Volume 40, Number 3 Fall 2023

NASA HISTORY

NEWS&NOTES

WORLDS BEYOND 

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES 

OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

 Data acquired from NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, 

GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft showing the 

composition of Mercury’s surface rock is overlain on a monochrome 

global mosaic. (Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

4 Reforming JPL for Competed Missions: 

The Project Design Center

6 Records from NASA’s Mars Laser 

Altimeter Story Live On

8 The Ballad of Clementine: A Successful, 

but Little Heralded, Spacecraft 

13 The Human Side of Discovery

16 Former Glenn Artist Brings Future 

Space Missions to Life

18 Weathering the Storm: Space Environment 

Testing of the Webb Telescope 

20 Into Darkness: Shadows, Ice, and the Moon

23 Relaunching Russia’s Planetary Science Program

26 Preserving MESSENGER’s Journey from Day One

28 TESS: In Search of New Worlds

31 Thinking Outer Space: Astroculture and 

the Intellectual History of Planetarity 

2 From the Chief Historian • 33 News from Around NASA

36 Other Aerospace History News • 38 Upcoming Meetings

NASA HISTORY OFFICE

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

I

T HAS BEEN A BUSY YEAR for 

NASA’s Planetary Science program. 

Scientific data continue to return 

from Mars, the Moon, and beyond. 

The historic Parker Solar Probe mission, 

launched in August 2018, continues its 

work revolutionizing our understanding of the Sun and solar radiation. This 

fall, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, 

Resource Identification, Security, 

Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission, part of NASA’s New Frontiers 

Program, will deliver to Earth a sample 

collected in 2020 from the asteroid 

Bennu. With an eye toward producing 

a better understanding of how the early 

solar system formed, OSIRIS-REx will 

not only shed light on how life began, 

but it will also add to our ability to 

understand how asteroids might impact 

life on Earth in the future. Soon, the 

most recent of NASA’s Discovery 

Missions, Psyche, will launch to an 

asteroid of the same name with a goal 

of exploring the object’s metallic core. 

The OSIRIS-REx and Psyche missions 

are indicative of the dynamic work 

taking place over the last three decades 

as part of NASA’s Discovery and New 

Frontiers Programs—key programs in 

the overall Agency planetary science 

portfolio. Several other significant projects are coming soon to the programs, 

including Megane (September 2024); 

Dragonfly (2026); Deep Atmosphere 

Venus Investigation of Noble gases, 

Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) 

(projected for 2028–30); and Veritas 

(2028–30).

Formed under the paradigm of “faster, 

better, cheaper,” both programs were 

designed from the premise that planetary science could be accomplished with 

innovative and efficient approaches to 

project management. Principal investigators (PIs) from research institutes or 

academic institutions propose competitive missions and build teams across 

government, industry, and academia to 

accomplish specific scientific goals.

As with “faster, better, cheaper,” the 

goals are to utilize breakthrough technologies and strong teams to keep 

costs down and schedules predictable. 

While everyone understands that the 

old version of “faster, better, cheaper” 

suffered from a fundamental flaw—the 

adage “you can have two, but not all 

three” comes to mind—many of the 

core successes in planetary science over 

the past three decades have come from 

these programs. Deep Impact’s rendezvous with a comet; Kepler’s search for 

exoplanets; MErcury Surface, Space 

ENvironment, GEochemistry, and 

Ranging’s (MESSENGER’s) encounter 

From the 

Chief Historian

...many of the core 

successes in planetary 

science over the past three 

decades have come from 

these programs.

 NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this hypnotic image of Jupiter’s northern hemisphere 

on 29 May 2019. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill) 

2
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

with Mercury; Juno’s mission to 

Jupiter; and New Horizons’ trip to 

Pluto (poor Pluto) are just a handful of 

noteworthy efforts.

But the question we keep coming back 

to is this: How do these programs differ from the “golden age” of planetary 

science in the 1970s—which included 

Mariner, Viking, and Voyager missions—and the numerous other, larger 

programs since, such as Ulysses, Galileo, 

and Cassini? Does it simply come down 

to budget and schedule, or is there 

something more significant at play? 

Beyond this, what role has international 

collaboration occupied in this process? 

Are the programs properly positioned 

to execute the goals delineated by the 

National Academy of Sciences’ recent 

publication “Origins, Worlds, and 

Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary 

Science and Astrobiology 2023–2032”?

In January 2024, the NASA History 

Office, in collaboration with the 

National Academy of Sciences and the 

Smithsonian’s National Air and Space 

Museum, is hosting a symposium at 

the National Academy of Sciences in 

Washington, DC, to explore the history of these two NASA programs at 

the 30th anniversary of Discovery and 

the 20th anniversary of New Frontiers. 

Our goal is to recognize key historic 

milestones while also gaining an understanding of the overall impact of the 

missions on planetary science, their 

effect on society, how the approach has 

changed over time, and where the programs stand at present.

To provide some historical context for 

the upcoming event, we are dedicating this issue of News & Notes to the 

theme of planetary science. These articles cover important topics, including 

the reformation of the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory’s (JPL’s) approach to planetary science in the 1990s, NASA’s 

collaboration with the Department 

of Defense on the Clementine mission, the work of artist Les Bossinas 

at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, the 

hunting of exoplanets, the testing of 

hardware for the space environment, 

and a comparative look at international 

planetary science. Also included in 

the issue are highlights from critical 

archival collections on MESSENGER 

and the Mars Observer. An interview 

with Goddard Chief Scientist and 

DAVINCI PI Dr. James Garvin offers 

a unique perspective of planetary science from one of its chief practitioners. 

Personally, I can’t wait to see where we 

are in planetary science in the decades 

to come. 

Brian C. Odom

Chief Historian

From the Chief Historian (continued)

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx became the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid 

on 20 October 2020, and it will return to Earth on 24 September 2023 with material from 

asteroid Bennu. (Image credit: NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona)

3
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

T

HE END OF THE COLD WAR

produced a substantial change 

in NASA’s budgetary standing. 

Outrun budgets projecting growth 

throughout the 1990s became projections showing shrinkage. From a fiscal 

year (FY) 1991 peak of $18.8 billion (in 

2005 dollars), NASA shrank to $15.1 

billion in FY 2000.1 NASA’s Discovery 

program came out of this era of diminishment, and its model of competition 

spread to the Agency’s other robotic 

mission areas.2

Cost was not the only driver behind 

the new model. In planetary science, 

mission rates had gotten so low—perhaps a mission a decade—that there 

were also demands from the scientific 

community for more frequent missions. One could not sustain a vibrant 

research program with so little data 

at either an individual level or a more 

collective one.3

For the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

(JPL), competition was a major challenge. While other NASA facilities had 

done planetary missions, by 1991 the 

Laboratory had a near monopoly. It 

tended to have one “big” mission—what 

we would now call a flagship mission, 

like the Galileo Jupiter orbiter—and 

one or two smaller ones. In 1991, those 

were flagship Cassini-Huygens, just 

getting started, and the nearly completed Mars Observer and TOPEX/

Poseidon ocean topography missions. 

These were all assigned by NASA, 

generally after a lengthy process of 

formulating scientific objectives via a 

science definition team, after which 

NASA chose instruments to fulfill the 

objectives. Instruments were competed, 

not missions.

The Discovery Program meant to 

change that model by having individual scientists formulate and propose 

missions that were to be scientifically 

focused and carried out under a cost 

cap. Proposers did not have to be 

attached to any NASA Center, enabling 

new entrants to compete for planetary 

missions. JPL’s planetary business was 

no longer guaranteed.

Mike Neufeld ’s histor y of the 

Discovery Program focuses on the first 

two—non-competed—Discovery missions, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous 

(NEAR) and Mars Pathfinder.4 The 

Mars Pathfinder story in particular is 

told in a “skunkworks” vein, in which 

a small group of “renegades” from 

the dominant, conservative JPL engineering culture tried a new approach 

to development.5

But in order to effectively compete for 

future missions, JPL also undertook 

Reforming JPL for 

Competed Missions

The Project Design Center

Proposers did not have to 

be attached to any NASA 

Center, enabling new 

entrants to compete for 

planetary missions. JPL’s 

planetary business was no 

longer guaranteed.

» By Erik M. Conway, Historian, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

 This four-frame true-color mosaic of a 

Martian sunset was taken by Mars 

Pathfinder on sol 24 of its mission in July 

1997. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)

4
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

internal reforms. One important 

change was to the proposal formulation 

process itself. JPL had typically done 

10 to 12 per year, costing $250,000 

each. They took, on average, a half year 

to assemble. They were prepared in 

pieces, with each of the many technical 

specialists involved working individually within his or her own disciplinary 

organization. There was little communication, and costing was done at the 

end of the process. That meant cost was 

not really a design factor.

JPL Director Edward C. Stone had 

launched reform efforts in 1991 with 

the introduction of Total Quality 

Management (TQM), and in 1993, 

he began a “reengineering” drive.6

Redesign of the proposal procedure 

took place under the unexcitingly 

named Develop New Products process. The Lab’s Executive Council 

had called for reengineering “JPL’s 

project and system engineering processes and to provide processes and 

tools to implement JPL projects in a 

design-to-cost environment.”7

E. Kane Casani, who had led a lowcost Defense Department mission 

called Miniature Seeker Technology 

Integration (MSTI), advocated for 

developing new mission proposals 

through concurrent engineering. He 

defined concurrent engineering as 

“the application of classical system 

engineering in an integrated computer 

environment.” Instead of the dispersed, 

relatively solitary, and individualized 

process JPL had traditionally used, a 

group of engineers drawn from the 

variety of technical disciplines needed 

for robotic space missions would 

work together over a period of a few 

hours to develop the mission concept. 

Concurrency was based on the idea 

that “design is the process of socially 

constructing a technical reality. It is 

not the work of individual designers but 

the interplay of individual work and 

the relations between the designers.”8

Design, even the design of spacecraft, 

was better fostered collectively.

The concurrent design group was established within a new Project Design 

Center (PDC) in April 1995, just a 

month before the similar concept of 

Integrated Product Teams became 

Defense Department policy.9 The 

Project Design Center’s infrastructure was a set of networked computer 

workstations that operated a variety 

of software tools. Some were tools 

designed within the various technical 

divisions for other purposes—there 

was one for assessing radiation doses 

for Jupiter orbiters, for example. Some 

were commissioned for it specifically. 

The “backbone” of the design system 

was a set of networked spreadsheets 

JPL had commissioned from Aerospace 

Corporation that were based upon its 

cost model.10 It ensured costing was 

always a factor in the design effort.

There was some initial concern that the 

PDC would not have enough business 

to be viable, but it was quickly dispelled. In 1996, the PDC developed 45 

proposals at a cost of around $75,000 

each. Demand was such that what 

became known as Team X was duplicated to handle all the proposal work. 

Each proposal took about two weeks of 

effort instead of six months.11

The PDC’s service was not restricted to 

JPL. Potential mission principal investigators could apply to use it. It also 

was not restricted to planetary missions. 

Earth science and astrophysics missions 

were designed, and even “candidate mission roadmaps” were investigated.12

By 2011, Team X had performed 1,045 

studies of all kinds. JPL became very 

successful in Discovery program competitions, winning the Genesis, Deep 

Impact, Dawn, Gravity Recovery and 

Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), InSight, 

and Psyche missions. And while the 

NASA budget shrank during the 

1990s, JPL’s business grew slowly as 

the Lab adapted to NASA’s competitive era. Other internal reforms contributed to the ability to manage the 

rapidly expanding number of projects 

competition brought, but concurrent engineering within the Project 

Design Center was key to winning that 

new business. 

Endnotes

1 Aeronautics and Space Report of the 

President, FY 2006 Activities, p. 102.

2 Michael J. Neufeld, “Transforming 

Solar System Exploration: The Origins 

of the Discovery Program, 1989–1993,” 

Space Policy 30, no. 1 (February 

2014): 5–12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.

spacepol.2013.10.002 (accessed 23 

August 2023).

3 Stephanie A. Roy, “The Origin of the 

Smaller, Faster, Cheaper Approach 

in NASA’s Solar System Exploration 

Program,” Space Policy 14, no. 3 (August 

1998): 153–171, https://doi.org/10.1016/

S0265-9646(98)00021-6 (accessed 23 

August 2023).

