hold its annual 

meeting at the Capital Hilton in Washington, DC. The theme of the conference will 

be “SHOT@50: Looking Back, Looking Beyond.” For additional information on 

the meeting, see http://www.historyoftechnology.org/annualmtg.html. 

18–19 October 2007, the Center for Cryptologic History at the National Security 

Agency will host the 11th Cryptologic History Symposium at the Conference Center 

of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Proposals 

for papers on all aspects of cryptologic history that present new research or perspectives will be considered. Please submit your proposals, via e-mail, to Dr. David 

Hatch at dahatch@nsa.gov. If you have questions about the symposium, please call 

the Center at 301-688-2336. 

28–30 October 2007, Louisiana State University (LSU) and Northrup Grumman 

Corporation will host a symposium on the LSU campus entitled “Risk and Exploration 

II: Earth as a Classroom.” This three-day event is modeled after a previous symposium, “Risk and Exploration: Earth, Sea, and the Stars,” held in Monterey, California, 

in September 2004. The NASA History Division published a proceedings book of this 

first conference (http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4701/frontmatter.pdf ). For more information about this upcoming event, please see http://www.riskexplore2007.com/ online. 

31 October–1 November 2007, the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian 

Institution are hosting a conference entitled “Making Science Global: Reconsidering 

the Social and Intellectual Implications of the International Polar and Geophysical 

Years.” The conference will be held at the S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, 

DC. More information is available at http://www.nasm.si.edu/makingscienceglobal/ 

on the Web. 

1–3 November 2007, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference will hold its 

fall meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the Williamsburg Marriott. For more 

information, see http://www.lib.umd.edu/MARAC/conferences/conferences.html. 

3–6 January 2008, the American Historical Association will host its annual meeting 

at the Marriott Wardman Park and Omni Shoreham hotels in Washington, DC. For 

more information on the conference, see http://www.historians.org/. 
NASA HISTORY DIVISION

22

IMAGE IN SPACE HISTORY

Center: JSC • Center Number: AS11-40-5886 • GRIN DataBase Number: GPN-2000-001209

Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, Apollo ll mission commander, at the modular 

equipment storage assembly (MESA) of the Lunar Module Eagle on the historic 

first extravehicular activity (EVA) on the lunar surface. Most photos from the 

Apollo 11 mission show astronaut Buzz Aldrin; this is one of only a few that show 

Neil Armstrong. 
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 3 August 2007 

The NASA History Division, under the Office of External Relations, NASA 

Headquarters, Washington, DC 20546, publishes News and Notes quarterly. 

To receive News and Notes via e-mail, send a message to domo@hq.nasa.gov. Leave 

the subject line blank. In the text portion, simply type “subscribe history” without 

the quotation marks. You will receive confirmation that your account has been added 

to the list for the newsletter and for receiving other announcements. We also post the 

latest issue of this newsletter at http://history.nasa.gov/nltrc.html on the Web. 

Do you have more questions about NASA history in general? Please check out 

our NASA History Division Home Page at http://history.nasa.gov on the Web. For 

information about doing research in the NASA History Division, please e-mail us at 

histinfo@hq.nasa.gov or call 202-358-0384. 

We also welcome comments about the content and format of this newsletter. Please 

send comments to Steve Garber, newsletter editor, at stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov. 

NASA Headquarters History Division Staff Contact Information: 

Steven J. Dick, Chief Historian steven.j.dick@nasa.gov 

202-358-0383 

Nadine Andreassen, Program Support Specialist nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov 

202-358-0087 

Colin Fries, Archivist cfries@mail.hq.nasa.gov 

202-358-0388 

Stephen Garber, Historian stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov 

202-358-0385 

John Hargenrader, Archivist jhargenr@mail.hq.nasa.gov 

202-358-0387 

Jane Odom, Chief Archivist jane.h.odom@nasa.gov 

202-358-0386 

Elizabeth Suckow, Archivist elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov 

202-358-0375 

Created and produced by the following: 

Steve Garber, NASA Headquarters History Division 

Lisa Jirousek, Editor, NASA Headquarters Communications Support Service Center 

Steve Bradley, Designer, NASA Headquarters Communications Support Service Center 

Dave Dixon, Printing Specialist, NASA Headquarters Communications Support Service Center 

Trenita Williams, Mail Coordinator, NASA Headquarters Mail Room 

Carl Paul, Distribution, NASA Headquarters Communications Support Service Center 

23

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

Office of External Relations

Washington, DC 20546

http://www.nasa.gov

http://history.nasa.gov