Reforming JPL for Competed Missions (continued)

There was some initial 

concern that the PDC 

would not have enough 

business to be viable, but 

it was quickly dispelled.

(continued on page 7) »

5
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Records 

from NASA’s 

Mars Laser 

Altimeter 

Story Live On

» By Christine Stevens, Archivist, 

Goddard Space Flight Center

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED how 

scientists are able to study Mars’s 

landscape in three dimensions? 

Well, you can partially thank the MOLA 

instruments for that! In September 

1992, the Mars Observer spacecraft 

was launched with the Mars Observer 

Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument 

on board. The primary objective of 

this instrument was to determine the 

topography of Mars. Unfortunately, in 

August 1993, contact with the Mars 

Observer was lost a few days before 

Mars orbital insertion, and no data 

was returned. However, the mission’s 

goal of mapping Mars helped get the 

next MOLA, this time named the Mars 

Orbiter Laser Altimeter, off the ground.

The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, also 

known as MOLA, was on board the 

Mars Global Surveyor when it launched 

in November 1996. This MOLA’s goal 

was the same as the previous iteration’s: 

to map the topography of Mars and 

measure the height of water and carbon dioxide clouds. The way the laser 

altimeter worked was relatively simple. 

The laser altimeter transmitted a laser 

pulse toward Mars’s surface, where 

the pulse was then reflected back to 

the instrument, where the return was 

detected. The travel time down and 

back was recorded, giving a measure of 

the distance between the spacecraft and 

the surface. The Mars Global Surveyor 

successfully reached Mars orbit, and 

the data returned from the MOLA 

instrument produced the first global 

view of the topography of Mars. These 

detailed elevation maps significantly 

contributed to our understanding of 

Mars’s geology and climate history.

The hard work done by the scientists 

and engineers who worked on MOLA 

is preserved in the records they created 

throughout the process. From design, 

testing, and integration to reviews 

and launch, the records tell the story 

of MOLA. The Goddard Archives was 

able to accession the records from the 

Mars Observer Laser Altimeter and the 

Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter by way 

of the Federal Records Center. When 

a mission, program, or project closes 

out, its temporary records are held for 

a certain amount of time, while its permanent records are sent to the National 

Archives and Records Administration 

(NARA). As part of the federal records 

life cycle, once the temporary records 

reach the end of their retention period, 

they can be destroyed. The MOLA 

instrument records reached the end of 

their retention period, but the archives 

staff knew they would be valuable to 

scientists, engineers, and researchers for 

These detailed elevation 

maps significantly contributed to our understanding 

of Mars’s geology and 

climate history.

 These global false-color topographic views of Mars were created from data from the 

Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). The left-hand image features the Tharsis topographic rise (in red and white). The right-hand image features the Hellas impact basin (in 

purple). (Image credit: NASA/JPL/Goddard)

6
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

4 Neufeld, “Transforming Solar System 

Exploration,” pp. 5–12.

5 This was not an accident. The Mars 

Pathfinder team not only was aware 

of the original Lockheed “Skunk 

Works,” but they also visited the 

so-called “Batcave” operations center 

for the Clementine lunar mission. See 

also Howard McCurdy, Faster, Better, 

Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the 

U.S. Space Program (Baltimore: Johns 

Hopkins University Press, 2001).

6 Peter Westwick’s Into the Black: JPL 

and the American Space Program, 1976–

2004 (New Haven: Yale University 

Press, 2007), pp. 228–240, covers the 

TQM and reengineering drives at JPL in 

some detail.

7 E. Kane Casani, “Reengineering the 

JPL Project Design Process,” D-11785, 

13 May 1994, p. 2.

8 Quoted from Casani, “Reengineering 

the JPL Project Design Process,” p. 16; 

original source was Steve Harrison and 

S. Minneman, “Design Tools for the 

Communication Age,” Stanford Design 

Experience, 24 March 1994.

9 Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

(Acquisition and Technology), DoD 

Integrated Product and Process Development Handbook, https://www.secnav.

navy.mil/rda/onesource/documents/

program%20assistance%20and%20

tools/handbooks,%20guides%20

and%20reports/page%203/ippdhdbk.

pdf (accessed 8 August 2023).

10 Jef f re y L . Sm it h, “C oncu rrent 

Engineering in the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory Project Design Center,” 

ASME, 1998.

11 Stephen D. Wall, “Reinventing the 

Design Process: Teams and Models,” Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory, 1999, https://ntrs.

nasa.gov/api/citations/20000056941/

downloads/20000056941.pdf

(accessed 23 August 2023).

12 Ibid.

years to come, so they were accessioned 

into the Goddard Archives, where they 

will reside in perpetuity.

The MOLA records arrived at the 

Goddard Archives in two accessions, one for the Mars Orbiter Laser 

Altimeter and one for the Mars 

Observer Laser Altimeter. After they 

arrived, the records were processed. 

Processing is an archival function that 

is integral to making records searchable. 

Processing involves identifying the 

original order of the materials or creating an order if no order is discernable. 

Some level of holdings maintenance is 

usually performed during processing as 

well. Both collections were organized 

and placed into archival-quality housings. Rusty staples and paperclips were 

removed and replaced with stainless 

steel paperclips. As the collection was 

processed, the archivist gathered information about the records to include in 

the archival description. The archival 

description and metadata within are 

what allows the records to be searchable in our online catalog. 

Records from NASA’s Mars Laser Altimeter Story Live On (continued)

MOLA RECORDS IN LIDAR 

DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Watch Goddard Space 

Flight Center’s Leaders in 

Lidar series, which features a 

few MOLA records in chapter 1: 

“The Laser Is Better!”

STAY UP 

TO DATE

WITH NASA HISTORY’S 

EVENTS AND PUBLICATIONS

BY JOINING OUR MAILING LIST

Reforming JPL for Competed Missions (continued from page 5)

 Cover of the MOL A Experiment 

Operations Plan signed by the principal 

investigator, David E. Smith. (Image 

credit: NASA/Goddard Archives)

7
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

The Ballad of Clementine

A Successful, but Little Heralded, 

Spacecraft

» By Steve Garber, Historian, NASA Headquarters 

and James Anderson, Historian, Ames Research Center

AS STEWART NOZETTE liked 

to tell the story, it all began 

in a Washington, DC, bar in 

September 1989. Nozette, then a 

young geoscientist, was talking with 

Pete Worden, a National Space Council 

staffer, and Geoffrey Tudor, a Capitol 

Hill staffer, and sketched a concept on 

a bar napkin for an innovative, low-cost 

mission to validate new space technologies being developed by the military’s 

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that 

would have spinoff value for NASA.1

NASA’s involvement with Clementine 

was both partial and ancillary. 

Nevertheless, as an example of collaboration between NASA and the 

Department of Defense (DOD), the 

mission’s approach to operations, and 

its attempt to include (eventually) scientific considerations, all offer fruitful 

areas for a comparative study. While 

numerous reports, papers, and accounts 

have documented the Clementine mission and made a case for its impact, 

the mission has, unfortunately, generated little sustained attention from 

a historical standpoint. It is our hope 

that renewed attention to this unique 

mission could stimulate some in-depth 

and critical assessments, placing the 

mission in its context and drawing useful insights for today.2

For Clementine, things progressed relatively quickly, with the formal birth 

of the mission about two years after 

Nozette, Worden, and Tudor discussed 

the concept over drinks.3 DOD’s 

Ballistic Missile Defense Organization 

(BMDO) funded and ran the program, 

and it selected the Naval Research 

Laboratory (NRL) to design, build, 

and operate a low-cost spacecraft to 

orbit the Moon and fly by an asteroid 

named Geographos. Scientists were 

brought aboard the team later in its 

development to get what scientific 

data they could from the mission, a 

decidedly secondary goal that ended 

up yielding at least one significant discovery and much knowledge about the 

Moon. As the first U.S. spacecraft to 

travel to the Moon since the Apollo 17 

mission in 1972, Clementine launched 

on 25 January 1994, less than two 

years after project initiation. Although 

it never made it to Geographos, it successfully demonstrated innovative new 

technologies, very successfully mapped 

the Moon, showed how DOD and 

NASA could fruitfully cooperate, and 

paved the way for a new “faster, better, cheaper” approach to building and 

operating spacecraft.

While NASA Administrator Daniel 

Goldin became known for pushing 

NASA to implement “faster, better, cheaper” missions in the 1990s, 

Clementine may well be considered 

 Stewart Nozette’s 1989 bar 

napkin sketch was reproduced 

on page 7 of A Clementine 

Collection: Moonglow. (Image 

credit: Stewart Nozette)

8
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

the first actual success story of this 

approach.4 Interestingly, BMDO provided funding to design, build, and 

operate the Clementine spacecraft. 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 

personnel provided key mission design 

(trajectory) support for the lunar mapping phase; Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

staff did this for the asteroid flyby 

mission; and NASA’s Deep Space 

Network (DSN) infrastructure provided communications support to the 

ground segment.

Clementine cost BMDO approximately 

$75 million total, a sharp contrast to 

the much more expensive “flagship, 

Battlestar Galactica” spacecraft that 

were common at the time. Specifically, 

it cost $55 million to build the spacecraft and $20 million for the launch 

(it saved money by using a refurbished 

Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile). Curiously, it was actually less 

expensive to send Clementine into 

deep space to test BMDO’s target 

acquisition technology than to do 

so in Earth orbit because the latter 

would have involved building and 

launching artificial targets as well.5 In 

addition to the Moon and Geographos, 

Clementine’s Interstage Adapter was 

designed to be a target for the spacecraft’s sensors and collect data on the 

cis-lunar radiation environment. 

Clementine program managers also 

adopted an unusual approach to 

research and development (R&D) by 

selecting another federal organization, 

NRL, to design, build, and operate 

the spacecraft. Program managers 

recognized that a select few government and university labs had an 

“end-to-end capability” advantage over 

industry in that the spacecraft “have 

been conceived, designed, built, and 

tested by the scientists and engineers 

who are responsible for the complete 

mission, including the analysis and 

distribution of data, and publication 

of results. This pride of ownership is a 

powerful motivator, assuring both productivity and quality.”6

 Another program manager echoed this sentiment, 

noting that “[w]e operate on pride of 

ownership. The same engineers who 

built the [Clementine] components are 

operating them.... If they made any 

mistakes, now they have to live with 

them.”7 Program Manager Lieutenant 

Colonel Pedro “Pete” Rustan also 

noted that the government was better equipped to build demonstration 

spacecraft and suggested that industry 

should be invited in to compete to 

build the spacecraft once its design was 

finalized and proven, although some in 

industry did not like that because they 

felt that designers and manufacturers 

should all be on the same team, which 

was unusual for government spacecraft 

programs at the time.8

Project personnel implemented other 

management innovations that contributed to Clementine’s success. From the 

outset, the project was designed with 

dual-use technology in mind: the main 

goal was to demonstrate BMDO target 

The Ballad of Clementine (continued)

Clementine cost BMDO 

approximately $75 million 

total, a sharp contrast to 

the much more expensive 

“flagship, Battlestar 

Galactica” spacecraft that 

were common at the time.

 The Clementine 

spacecraft, on top 

of its interstage 

adapter, is prepared for testing in 

NRL’s anechoic 

chamber. (Image 

credit: Richard 

Bussey, U.S. Naval 

Research 

Laboratory)

9
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

acquisition sensors that could then later 

be utilized for civilian spacecraft with 

scientific aims. The Clementine project 

was also known for its lean program 

management, with relatively few staff, 

and kept the costs to a bare minimum. 

Developing the spacecraft in-house at 

NRL, rather than running as a major 

military acquisition effort, was seen 

as a way to reduce costs. Additionally, 

managers realized they could relax 

military specifications for Clementine 

and simply use reliable, off-the-shelf 

microelectronics that were already 

available commercially.9

Technology played a key role in the 

Clementine project. Its instruments were 

derived from lightweight sensors from 

the “Brilliant Eyes” (missile-tracking 

satellite constellations) and “Brilliant 

Pebbles” (missile interceptors) SDI 

programs. The spacecraft project successfully tested various lightweight 

technologies, including star trackers, a 

reaction wheel, an autonomous navigation system, a solid state data recorder, 

composite materials, an innovative 

nickel-hydrogen battery, optical sensors, 

solar panels, two new types of gyroscopes, and inertial measurement units. 

The nickel-hydrogen battery turned 

out to save the day when a software 

error caused the solar arrays to point 

away from the Sun, which would have 

caused regular batteries to completely 

discharge, but after operators regained 

control of the spacecraft and reoriented the arrays, the mission was able 

to continue.10 The navigation system 

also exceeded expectations throughout 

the mission. Clementine advanced the 

state of the art in autonomous mission 

operations with the success of the 

Spacecraft Autonomous Operations 

Experiment performed during lunar 

orbit 303.11 The Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory (LLNL) developed 

an ultraviolet/visible light camera and 

two infrared cameras plus a light detection and ranging (lidar) imaging system, none of which had flown before. 

The Aerospace Corporation developed 

a Charged Particle Telescope. All these 

instruments performed well, thus 

flight-qualifying these technologies 

for BMDO. 

As one marker of its success, Clementine 

was the first project highlighted in the 

foreword to BMDO’s 1994 technology 

transfer report. The commercial sector 

adopted several specific technologies 

such as the battery, inertial measurement units, and software.12

Despite Clementine’s primary focus 

on technology, it was remarkably 

successful scientifically. With noted 

scientist Gene Shoemaker from the 

U.S. Geological Survey as the science 

team leader, Clementine produced a 

“global data base of digital, multispectral images for the Moon,” the first for 

any object in our solar system, and the 

first set of digital images of the Moon. 

In 73 days of lunar orbit, Clementine 

mapped more than 99 percent of the 

Moon in multiple spectral bands.13

It acquired almost two million visible and infrared images of the Moon, 

which enabled the global mapping 

of the rocks in the lunar crust and 

a detailed look at the geology of the 

Moon’s polar regions and far side. 

In addition, its laser-ranging measurements enabled scientists to map 

the Moon’s global topography.14

Clementine images were posted 

online, an early example of the government leveraging the web to engage 

citizen scientists.

In a headline-grabbing press conference on 3 December 1996, several 

years after its prime mission had concluded, officials announced that the 

Clementine team likely had found 

water ice near the lunar south pole.15 As 

part of a bistatic radar experiment, the 

spacecraft had bounced radio waves 

from the Moon’s poles to Deep Space 

Network antennas on Earth, which 

showed that “ice likely makes up part 

of the Moon’s surface layer [of the permanently shadowed craters] near the 

South Pole” and is the rough volume 

of a small lake or pond. In addition to 

its implications for human exploration 

(potential potable water and rocket 

fuel), this discovery was remarkable 

because the Apollo lunar samples had 

indicated that the Moon was extremely 

dry. Yet the vast majority of objects 

hitting the Moon and creating craters 

are water-rich comets. Perhaps most 

remarkably, Clementine was not even 

designed specifically to look for water 

on the Moon, so scientists improvised 

this experiment.16

Clementine data yielded knowledge 

about amazing lunar craters, such as 

the Aitken basin at the south pole: at 

7.5 miles deep, it is the biggest, deepest 

crater in the solar system. Clementine 

also examined the gravitational field 

models of the Moon and gave scientists 

The Ballad of Clementine (continued)

Despite Clementine’s 

primary focus on 

technology, it was 

remarkably successful 

scientifically.

10
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

a new, more complex understanding 

of the Moon’s shape, topography, and 

internal structure.17

Despite its successes, the mission certainly had its fair share of problems. 

During development, two cameras 

failed vibration testing and had to be 

rebuilt twice, delaying things by three 

months. The spacecraft ended up being 

heavier than engineers had wanted 

(230 vs. 160 kilograms, not counting 

fuel).18 After launch, the upper stage of 

the Titan II rocket exploded on orbit, 

creating approximately 600 pieces of 

debris in low-Earth orbit; thankfully, 

this neither affected the spacecraft on 

its way to the Moon nor endangered 

a Space Shuttle mission that launched 

only a few days later.19

More significantly, after Clementine 

had been orbiting the Moon for several 

months, on 7 May 1994, a software 

test in preparation for the asteroid 

flyby went awry, causing a cascade of 

problems. An onboard computer crash 

caused a Reaction Control System 

(RCS) thruster to be stuck in the “on” 

position, causing the spacecraft to 

spin too quickly, and then draining 

its RCS propellant. With its planned 

trip to Geographos suddenly out of the 

question, ground controllers placed 

Clementine in a highly eccentric Earth 

orbit for a couple of years to observe 

radiation’s effects on 

the spacecraft.20

More generally, planning 

and operations teams 

were understaffed and 

did not have time to 

rehearse lunar operations 

ahead of launch. Only 

three such rehearsals 

were done on the way to 

the Moon. Hence, a lot 

of the team’s learning 

was done literally on the 

fly, and the team had to 

improvise to make up 

for lost orbits.21 However, 

once the operations procedures were completed 

and tested, the operations 

team set a new paradigm 

that was used as an example for later NASA and 

DOD missions.22

DOD officials initially 

planned to fly a second 

Clementine spacecraft 

a year or two after its 

first launch. However, in March 1994, 

BMDO transferred the Clementine 

project to the Navy, which decided 

not to proceed with Clementine II. 

For the second iteration, Clementine 

funding was intended to be cost-shared 

between NASA and DOD. Technology 

demonstration again would have been 

the primary mission, with science a 

secondary objective.23

Clementine’s legacy also includes 

laying the groundwork for the Lunar 

Prospector (a Discovery-class mission), the Lunar Reconnaissance 

Orbiter (LRO), and the Lunar Crater 

Observation and Sensing Satellite 

(LCROSS) missions. It also “changed 

the direction of the American space 

program” after the failure of the 1992 

Space Exploration Initiative and led to 

interest in going back to the Moon with 

humans in the 2004 Vision for Space 

Exploration.24 For all these reasons and 

more, Clementine may rightfully be 

considered a watershed, if underappreciated, mission. 

Endnotes

1 Naval Research Laboratory, A 

Clementine Collection: Moonglow

(Washington, DC: June 1994), pp. 6–7, 

gives the account from Nozette. The 

same Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) 

report also notes that “[t]he Clementine 

story began in 1990 when NASA 

Administrator Richard Truly asked the 

Department of Defense to consider a 

joint NASA/DoD mission that would 

pursue goals mutually beneficial to both 

organizations” (p. 2). That same year, the 

origins of what would become NASA’s 

Discovery Program started to emerge as 

a solution to the increasingly expensive 

and less numerous planetary science 

missions of the time. Clementine and 

Discovery are quite distinct, though 

they are often cited in the context of 

the “faster, better, cheaper” approach 

to building and operating spacecraft. 

The Ballad of Clementine (continued)

 Technicians lower the nose fairing over the Clementine 

spacecraft before launch. Clementine was launched 

from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 25 January 1994. 

(Image credit: Michael Savell, U.S. Naval Research 

Laboratory)

11
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

For more on the Discovery Program, 

stay tuned for a history book written by 

Susan Niebur with David Brown that 

will be published later this year.

2 To that end, we have collected some 

useful materials from a variety of archival sources in the short course of our 

research. We also know of one person 

involved in the mission who may well 

write a book on Clementine. That said, 

we would be interested to hear from 

anybody who might know about other 

Clementine records and/or is interested 

in writing about this subject.

3 The project was informally named after 

the 19th-century folk song “My Darlin’ 

Clementine” about a miner’s daughter 

who drowned and thus was “lost and 

gone forever.” The spacecraft was to 

help determine the Moon’s mineral 

content and fly by an asteroid, and 

then it would be “lost and gone forever.” 

See, for example, Stewart Nozette et 

al., “The Clementine Mission to the 

Moon: Scientific Overview,” Science

(16 December 1994): 1835. The project was formally known as the Deep 

Space Program Science Experiment 

(DSPSE) (despite its primary focus on 

technology demonstration) until shortly 

before launch, when it became known 

as Clementine.

4 See, for example, Howard McCurdy, 

Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost 

Innovation in the U.S. Space Program

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 2001).

5 Lt. Col. Pedro Rustan, “Clementine: 

An Experiment to Flight Qualify 

Lightweight Space Technologies,” draft 

summary, pp. 9–10, Missile Defense 

Agency historical file 772.

6 This quotation is from Project Manager 

Lt. Col. Pedro Rustan in Carl Bostrom, 

“The Clementine Model,” Space News

(16–22 May 1994): 18.

7 This quotation is from NRL Program 

Manager Paul Regeon in Kathy Sawyer, 

“Clementine Tells All After Gazing 

Upon the Moon,” Washington Post

(3 May 1994): A3.

8 Ben Iannotta, “Clementine Called 

Model for NASA,” Space News (25 

April–1 May 1994): 1, 20.

9 Clementine Executive Over view 

(undated), p. 4, NASA Headquarters 

Archives, file 5728.

10 Paul D. Spudis, “The Clementine 

Mission: A Lesson for NASA?,” Space 

Times (May–June 1994): 20 –21; 

Darren L. Burnham, “Faster, Cheaper, 

Clementine: Around the Moon in 71 

Days,” Spaceflight (September 1994): 

309; Clementine Executive Overview, 

p. 3; Ba llistic Missile Defense 

Organization, Technology Applications 

Report 1994, 1 January 1995, p. 88.

11 Trevor Sorensen, “Global Lunar 

Mapping by the Clementine Spacecraft,” 

American Astronautical Society (AAS)/

American Institute of Aeronautics 

and Astronautics (AIAA) Spaceflight 

Mechanics Meeting, Albuquerque, 

13–16 February 1995, AAS Paper 95-127, 

p. 21; Trevor Sorensen et al., “Spacecraft 

Autonomous Operations Experiment 

Performed During the Clementine 

Lunar Mission,” Journal of Spacecraft 

and Rockets 32, no. 6 (November–

December 1995): 1049–1053.

12 BMDO, Technology Applications Report 

1994, pp. v and 88.

13 Spudis, “The Clementine Mission: 

A Lesson for NASA?,” p. 20; BMDO, 

Technology Applications Report 1994, 

p. 88; Sorensen, “Global Lunar 

Mapping,” pp. 1–2; Trevor Sorensen 

and Paul Spudis, “The Clementine 

Mission—A 10-Year Perspective,” 

Journal of Earth System Science 114, no. 6 

(December 2005): 645–668.

14 Stewart Nozette et al., “The Clementine 

Mission to the Moon: Scientific Overview,” Science (16 December 1994): 1835.

15 A Clementine Collection: Moonglow, 

p. 3; “Clementine Spacecraft: Ice on the 

Moon,” DOD Fact Sheet, 3 December 

1996.

16 “Clementine Spacecraft: Ice on the 

Moon,” DOD Fact Sheet, 3 December 

1996; Sorensen and Spudis, “The 

Clementine Mission—A 10-Year 

Perspective,” p. 664.

17 Kathy Sawyer, “Clementine Tells 

All After Gazing upon the Moon,” 

Washington Post (3 May 1994): A3; 

Maria T. Zuber et al., “The Shape and 

Internal Structure of the Moon from 

the Clementine Mission,” Science

(16 December 1994): 1839.

18 “Clementine to Mark U.S. Return 

to Moon,” Aviation Week and Space 

Technology (17 January 1994): 66–67, 

cited in Burnham, “Faster, Cheaper, 

Clementine,” pp. 309–312.

19 “Titan 2 Stage Explodes in Orbit Used 

by Shuttle,” Space News (14–20 February 

1994): 2; “Discovery Unscathed from 

Titan Breakup,” Space News (21–27 

February 1994). STS-60 (Discovery) 

launched on 4 February 1994. It was 

unclear whether leftover rocket fuel or a 

collision with an existing piece of debris 

caused the explosion of the Titan II 

upper stage.

20 “Sensors Misdirected: Clementine 

to Forgo Geographos Fly-By,” Space 

News (23–29 May 1994): 22, cited 

in Burnha m, “Fa ster, Cheaper, 

Clementine,” p. 312, and Kathy Sawyer, 

“Spacecraft That Was Aimed at Asteroid 

To Be Diverted to Near-Earth Mission,” 

Washington Post (19 May 1994): A28; 

Sorensen and Spudis, “The Clementine 

Mission—A 10-Year Perspective.”

21 Sorensen, “Global Lunar Mapping,” pp. 

19–21.

22 Trevor Sorensen, Triet Tran, et al., 

“Effective Science Mission Planning and 

Operations: The Clementine Approach,” 

RAL.GS.31, pp. 1–9; Sorensen and 

Spudis, “The Clementine Mission—A 

10-Year Perspective.”

23 Ben Iannotta, “Clementine Readied for 

Launch,” Space News (17–23 January 

1994): 10; “Clementine Transferred 

from BMDO to the Navy,” Defense 

Daily (3 March 1994): 328; “SDIO 

Planning Clementine Follow-On,” 

Defense Daily (29 March 1993): 465; Ben 

Iannotta, “Pentagon Urges NASA To 

Help Send Alice Straight to the Moon,” 

Space News (14–20 March 1994); “Air 

Force Discloses Rover Experiment 

Information,” Space News (23–29 May 

1994): 16; Burnham, “Faster, Cheaper, 

Clementine,” p. 313. Curiously, a 

lunar rover might have been built for 

Clementine II.

24 Paul Spudis, “Clementine —The 

Legacy, Twenty Years On,” Air & Space 

Magazine (21 January 2014).

The Ballad of Clementine (continued)

12
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

ORAL HISTORY

The Human 

Side of 

Discovery

» By Sandra Johnson, Oral History Lead, 

Johnson Space Center

NASA HISTORIANS collect and 

publish oral history interviews 

from individuals across the 

Agency to provide researchers with 

valuable first-hand experiences, lessons 

learned, methodologies for success, 

and institutional knowledge, which in 

turn can help inform and ensure the 

success of future programs. Recently, 

the Science Mission Directorate tasked 

the History Office with initiating an 

oral history project to collect a series of 

interviews with team members involved 

in the Discovery Program’s historic 

planetary exploration missions over the 

last 30 years. 

Approved by Congress in 1993, the 

Discovery Program ushered in a new 

concept for low-cost, competed science missions within our solar system. 

Compared to NASA’s large and costly 

flagship programs, these Discovery 

missions stay under an established cost 

cap but remain high-value and focused 

studies that are competitively selected 

and led by a principal investigator (PI). 

In the last 30 years, the flown spacecraft and scientific instruments have 

changed the way we think about our 

solar system and reshaped the position 

of science and investigators in the 

selection, planning, and management 

of exploration missions. 

In his Discovery Program oral history, 

Dr. James Garvin, Chief Scientist at 

Goddard Space Flight Center and PI 

for the DAVINCI mission, spoke about 

how the idea of competition for science investigations was born out of a 

tragic event—the loss of the STS-51L 

Challenger crew. The following are 

excerpts from one of his transcripts.

“After the Challenger disaster, I was 

very fortunate that NASA assigned 

me to be a member of Sally Ride’s 

team that was asked to reassess 

[NASA’s] leadership in space. There 

were ten of us from across the 

Centers brought together with Sally, 

who was of course an incredible 

inspirational person beyond words 

and just a joy to work with, to ask the 

tough questions. What is leadership 

after you’ve had a horrible setback, a 

calamitous one, that none of us will 

ever forget? ...I’d only been at NASA 

a year at that point and couldn’t 

believe it. But to work with these colleagues—and I was the lone scientist 

on Sally Ride’s committee other than 

Sally herself, who of course was an 

astronaut, a scientist—to think about 

what it would be to establish leadership at the space frontier.

But working for her I saw NASA writ 

large. We briefed the Administrator 

about some of these leadership ideas. 

It was amazing. Talking about where 

we can send people, what’s coming 

after Shuttle, how we’re going to build 

 Jim Garvin poses with the DAVINCI descent sphere (“probe”) engineering test unit and 

“the eye of Venus” (Sapphire window held in his hands). (Image credit: NASA/Goddard 

Space Flight Center)

“...working for her I saw 

NASA writ large.”

13
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

what became the ISS. It gave me an 

opportunity to think about how we 

do the next-generation aspirational 

science. What’s the business model? 

The thing that Sally liked was that it’s 

great when people compete, like the 

Olympics, music, the arts, whatever. 

In some sense Sally’s idea about 

competing the action amongst teams 

of women and men through science, 

even the robotic science of exploring 

planets, started ideas including the 

now 30-year-old Discovery Program. 

We saw her testimony to one of the 

congressional committees. She testified that we have to compete. Not 

everything, but the more competition 

we get, the better the teams will be 

to do the jobs we need in scientific 

exploration. Science is always competitive, we compete through peer 

review, we compete through getting 

things published, we compete for 

lab space, for experiment space, for 

money, for what we learn. When you 

put that together it’s going to give 

you better value.

That was somewhat heretical in a 

sense. We had small competitions at 

NASA, we’re going to do this mission 

and we’ll get some people, and those 

will be sort of competed at an investigator level. But competing everything, an entire mission, the rocket, 

the spacecraft, the instruments, the 

science team, management team, 

that was still not yet in vogue. Sally’s 

catalytic listening to what leadership 

meant gave us the ability to start 

programs like Discovery to send 

smaller spacecraft to achieve big 

science. But that was a big change. 

It went from an era where we had 

“new starts,” smoke-filled rooms, 

people behind closed doors, let’s 

do a mission there, and then lots of 

scientists meet, and engineers said, 

‘We can do that, not this.’ Boom, 

we’re doing missions. That worked. 

We flew Voyager and Viking, Galileo 

that way. But the future has changed 

and the Discovery Program now 30 

years old is showing the value of 

that competition.

It’s tough, it takes time and energy 

and money. But in the end the 

products are just spectacular. I was 

lucky to see that as it happened, as 

it came out of Sally’s wisdom, and 

to start pushing for things that were 

part of my career. And now, thanks 

to the Discovery Program, we have 

a mission to Venus that will return 

the United States to the atmosphere 

and the surface of Venus for the first 

time in 50 years. As the principal 

investigator on that mission, having 

gone through the Discovery lens, it’s 

exciting to have a team of many brilliant young people to work with this 

mission across many NASA Centers, 

including teammates from JPL, JSC, 

Ames, Langley, Goddard, and many 

universities and Lockheed Martin to 

do a mission like this. 

”

“Sally’s catalytic listening 

to what leadership meant 

gave us the ability to start 

programs like Discovery to 

send smaller spacecraft to 

achieve big science.”

The Human Side of Discovery (continued)

 As a Ph.D. student at Brown University, Jim Garvin visited the USSR in 1983 to work on 

Venera 13 and 14 lander data concerning Venus. He is standing next to the Venera 13 

lander in Moscow Space Museum to celebrate his work on data from this mission. (Image 

credit: Don Campbell)

14
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Communication—across teams and 

with the public—is an ongoing theme 

in the oral histories collected thus 

far for this project. One of the main 

objectives of the Discovery Program 

is to “announce scientific progress and 

results in the peer-reviewed literature, 

popular media, scholastic curricula, 

and materials that can be used to 

inspire and motivate students to pursue 

careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”1

 Likewise, 

the National Aeronautics and Space 

Act of 1958 states that NASA shall: 

“provide for the widest practicable and 

appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the 

results thereof.”

In his oral history, Dr. Garvin 

explained his thoughts on the importance of communicating NASA’s goals 

and accomplishments to inspire the 

next generation:

“We serve at the behest of the public to have the opportunity to extend 

our presence in this universe as per 

the Space Act of ’58. Part of that job 

is communicating what we do. We 

train our astronauts to do that and 

they do a great job of course....But I 

think all of us have a little piece of that 

to do. It’s not just the social media 

things, it’s communicating why this 

matters. Sometimes why it matters 

is lost on the esoterica of what we’re 

doing. ‘Why are we listening to marsquakes?’ Another planet might tell 

us something about ourselves that 

we didn’t realize was happening 

because we weren’t smart enough 

to think outside of the Earth box. 

...Communicating the excitement and 

passion for what we have done, can 

do, want to do within these envelopes is important. Someone once 

told me Discovery missions are about 

the cost of a Hollywood movie. For 

the price of a movie that we’re entertained by...we’re going to explore a 

new world for the first time ever. The 

first time ever! 

When you start doing that for the first 

time ever, you have to communicate 

that excitement. I think there’s a lot 

of naturally gifted communicators. I 

call them science-casters instead 

of sportscasters. But those sciencecasting women and men, the ones 

I’ve been dazzled by and I’ve learned 

from, they’re just natural at explaining 

what they’re doing and why. But not 

in the way they could convey to their 

colleagues at a science conference...

but in the excitement of what that 

meant to you and your team.

Just an example, our DAVINCI team 

will employ 1,600 to 2,000 people as 

we build our mission to Venus. It’s a 

lot of great folks. Every one of them 

have their story to tell of their piece 

of doing something that has not been 

done in this way ever before. That’s 

pretty cool. When we were presenting DAVINCI to the selecting official, we made a set of selfie videos. 

We asked 40 or 50 people to each 

record a minute of themselves talking 

about why going to Venus might be 

interesting to their neighbor or their 

family members. We pasted them 

together in a little video collage. To 

just see the excitement of people 

was tremendous!

Our DAVINCI project scientist was 

standing next to a babbling brook. 

She said, ‘I like water. What happened 

to the water on Venus? I want to know. 

I have to go to find out. Planets may 

be telling us special things; we just 

don’t know.’ I think the communication element is an exciting part of it. 

I’ve taken it seriously; on DAVINCI 

we take it massively seriously. In fact, 

many people on our team are incredibly gifted communicators. One of our 

deputy PIs is one of the best I’ve ever 

seen. Literally off the charts. I hope 

she gives most of our talks. Our two 

deputies are both incredibly gifted in 

that regard because they can tell a 

story better than I ever could. Such 

talent is inspiring. 

” 

Endnote

1 See https://beta.science.nasa.gov/

planetary-science/programs/discovery/.

“Someone once told 

me Discovery missions 

are about the cost of a 

Hollywood movie. For 

the price of a movie that 

we’re entertained by...

we’re going to explore a 

new world for the first time 

ever. The first time ever!”

The Human Side of Discovery (continued)

Find out more about NASA’s 

Discovery Program.

Learn about NASA’s Oral 

History Program and read more 

interview transcripts.

15
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Former Glenn Artist Brings 

Future Space Missions 

to Life

» By Robert Arrighi, Historian, Glenn Research Center

E

NGINEERS OFTEN WORK on 

complex or esoteric projects that 

are difficult for others to visualize. 

So they often turn to NASA graphic 

artists to bring their concepts to life. 

Illustrators, such as Les Bossinas at 

NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC), 

can provide colorful representations 

that bring otherwise drab reports or 

briefings to life. In the late 1980s and 

1990s, Bossinas became renowned for 

his imaginative depictions of space 

settlements, conceptual space vehicles, 

and futuristic uses of a space station. 

Many of these paintings are still being 

used today.

Bossinas became interested in drawing, particularly depicting mechanical 

objects such as vehicles, while growing 

up in northeast Ohio. After serving 

in the Korean War, Bossinas earned a 

bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Ohio 

University in 1961. He subsequently 

worked for years as an industry graphic 

artist in the Cleveland area.

In 1984, Bossinas joined the Graphics 

and Exhibits Branch at NASA Glenn 

(then named Lewis Research Center). 

Although he did not have an aerospace 

background, Bossinas quickly adapted 

to the new subject matter. One of his 

first assignments was to create a series of 

paintings for the center’s Educational 

Services Office depicting different elements of a theoretical Moon base.

Bossinas won acclaim in 1986 with 

an illustration of a theoretical hypersonic aircraft with its surface glowing 

from the extreme temperatures experienced during high-speed flight. The 

image was later used as the cover of 

T. A. Heppenheimer’s Facing the Heat 

Barrier: A History of Hypersonics (NASA 

SP-3232).

Bossinas was responsible for producing 

graphical representations of objects or 

concepts for engineering or managerial 

customers. Sometimes this involved creating schematic or architectural drawings for specific objects; other times 

he was tasked with designing logos or 

 Artist Les Bossinas created this conceptual depiction of a rover for a lunar base 

in 1989. (Image credit: NASA/GRC)

 Bossinas’s depiction of a glowing hypersonic aircraft was displayed as part of 

NASA’s exhibit at the 1986 Experimental 

Aircraft Association (EAA) convention in 

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and was subsequently used in a number of NASA publications and presentations. (Image credit: 

NASA/GRC)

16
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

decorative objects. Not surprisingly, 

though, Bossinas’s favorite assignments 

were the ones requiring the greatest 

imagination and artistry—the visualization of futuristic scenes or missions.

Typically, a project started when engineers would approach him with ideas 

for a new concept or mission. Bossinas 

would discuss the subject with them 

and perform his own research. Most 

illustrations went through several iterations and reviews with the customer 

before being finalized.

The introduction of NASA’s Space 

Exploration Initiative in 1989 brought 

an increased demand for novel space 

exploration illustrations, particularly 

space settlements. The pieces sometimes 

depicted a specific technology, such as 

photovoltaic systems being utilized to 

power an outpost on the Moon, or they 

might be more general, such as showing 

what the use of in situ materials on a 

Mars colony might look like.

Glenn’s illustration team received its 

first graphics computer in the early 

1990s. At first Bossinas was too busy 

to set aside time to learn how to use it. 

Once he received training, though, he 

became awed by its potential. Bossinas 

frequently utilized the machine for his 

art thereafter and found it particularly helpful in making modifications 

to illustrations.

After retiring from NASA in 2001, 

Bossinas has continued painting and 

began working with stained glass. 

He has shared his experiences with 

younger artists and has occasionally 

participated in large events such as 

the Smithsonian Folk Festival and the 

Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland. Several 

of his conceptual space paintings were 

included in a NASA art exhibit in 

the Cleveland Hopkins International 

Airport in 2016. 

Former Glenn Artist Brings Future Space 

Missions to Life (continued)

 Bossinas at work in his studio. He won 

first, second, and third place in the Lewis 

Art Show in 1990. (Image credit: NASA/

GRC)

 Bossinas at work creating digital artwork 

in May 1996. While he never gave up traditional illustration methods, Bossinas 

regularly took advantage of the possibilities that digital tools allow. (Image credit: 

NASA/GRC)

 In this 1992 illustration, Bossinas visualizes a lunar base with an electrostatic fence. 

(Image credit: NASA/GRC)

17
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Weathering the Storm 

Space Environment Testing 

of the Webb Telescope

» By Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, Historian, Johnson Space Center

I

N JULY 2022, NASA released the 

debut images from the James Webb 

Space Telescope. At the event, 

President Joe Biden said that the photographs would “remind the world that 

America can do big things and remind 

the American people—especially our 

children—that there’s nothing beyond 

our capacity. We can see possibilities 

no one has ever seen before. We can go 

places no one has ever gone before.”1

Thousands of scientists, engineers, and 

technicians from NASA and industry built, tested, and integrated the 

telescope, making these images possible, including those who worked at 

the Space Environment Simulation 

Laboratory (SESL) at Johnson Space 

Center (JSC) in Houston.

When compared to other NASA facilities, JSC is not usually recognized for 

its contributions to astronomy and solar 

system exploration. JSC has always been 

NASA’s premier human spaceflight 

center and home to the astronaut corps, 

and today it serves as the lead center 

for the International Space Station, the 

Orion spacecraft, and Gateway. But in 

2006, NASA selected SESL’s Chamber 

A to perform a vital cryogenic vacuum 

test that gave scientists and engineers 

the confidence that the next-generation 

telescope would function as intended 

in space. The test was particularly 

memorable for many members of the 

team because it occurred during a 

major hurricane that 

dumped more than 

50 inches of rain on 

the Houston area, 

causing catastrophic 

flooding. Hurricane 

Harvey resulted in 

more than $125 billion 

in damages, making 

it the second most 

damaging hurricane 

to hit the United 

States, just behind 

Hurricane Katrina.

The SESL is one of the Center’s National 

Historic Landmarks, and significant 

modifications had to be made to the 

facility before the test could begin. 

The building, completed in 1964, featured two chambers. Chamber A, the 

larger of the two, tested the Apollo 

Command and Service Module to 

ensure that the vehicle could safely 

house the astronauts in the heat and 

cold of space. Both chambers were 

designed to protect test subjects. To 

protect astronauts, technicians, and 

engineers working inside the area, 

NASA ensured that the test chamber 

could be quickly repressurized in an 

emergency—in a matter of seconds. 

Test conductors monitored participants 

through portholes and closed-circuit 

TV, while instrumentation measured 

their heart and respiration rates as 

well as oxygen flow rate to ensure that 

their bodies were not experiencing any 

undue stress.2

But testing a telescope is not like 

testing a human-rated spacecraft and 

its crew, so requirements for Webb 

differed from those for Apollo. The 

Command Module circled Earth and 

the Moon, experiencing both high and 

low temperatures, but its lowest temperature of –100 degrees Fahrenheit 

(°F) was nowhere near what Webb 

would encounter.3 Since the telescope 

was designed to orbit the Sun, one million miles away from Earth, the testing 

chamber had to be able to recreate the 

environment in which the telescope 

would operate: 45 kelvins, or about 

–380 °F.

Lee Feinberg, the Optical Telescope 

Element manager for the Webb team, 

 The James Webb Space Telescope was placed in Johnson 

Space Center’s historic Chamber A on 20 June 2017 to prepare for three months of testing in a cryogenic vacuum that 

mimics temperatures in space. (Image credit: NASA)

18
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

called the cryogenic test “the hardest 

engineering problem” they faced.4

The test they envisioned would be 

complicated, and eventually the team 

concluded that the original location 

they chose, NASA’s Plum Brook 

Station in Ohio, was less than ideal. 

JSC’s Chamber A, while not perfect, 

could be updated to meet their needs. 

Upgrades included the installation of 

a clean room, helium shrouds, and 

an improved liquid nitrogen system.5

 Planning and designing the test 

took three years, and retrofitting the 

chamber ended up taking another 

three years.6

Making the decision to relocate the test 

to Houston added another complication 

for the test team. Because of Houston’s 

proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and 

the possibility that the test might 

happen in the middle of summer, the 

team had to plan for all contingencies, 

including a hurricane. “It was almost 

a running joke about hurricanes,” 

Feinberg remembered. “The likelihood 

was just incredibly small.”7 Still, they 

prepared. They stored food, water, and 

flashlights in lockers just in case, and 

they even rented a porta potty.8

In August 2017, just as the facility 

reached its working temperature of 

–387 °F, Hurricane Harvey headed 

toward the Texas coast and made 

landfall as a Category 4 storm. (The 

last Category 4 storm to hit Texas 

had occurred in 1961—right before 

NASA announced its decision to 

build the Manned Spacecraft Center 

in Houston.) The eye of the hurricane 

first made landfall on San Jose Island 

and then the communities of Rockport 

and Fulton, destroying and damaging 

property. The storm stalled over southeast Texas, which included the greater 

Houston and Galveston area, bringing 

record rainfall and flooding to the 

area. Thousands lost their homes to 

the rising water, including some JSC 

employees and their families. But the 

test continued because “the chamber 

was the safest place” for the Webb to 

be, and the team had taken precautions 

to prepare—just in case.9 But the testing team had expected the storm move 

quickly through the area, not to sit over 

the region. Even as the ceiling in the 

control rooms began to leak, testing 

continued. Staff had to mop up water 

and cover their systems with tarps, 

but somehow, the power at the Center 

stayed on. As if a hurricane and sitting under a 

leaking ceiling were not 

stressful enough, another 

possible obstacle soon 

emerged—the SESL’s liquid nitrogen, which kept 

the chamber cold, began 

to run low. Suppliers 

could not deliver due to 

massive flooding in the 

Houston area, but luckily 

staff did not have to halt 

the test—the SESL had 

enough liquid nitrogen in its tanks to 

make it through to the end.

About eight weeks later, on 18 November 

2017, technicians opened the door to 

SESL’s Chamber A, marking the end 

of the cryogenic testing. Completing 

the test gave NASA confidence that the 

James Webb Space Telescope would 

operate successfully in deep space. The 

newly upgraded facility was able to 

meet the program’s requirements, saving time and money in the process and 

resulting in some of the most amazing 

photos of the early universe. 

Endnotes

1 “President Biden Reveals First Image 

from NASA’s Webb Telescope,” NASA 

Release 22-070, https://www.nasa.

gov/press-release/president-bidenreveals-first-image-from-nasa-s-webbtelescope (accessed 25 August 2023).

2 Aleck Bond, interview by Robert 

Merrifield, 10 October 1967, transcript, 

JSC History Collection, University of 

Houston–Clear Lake, Houston, TX.

3 Jonathan L. Homan, interview by 

author, 28 June 2018, transcript, JSC 

Oral History Project.

4 “We Are Not Alone: Nobel Laureate in 

Austin,” Sun News Austin (11 June 2018), 

http://sunnewsaustin.com/2018/06/11/

we-are-not-alone-nobel-laureate-inaustin/ (accessed 25 August 2023).

5 Lee D. Feinberg, interview by author, 

3 July 2018, transcript, JSC Oral 

History Project.

6 Jonathan L. Homan et al., “Creating the 

Deep Space Environment for Testing 

the James Webb Space Telescope 

at NASA Johnson Space Center’s 

Chamber A,” International Conference 

on Environmental Systems, 14–18 July 

2013, https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2013-

3522 (accessed 25 August 2023).

7 Feinberg interview.

8 Homan interview.

9 Begoña Vila Costas, interview by author, 

29 August 2018, transcript, JSC Oral 

History Project.

Weathering the Storm (continued)

 Tarps protect computing equipment from a leak in the 

SESL control room ceiling during Hurricane Harvey. 

(Image credit: NASA)

19
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

DARKNESS AND SHADOW are 

common tropes often associated 

with concealment. Shining a 

light into the darkness, as the metaphor 

goes, reveals what was once hidden. 

As NASA explores the secrets of the 

universe for the benefit of all, some of 

the universe’s secrets are, quite literally, 

in shadow.

Permanently Shadowed Regions, or 

PSRs, are found on various surface 

locations in the solar system. On the 

Moon, its slight 1.5-degree axial tilt 

means that crater floors at the poles 

of the Moon never see direct sunlight. 

Other polar regions, meanwhile, experience almost constant sunlight. More 

than an awe-inspiring geographical 

curiosity, one of the consequences of 

perpetual darkness is that PSRs are 

uniquely suited for preserving volatile 

compounds—including water ice—

that would otherwise disperse out into 

space. These regions are of particular 

interest for both science and exploration because their chemical compositions will provide us with more definite 

clues about the origin and evolution 

of the solar system, while the distribution of ice will also reveal 

the specific challenges that await for 

any future harnessing of that ice as 

a resource. Water ice is present in a 

variety of locations in the solar system, 

but no other celestial body is as close 

to Earth as the Moon and its areas of 

perpetual darkness.

In the early 1950s, Harold Urey proposed that there could be such regions 

on the Moon where sunlight never 

shines. Additionally, there could be 

volatile substances present in those 

regions, but Urey specifically ruled 

out water ice existing in them for any 

long period of time. In 1961, years 

before the first successful soft landing 

on the Moon, NASA funding supported the work of California Institute 

of Technology (Caltech) scientists 

Into Darkness

Shadows, Ice, and the Moon

» By James Anderson, Historian, Ames Research Center

 The rim of Marvin crater arcs across the 

image from left to right. The steep interior 

wall below the rim slopes down toward 

the bottom of the image. The crater interior is in permanent shadow; the exterior 

was in shadow when this image 

sequence was acquired on 28 February 

2023. However, this area is not permanently shadowed. The image width is 

2,200 meters, and the lunar south pole is 

about 26 kilometers to the right. This 

mosaic is made from ShadowCam 

images M017882983, M017890053, and 

M017904198. (Image credit: NASA/KARI/

Arizona State University)

 Permanently Shadowed 

Regions, or PSRs, appear 

black in this multitemporal 

illumination map of the 

lunar south pole from the 

Lunar Reconnaissance 

Orbiter Camera dataset. 

The nearly white areas are in 

almost perpetual sunlight 

throughout a lunar year. 

(Image credit: NASA/Goddard/

Arizona State University)

20
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Kenneth Watson, Bruce Murray, and 

Harrison Brown, who first suggested1

and then theoretically demonstrated 

“that water is actually by far the most 

stable of the naturally occurring 

volatile substances...on the lunar 

surface.”2 Unfortunately, the three 

authors observed, the very darkness 

that enabled the cold temperatures 

and allowed ice to persist would also 

require placing an instrument in one 

of those cold traps to make a measurement.3

 It could not be done from Earth 

or even in lunar orbit. No mission to 

the lunar surface in the 20th century 

addressed this outstanding issue.

Instead, the post-Apollo world of planetary missions focused on just about 

everything except the Moon. After six 

crewed landings, with their surface 

experiments, rovers, and hundreds of 

pounds of lunar samples returned, this 

change in focus was understandable. 

From a funding standpoint, however, 

a retraction of planetary missions 

began even before the Apollo 11 Moon 

landing. NASA’s share of total federal 

spending peaked in 1966; as funding 

for the Agency as a whole was throttled 

back, scientific projects that did not 

directly support Apollo had to adapt. 

The robotic lunar missions of the 1960s 

primarily supported Apollo landing 

site selection; scientific exploration was 

an auxiliary bonus. While planetary 

missions and space sciences, generally, 

flourished with programs like Explorers, 

Pioneer, and Mariner, austerity began 

to take hold. Meanwhile, as lunar 

samples were studied on Earth and the 

lack of water contained in those samples surprised no one, the lunar cold 

trap theory from 1961 was revisited 

by James Arnold, who bolstered the 

original case but still concluded that 

the lunar ice question remained open 

and would require experimentation 

to settle.4

Arnold’s suggested experiment still has 

not been conducted yet, but missions 

since the 1990s have only added to the 

growing body of evidence that indicates that water ice exists at the Moon’s 

poles.5 A clear understanding of the 

nature and distribution of that ice and 

volatile compounds, however, requires 

ground-truthing. With advances in 

imaging capabilities, such as the NASAfunded ShadowCam instrument on 

board the Korea Aerospace Research 

Institute’s (KARI’s) Korea Pathfinder 

Lunar Orbiter, the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon are coming 

into view, but we are still in the dark 

about the details until we physically 

inspect a sample of regolith from a 

Into Darkness (continued)

At NASA’s Ames Research Center, a lab designed to mimic lunar terrain as it would 

appear in different areas at the Moon’s poles is where the VIPER team tests out lighting 

systems for the rover with a very low-angle illumination simulating the Sun. The VIPER 

team has tested several robust light-emitting diode (LED) lighting systems—including 

blue lights and other wavelengths—to see which would offer the best optical performance for the rover on the Moon. The Ames-based team will pass their findings on to 

VIPER teammates at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the lights will 

eventually be built. (Image credit: NASA/Dominic Hart)

...we are still in the dark 

about the details until 

we physically inspect a 

sample of regolith from 

a PSR. 

21
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

PSR. If NASA’s Volatiles Investigating 

Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) does 

become the first mission to venture 

successfully into a PSR, it will do so as 

the first rover with headlights, enabling 

the operators to see the terrain around 

the rover as they drive. While the 

headlights will literally illuminate the 

lunar terrain, it will be VIPER’s science 

payload and drill that shed the metaphorical light on the darkness. 

Endnotes

1 Kenneth Watson, Bruce C. Murray, 

and Harrison Brown, “On the Possible 

Presence of Ice on the Moon,” Journal 

of Geophysical Research 66, no. 5 (1961): 

1598–1600.

2 Kenneth Watson, Bruce C. Murray, 

and Harrison Brown, “The Behavior of 

Volatiles on the Lunar Surface,” Journal 

of Geophysical Research 66, no. 9 (1961): 

3033.

3 Watson, Murray, and Brown, “On the 

Possible Presence of Ice on the Moon,” 

p. 1599.

4 James R. Arnold, “Ice in the Lunar 

Polar Regions,” Journal of Geophysical 

Research: Solid Earth 84, no. B10 (1979): 

5659–5668.

5 As of the end of August this year, Luna 

25 failed while in orbit around the Moon 

before its descent, while Chandrayaan-3 

successfully landed near the lunar south 

pole on 23 August. Earlier in the year, 

the Hakuto-R Mission 1 of the Japanese 

company ispace crashed during its 

attempted landing in April. Hakuto-R 

was not targeting the lunar south pole, 

but it would have been the first commercial, nongovernmental entity to 

successfully land on the Moon. The first 

privately funded spacecraft to attempt a 

lunar landing was the Israeli Beresheet 

mission.

VIPER’s lights use arrays of LEDs 

and will offer the same flexibility as 

a car’s high beams and parking 

lights. Mounted on a mast, two of 

these arrays will cast a narrow, 

long-distance beam. Around the 

base of the rover, as many as six 

lights will illuminate a broad area 

less intensely and can be turned on 

and off individually as needed. 

(Image credit: NASA/Daniel Rutter)

Into Darkness (continued)

Get the latest news about NASA’s 

VIPER mission.

22
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

» By Travis Frederick, Ph.D. Candidate at Princeton University, Fellow at the 

Kennan Institute, and Spring 2023 NASA History Space Grant Recipient

First of all, it is necessary to restart 

our lunar program and missions to 

other planets of the solar system as 

quickly as possible....

—Russian President 

Vladimir Putin1

ON 11 AUGUST 2023 at 8:10 a.m. 

local time, the Luna-25 lunar 

lander was launched atop a 

Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny 

Cosmodrome, and on 19 August at 2:57 

p.m. Moscow time, communications 

were lost as the spacecraft crashed into 

the lunar surface. Luna-25 had been 

planned to land at the Boguslawsky crater near the lunar south pole and spend 

the next year studying the plasma and 

dust components of the lunar polar 

exosphere and the composition of the 

polar regolith.2 While its intended 

purpose may not stand out as unique 

among the lunar exploration missions 

currently being conducted by NASA, 

the European Space Agency (ESA), the 

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency 

(JAXA), the Indian Space Research 

Organisation (ISRO), and the China 

National Space Administration 

(CNSA), Luna-25 was supposed to 

mark the first successful steps out of the 

starting gate for a post-Soviet planetary 

science program.

In 1976, when the Luna program last 

launched, the planetary science program was becoming the pride of the 

Soviet space program and establishing the Soviet Union’s global leadership in space activities.3

 Searching 

for political victories after losing the 

race to put a man on the Moon, the 

Soviets succeeded in being the first to 

return lunar samples with a robotic 

mission (Luna-16), put a rover on the 

Moon (Lunokhod 1), land on Venus 

(Venera 7), and complete a soft landing 

on Mars (Mars 3). During this same 

period, NASA faced post-Apollo budget cuts and chose to prioritize crewed 

missions like Skylab and the Space 

Shuttle Program. The U.S. planetary 

science program fizzled; no planetary spacecraft were launched by the 

United States between 1978 and 1989. 

Uncontested, the Soviets kept pressing 

their advantage with robotic missions, 

leading to numerous historical “firsts” 

and political victories. The immense 

success of the Soviet Union’s planetary 

science program during this period 

was due primarily to two factors: high 

risk tolerance and a resilient budget. 

Both of these factors were facilitated 

A Soyuz rocket launches 

Russia’s Luna-25 lunar 

lander on 11 August 

2023. (Image credit: 

Roscosmos)

Relaunching 

Russia’s Planetary 

Science Program

23
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

by extreme state secrecy. Missions were 

launched without notice and without 

stated goals. This allowed the Soviets 

to cover up launch failures or missions 

that never left low-Earth orbit, but it 

also allowed them to frame failed missions as successes, such as lost Mars 

orbiters reimagined as successful Mars 

flybys.4 Importantly, this meant that 

the program never suffered domestic 

audience costs in terms of undermined 

prestige or budget cuts due to failed 

missions. In a way, this period was a 

precursor to the “faster, better, cheaper” 

approach that would come to define 

NASA’s Discovery Program success; 

the Soviets could launch in nearly every 

launch window at artificial prices set by 

the Communist Party, who controlled 

the costs of natural resources, manufacturing, transport, and labor. It was 

a perfect recipe for persistently pursuing high-risk, high-scientific-reward 

missions. Wes Huntress, former NASA 

Associate Administrator for Space 

Science, has argued that “state secrecy 

concealed the fact that the Soviet 

robotic space exploration program was 

bolder, more innovative, and more 

tragic than any observers in the West 

could have imagined at the time.”5

Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost (openness) ended the secrecy that facilitated 

high risk tolerance, and Perestroika 

(restructuring) changed the basic 

relationships between the government, society, and the Soviet economy. Launching costly rockets for 

propaganda victories was no longer an 

option. The newly structured space 

agency needed income to supplement 

a now-limited government budget, and 

they needed a model that could stand 

up not only to newfound public scrutiny but also to the scrutiny of paying 

international customers. Gorbachev 

set up Glavkosmos to attract commercial space business and coordinate 

with foreign organizations.6 This new 

political and budgetary landscape was 

pressure-tested by the 1988 Phobos 

mission. Phobos 1 and 2 were highly 

international projects—they intended 

to carry 24 experiments provided by 

15 different countries to Phobos, the 

larger of Mars’s two moons. The launch 

was attended by the international press, 

a group of international scientists 

working on the mission, and a U.S. 

military delegation. Advertising space 

on the side of the rocket was even sold 

to Italian and Austrian steel companies. 

It was a devastating failure when communication with Phobos 1 was lost en 

route due to a human coding error and 

Phobos 2 failed in orbit. Turmoil followed. Long-held tolerance for failure 

in pursuit of bold initiatives collapsed 

in the face of international embarrassment. The program was exposed to 

domestic and international scrutiny for 

the first time, and severe budget cuts 

were handed down in 1989.

The planetary science program encountered even greater challenges while 

navigating the dissolution of the Soviet 

Union. Planning had begun in 1989 

for another international attempt on 

Mars (Mars 94), though the financial 

picture was already bleak. The Soviets 

did not allocate any initial funding 

for the project. France and Germany 

agreed to contribute investigations 

totaling more than $120 million, but 

funding from the Soviet government 

arrived slowly and in small amounts. 

Instruments were deleted, and the 

mission was significantly simplified 

from initial designs. When the USSR 

collapsed, financing problems became 

acute. For the first time in the history 

of the Soviet planetary science program, money became a pacing issue: 

the project faced fits and starts as funding from the government and parts 

from contractors failed to arrive. In 

late 1993, the fledgling Russian Space 

Agency was forced to ask partners 

for funding to keep the project afloat, 

leading to an additional $10 million 

from France and Germany. There 

were water and power shortages at the 

Baikonur launch facility as bills to the 

now-independent Kazakh authorities 

went unpaid.7 The situation became so 

dire that tracking ships were recalled 

to port and most were sold off.8 When 

Mars 94 finally launched as Mars 96, it 

suffered a catastrophic launch failure. 

Because there were no tracking ships in 

the Pacific, there was a lack of telemetry data during critical moments of the 

escape phase, precluding identification 

of the cause of the failure. Mars 96 was 

a death knell for the Soviet planetary 

science program.

But persistence is the key character trait 

of the Russian space program. As early 

as 1997, the newly formed Russian 

Relaunching Russia’s Planetary Science Program (continued)

The newly structured 

space agency needed 

income to supplement a 

now-limited government 

budget, and they needed 

a model that could stand 

up not only to newfound 

public scrutiny but also 

to the scrutiny of paying 

international customers.

24
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Space Agency began initial plans for 

Luna-25, known then as the Luna-Glob 

Moon exploration program. The 1998 

financial crisis put the program on ice 

until the Russian Space Agency, now 

reorganized as Roscosmos, attempted 

to revitalize it as a joint 2004 project 

with JAXA known as Lunar-A. That 

project faced technical delays and was 

canceled in 2007. Immediately following the cancellation of Lunar-A, 

Roscosmos signed an agreement with 

ISRO to redevelop Luna-Glob as the 

Chandrayaan-2 lunar lander. In 2012, 

there was a significant delay in the 

construction of Chandrayaan-2 due to 

a launch failure of the joint RussianChinese Phobos-Grunt mission to 

Mars. The following year, ISRO backed 

out of the partnership and decided to 

develop Chandrayaan-2 independently. 

Russia’s Mars woes continued in 

2016, when a joint mission with ESA, 

ExoMars, was lost on descent. Future 

joint ExoMars missions were canceled 

by ESA in 2022 due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. No missions to the 

Moon or Venus were launched during 

this tumultuous period. Despite successes in the human space program, 

most notably as a partner and reliable 

transit option to the International 

Space Station (ISS), Russia failed to 

get a post-Soviet planetary science program off the starting blocks.

Following the 2011 Phobos-Grunt 

failure and the cancellation of 

Chandrayaan-2, Roscosmos returned 

to independent development of the 

Luna-Glob program, now renamed 

Luna-25 to imply a connection to and 

continuation of the successful Soviet 

planetary science program. The program was initially planned to launch 

in 2012, only to be delayed on at 

least six separate occasions until its 

unsuccessful August 2023 journey. As 

NASA’s Discovery Program reaches its 

30th anniversary and celebrates numerous successes, the Russian planetary 

science program is once again experiencing false starts, this time with a 

project steeped in Soviet legacy and 25 

years in the making. With the lessons 

of the successful Discovery and Soviet 

programs in mind, one may ask if the 

current iteration of the Russian planetary science program has conditions to 

facilitate similar successes. Three key 

factors are likely to limit Russia’s prospects. First, despite a modest budget 

increase for Russian space-related activities from $2.7 billion to $3.1 billion in 

the next year, other projects like continued support of the ISS, development of 

a new Russian Orbital Service Station 

(ROSS), and military space activities 

are likely to take priority among limited 

resources. Second, the recent history of 

failed international partnerships, combined with the political fallout from 

the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are 

likely to limit partnership opportunities for future programs. Third, the 

very public competition for lunar real 

estate, Russia’s lack of recent successes 

in planetary science, and a struggling 

wartime economy will surely heighten 

public scrutiny of failure. Despite those 

challenges, Roscosmos does have three 

crucial factors supporting the new program: a persistent and resilient space 

sector, supportive state leadership, and 

a population nostalgic for international 

prestige and Russian leadership in 

space exploration. In response to the 

failure of Luna-25, Director General 

of Roscosmos Yuriy Borisov simply 

stated that work should be stepped up 

on Luna-26 and Luna-27 to achieve 

the desired results.9 Only time will tell 

if invoking the Luna program is a sufficient spark to rekindle Soviet success 

within a new, post-Soviet planetary science program. Either way, the Russians 

are sure to keep trying. 

Endnotes

1 “Putin urges quick restart of domestic 

lunar missions,” speech commemorating Cosmonautics Day, 12 April 

2023, https://tass.com/science/1603347

(accessed 28 August 2023).

2 “Luna 25,” NASA Space Science Data 

Coordinated Archive, https://nssdc.

gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.

action?id=LUNA-25 (accessed 28 

August 2023).

3 Michael Lemonick, “Surging Ahead—

The Soviets Overtake the U.S. as the 

No. 1 Spacefaring Nation,” Time 

Magazine (5 October 1987), https://

content.time.com/time/subscriber/

article/0,33009,965658,00.html

(accessed 28 August 2023).

4 Slava Gerovitch, Soviet Space Mythologies: 

Public Images, Private Memories, and 

the Making of a Cultural Identity

(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh 

Press, 2015), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.

ctt15nmjd1 (accessed 28 August 2023).

5 Wesley T. Huntress and Mikhail Ya 

Marov, Soviet Robots in the Solar System: 

Mission Technologies and Discoveries

(Chichester, U.K.: Springer-Praxis, 

2011).

6 Brian Harvey, “Selling Peace: Inside the 

Soviet Conspiracy That Transformed 

the US Space Program,” Space Policy 27, 

no. 1 (2011): 60–61.

7 Barry Stoddard, Baikonur Man: Space, 

Science, American Ambition, and Soviet 

Chaos at the Cold War’s End (Virginia 

Beach, VA: Koehlerbooks, 2023).

8 Huntress and Marov, Soviet Robots in 

the Solar System.

9 “Roscosmos Chief Announces Plans 

To Step up Work on Luna-26, Luna27 Missions,” TASS, 21 August 2023, 

https://tass.com/science/1663179

(accessed 28 August 2023).

Relaunching Russia’s Planetary Science Program (continued)

25
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Preserving MESSENGER’s 

Journey from Day One

» By Julie Pramis, Summer 2023 Archives Intern, NASA Headquarters

NASA HEADQUARTERS Archives 

staff recently completed processing the MESSENGER 

collection donated by Dr. Sean C. 

Solomon, the mission’s principal investigator (PI). MESSENGER stands for 

MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, 

GEochemistry and Ranging—referencing the focus of this mission to capture 

data on the geology, magnetic field, and 

chemical composition of the terrestrial 

planet closest to the Sun. It was the first 

spacecraft to orbit Mercury and the first 

to fly by since Mariner 10 in 1975. On 

the way to Mercury, MESSENGER 

also did two flybys of Venus, which 

served as gravity-assist maneuvers and 

allowed the spacecraft to capture data 

on Earth’s sister planet. These flybys 

were coordinated to share data with the 

European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus 

Express mission, which launched a little 

over a year after MESSENGER.

Looking at when records for the 

MESSENGER mission start, we must 

go back several years before its launch 

to the first proposal for a Mercury 

orbiter in 1996. And yes, I said “first 

proposal,” because MESSENGER 

was not selected as a Discovery 

Program mission the first time around. 

MESSENGER reached the second 

round of reviews in 1997 but was considered high-risk, and NASA passed. 

For a spacecraft that travels close to 

the Sun, thermal design is critical. Not 

enough testing had been done up to 

that point to reassure the review panel 

that MESSENGER had the right solution to survive the heat. Additionally, 

the second round of reviews focused 

more on the technical, management, 

cost, and other factors (TMCO) rather 

than the science, which is where 

Dr. Solomon considered himself a 

“rookie PI” at the time. He and the team 

learned a lot from the Discovery review 

process (a rookie no more!). They took 

that feedback and hired Max Peterson 

as the project manager; Johns Hopkins 

University Applied Physics Laboratory 

(APL) tested the solar arrays extensively, 

and they re-proposed the next year.

Shortly after MESSENGER was 

selected, two major events affected 

future missions at NASA. First, the 

Mars Polar Lander was lost (likely 

crash-landed on Mars) in late 1999. 

Then, in 2002, NASA lost contact 

with CONTOUR (COmet Nucleus 

TOUR), the spacecraft intended to 

study the interior of at least two comets. The CONTOUR mission was also 

an APL mission, so it had overlap with 

MESSENGER on its subsystems and 

people who worked on them. These 

events led difficulties between the 

project and NASA Headquarters in the 

form of extra scrutiny and reviews in 

the early stages of MESSENGER.

The MESSENGER archival collection reflects that context, with many 

printed slide decks for the design 

reviews, site visits, meetings, and other 

presentations throughout the mission. 

Monthly and quarterly reviews cover 

nearly every month for six years—from 

2006 to 2012. Records of attendance 

and presentations at national and 

The MESSENGER spacecraft lifts off 

early on 3 August 2004 from Cape 

Canaveral Space Force Station to begin 

its seven-year journey to Mercury. (Image 

credit: NASA)

The MESSENGER archival 

collection reflects that 

context, with many 

printed slide decks for 

the design reviews, site 

visits, meetings, and other 

presentations throughout 

the mission. 

26
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

international conferences are plentiful. 

More than anything, though, e-mail 

correspondence throughout the mission (from planning in the early 1990s 

to active orbit through 2012) is well 

represented. Contained within nearly 

every folder, these e-mails add valuable 

context. Communication between the 

team members on everything from 

working on drafts to tracking news 

coverage of their work is documented 

in detail thanks to Dr. Solomon’s dedication to preserving these messages.

E-mail archiving in the late 1990s and 

early 2000s was not what it is today, 

so having access to these e-mails in 

any form—even print-to-file—is a win 

for the NASA Archives. The day-today processes of planning a mission, 

writing a proposal, and tracking the 

mission from prelaunch to active orbit, 

plus all the educational and outreach 

work in between, cannot be captured 

in this level of detail without workaday 

records like e-mails, which we often 

take for granted. A portion of this correspondence is currently in the process 

of being digitized because they will be 

easier to search (and store) when they 

are back in digital form. (Archivist’s 

note: Digitizing printed e-mails is not 

the same as e-mail archiving. There 

are digital tools available to preserve 

e-mails as they exist in digital form, 

but without access to the original 

born-digital records, re-digitizing 

printed e-mails is a good option.)

Another exciting part of this collection is evidence of its collaboration 

with BepiColombo, the international 

mission from ESA and JAXA to send 

two orbiters to Mercury. BepiColombo 

launched in 2018, a few years after 

MESSENGER concluded its mission, 

but planning started much earlier: four 

meetings and workshops between 2006 

and 2012 with the MESSENGER 

team are captured in the collection. 

BepiColombo is currently en route 

to Mercury, on a mission to build 

our understanding of the planet’s 

surface, internal composition, and 

magnetosphere!

A mission like MESSENGER, which 

had multiple proposals, extensions, 

collaborations, and close review from 

management, provides great insight 

into the processes of sending a spacecraft out into the solar system. Not 

only the science but the project management are captured in detail for the 

benefit of future missions. The materials are now arranged and described 

(from Dr. Solomon’s already very nicely 

organized files), so MESSENGER’s 

experiences can aid PIs and researchers 

well into the future. 

Preserving MESSENGER’s Journey from Day One (continued)

MESSENGER’s August 2004 launch 

press kit is one of the many records that 

make up the archive. (Image credit: 

NASA)

In May 2011, a first-day-of-issue ceremony for Project Mercury and MESSENGER 

Mission commemorative stamps (left) took place at Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor 

Complex. This program from the event (right) is part of the archive. (Image credit: NASA)

27
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

TESS: 

In Search of 

New Worlds

» By Vaibhavi Mahajan, Summer 

2023 NASA History Intern

F

ROM THE SCREENS of science 

fiction movies and the pages 

of books describing fantastical 

worlds, we have created images of planets outside our solar system. But what 

really exists out there? What exoplanets 

are close to us, and why is it important 

to find them—other than in search of 

extraterrestrial life?

Launched on 18 April 2018, NASA’s 

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite 

(TESS) aims to find out. Unlike previous missions in search of exoplanets, 

TESS has a broader definition of what 

types of exoplanets it is looking for. 

Using a wide-field camera to study a 

larger portion of the sky, the telescope 

looks for planets that are not just larger 

than or similar in size to Jupiter, but 

also smaller worlds closer in size to 

Earth. It also sets its sights on potential exoplanets orbiting stars that are 

within our galaxy, including stars visible to the naked eye.

TESS is not the first mission to search 

for exoplanets: while the Hubble and 

Spitzer Space Telescopes both made 

exoplanet observations, discovering these planets was not their main 

objective. It was not until March 2009, 

when NASA launched the Kepler space 

telescope, that the search really began. 

Kepler’s main objective was to explore 

the structure and diversity of planetary systems—and it did. Surveying 

a specific region of the sky, Kepler 

observed more than 150,000 stars and 

found more than 2,600 planets beyond 

our solar system, some of which seem 

promising for harboring life because 

they exist in the habitable zones of their 

stars.1 After almost a decade of success, 

Kepler was decommissioned in 2018, 

the same year TESS launched.

Like Kepler, TESS uses the transit 

method—where a dip in the brightness 

of a star signifies a planet passing in 

front of it—for detecting exoplanets. 

But TESS is distinct in using four widefield charge-coupled device (CCD) 

cameras, giving it the ability to observe 

75 percent of the sky during its primary 

mission—mapping the southern sky in 

its first year and the northern sky in its 

second.2 Once every two weeks, the 

telescope collects data and sends them 

back to Earth.

TESS’s launch marked a milestone in 

exploring our universe, but building 

the telescope did not come without its 

challenges. Program Manager for TESS 

Jeff Volosin says that one of the biggest 

challenges was planning the mission 

with little knowledge of what was 

going to happen or what the telescope 

would find. Furthermore, the cameras 

on TESS were so sensitive that they 

could not risk accidental exposure to 

light, so scientists had to be extremely 

careful when working on them. NASA 

had never before attempted to launch 

something so sensitive.

TESS’s launch marked a 

milestone in exploring our 

universe, but building the 

telescope did not come 

without its challenges.

This artist’s concept shows the TESS spacecraft in its highly elliptical orbit around Earth. 

(Image credit: NASA/GSFC)

28
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

“The launch was an unforgettable event,” 

says Joshua Winn, who has served 

in many roles in the development of 

TESS, including as its Deputy Science 

Director. He is currently working on 

editing proposals to extend the mission. “It was surreal to see the rocket 

lift off after 12 years of anticipation.” 

Like Volosin, Winn agrees that TESS’s 

success did not come without challenges. He noted that after persisting 

through many years of uncertainty, the 

failure of the first NASA proposal was 

a large obstacle.

As of 6 September 2023, TESS had 

discovered 6,788 candidate exoplanets, 

of which 383 have been confirmed.3

Among these thousands of potential 

exoplanets TESS has identified, what 

differentiates a candidate versus a 

confirmed exoplanet? Seeing a transit 

once is enough to label an exoplanet 

candidate, but not enough to confirm. 

Dips in the brightness of a star can also 

be due to star spots, eclipsing binaries, 

or stellar variability. The only way to 

truly confirm a potential exoplanet is 

by observing its transit at least twice 

and determining the periodic orbit 

of the planet. Not all exoplanets are 

readily confirmed; if a potential exoplanet takes 10 years to orbit its host 

star, TESS will not have captured more 

than one transit and it will remain a 

candidate exoplanet until it makes an 

additional transit.

Described as “The People’s Telescope,” 

TESS publishes its data for the public so anyone can take up the search 

for exoplanets.4 In fact, almost all of 

TESS’s confirmed exoplanets were 

found by someone other than scientists at NASA. Astronomer Paul Dalba 

attributes much of the success in finding exoplanets to citizen scientists and 

adds that the more people sift through 

TESS data, the better the chance there 

is of finding exoplanets. Still, more 

students and astronomers are needed 

to collect and work with the data. “It’s 

a good problem to have, I suppose,” 

Dalba says.

Tom Jacobs belongs to an amateur and 

professional astronomer collaboration 

called the Visual Survey Group (VSG), 

formed in 2020, that works with TESS 

data. Using a light curve viewer, surveyors can scroll through TESS light 

curve data as fast as 1–3 seconds per 

light curve. So far, the VSG team has 

surveyed millions of TESS light curves 

to detect exoplanets. In collaboration 

with Dalba, the team confirmed exoplanet TOI 2180b, a gas giant that is 

381 light-years away from Earth.5

When asked how it felt to find an exoplanet, Dalba said, “It’s a novel feeling of exploring the unknown. Only 

a small fraction of humanity has had 

the immense privilege of discovering 

a planet, and it’s an honor and a joy to 

join that club.”

So, once you have found an exoplanet, 

what comes next? What if it does not 

show the potential for extraterrestrial 

life? Why do we still look for them? 

Jacobs says that while many people in 

the community say that the goal is to 

search for Earth-like planets and extraterrestrial life, the VSG thinks that all 

exoplanets add to our knowledge and 

catalogs all prospects, even though 

only a handful make it to scientific 

papers. “What we may not feel excited 

about today may likely be very exciting 

to future researchers with advanced 

technology,” he says.

 In this diagram, TESS’s observation segments for the first two years of operation are 

shown. In its first year, TESS observed 13 overlapping sectors in the sky’s southern 

hemisphere and observed an additional 13 in the northern hemisphere in its second year.

TESS: In Search of New Worlds (continued)

29
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Exoplanets also provide a unique lens 

for understanding our own planet’s formation as well as that of others in the 

universe. They provide a more expansive view of what planets exist in the 

universe compared with what we know 

from our own solar system alone. From 

worlds that are rocky and treacherous 

to worlds that are filled with noxious 

fumes, we have learned through TESS 

that planets in our universe can be 

completely different from those we 

already know.

TESS also helps us better understand 

other stellar phenomena. Volosin 

points out that TESS offers information about stellar evolution and 

supernova formation. Scientists can 

use TESS data to look back at stars 

before supernova events occur. The 

mission is also providing new data 

about comets, asteroids, and stellar 

variation in general.

The James Webb Space Telescope takes 

TESS data and uses them to make 

followup observations of exoplanets.6

Webb is not powerful enough to study 

the exoplanets of distant stars, so the 

TESS team designed their telescope to 

target nearby stars that were within the 

reach of Webb and other current and 

planned space telescopes.

The search for exoplanets does not end 

with TESS or Webb. Winn says that 

although the transit method is the 

current method for finding exoplanets, 

within five years astrometric data from 

the Gaia spacecraft and gravitational 

lensing data from the Nancy Grace 

Roman Space Telescope will lead to the 

discovery of hundreds, or even thousands, more exoplanets. Eventually, 

with the development of NASA’s New 

World Explorer in coming decades, we 

may even be able to get direct images of 

Earth-sized planets.

With continued rapid innovations in 

technology, as well as collaboration 

of scientists across the globe, TESS is 

sure to discover more exoplanets in 

coming years and provide vital data for 

new missions. 

Endnotes

1 “Kepler and K2 Mission Overview,” 

NASA, 30 October 2018, https://

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/

overview/index.html (accessed 29 

August 2023).

2 “The TESS Science Writer’s Guide,” 

NASA, April 2018, https://www.nasa.

gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/

tesssciencewritersguidedraft23.pdf

(accessed 29 August 2023).

3 “Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite 

(TESS),” NASA, 22 March 2021, 

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/tess/

(accessed 6 September 2023).

4 “TESS, Finding New Worlds,” The 

Planetary Society, 2021, https://www.

planetary.org/space-missions/tess/

(accessed 29 August 2023).

5 “Exoplanet Catalog: TOI 2180b,” 

NASA, 2022, https://exoplanets.nasa.

gov/exoplanet-catalog/8374/toi-2180-b/

(accessed 29 August 2023).

6 “NASA’s Webb Confirms Its First 

Exoplanet,” NASA, 11 January 2023, 

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/

goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-confirmsits-first-exoplanet (accessed 29 August 

2023).

“Only a small fraction of 

humanity has had the 

immense privilege of 

discovering a planet, and 

it’s an honor and a joy to 

join that club.”

 TESS’s northern and southern mosaics are plotted to show the extent of its primary 

mission survey. The yearlong southern panorama (bottom) was completed in July 2019, 

and the northern imaging in July 2020. The prominent glowing band is the Milky Way, our 

galaxy, seen edgewise. (Image credit: NASA/MIT/TESS and Ethan Kruse [USRA])

TESS: In Search of New Worlds (continued)

For more on TESS and exoplanets, 

be sure to join us for Joshua Winn’s 

online presentation at noon on 

11 October. Information on how to 

join the meeting will be available from 

the NASA History list-serv.

30
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Thinking Outer Space

Astroculture and the Intellectual 

History of Planetarity

» By Haitian Ma, Lecturer in Film, Television, and/or Cross-Media Culture, 

Universiteit van Amsterdam

S

INCE THE ADVENT of the Space 

Age, the thrill of escaping terrestrial bonds has been accompanied by an anxious glance back 

at Earth. This twofold conjuncture 

becomes increasingly polarized in the 

present moment. As renewed geopolitical competitions and privatized interest 

in space exploration continue, pressing 

concerns have been raised about the 

sustainability of the terrestrial environment. One popular motif in both 

undertakings, notably, is the portrayal 

of planet Earth in the universe, with 

all its mystery, beauty, and fragility. Yet 

this contemporary appeal to planetarity 

may find its foundations in centuries 

of thinking on outer space. The act of 

envisioning going into space, followed 

by the eventual realization of that vision, 

made humans see the world from a new 

lens—as a planet in the vast universe.

Probing this intellectual history of 

outer space and the concurrent process 

through which the world was turned 

into a planet in the minds of humans 

was the focus of the recent conference 

“Thinking Outer Space: Philosophy, 

Astroculture and the Histories of 

Planetarity,” organized by Alexander 

Geppert (New York/Shanghai) and 

Rory Rowan (Dublin) and held at New 

York University (NYU), Berlin, from 

19 to 21 July 2023.1 Through nine thematically organized and chronologically arranged panels, 45 participants 

from all over the world examined the 

notion of planetarity—the thinking 

of Earth as a planet—from numerous 

historical lineages and philosophical 

contexts. The conference also facilitated exchange across disciplines, 

bringing together historians, geographers, anthropologists, literary scholars, 

political scientists, scholars of religion, 

and sociologists. The goal, as Geppert 

and Rowan pointed out, was to collectively develop a “canon” of space 

thinking across intellectual traditions 

and understand how space history and 

astroculture contribute to contemporary discussions around planetarity.

Intellectual Foundations

When did we start to perceive Earth 

in planetary terms? The presenters 

deromanticized conventional narratives that associated this process of 

“planetization” with the iconic Apollo 

Earthrise (1968) and Blue Marble (1972) 

images, pointing out the increasing 

portrayal of Earth in photographs since 

the 1940s, the establishment of satellite 

infrastructures, and concurrent development of Earth system science and 

environmental studies. Others traced 

the existence of planetary thinking to 

the work of early astronomers and geographers such as James Gall (1808–95) 

and Alexander von Humboldt (1769–

1859). Apart from the technological, 

philosophical, and infrastructural 

aspects, a panel on “The Juridification 

of Outer Space” examined the role of 

law in shaping planetary imaginaries. 

One key marker was the proposition of 

“Metalaw” by American lawyer Andrew 

Haley in 1956, which upholds the principle of treating other beings the way 

Alexander Geppert, co-convenor of the 

“Thinking Outer Space” conference, 

speaks during the Panel “A Planetary 

Turn?” at the NYU Berlin conference 

venue on 19 July 2023. Describing the 

recurrent visual icon of planet Earth in 

publications around global history, 

Geppert differentiated the process of 

“planetization” from that of “globalization,” pointing out the intellectual lineage 

of the former back to the 1940s. (Image 

credit: Michèle Matetschk)

31
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

of outer space already resides in the 

inner self and actually derives from an 

inner speculation. This inquiry into 

the human psyche was another shared 

manifestation of planetary thinking 

and was discussed by the participants.

Political Imaginaries

As much as it is a philosophical concept, the term “planetarity” also 

carries specific political agendas and 

ideologies. Such instances included 

how the doctrine of panpsychism was 

closely tied to European colonialism 

in the writing of German geographer 

Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) or how 

the concept of “Russian cosmism” 

was arguably invented in the 1970s 

with intentions of fashioning Soviet 

nationalism. Other presentations 

examined the way planetary thinking 

transformed disciplinary practices in 

the humanities and social sciences. 

Propositions were made to integrate 

planetarity into ethnographic methods, 

developing strategies that find relationality between human and nonhuman 

subjects in field research. New questions arose as to whether planetarism 

could challenge existing ideologies of 

neoliberalism and nationalism and lead 

to new political imaginaries. Drawing 

on works of Jean-François Lyotard and 

Carl Sagan, participants also speculated on a post-human future after the 

solar catastrophe and how to integrate 

this distant horizon into the study of 

human geography.

Through the three-day exchange, the 

conference conjured a rich set of analytical tools, schools of thought, and 

historical roots in understanding 

contemporary planetarity. In the concluding discussion, participants raised 

further points of inquiry that emerged 

from the panels, such as the biopolitical implications of humanity in face 

of the Anthropocene, the possible 

political backlashes from planetization, 

and the techno-industrial bases of 

spaceflight that gave form to planetary 

thinking. Overall, the breadth of subjects and contexts both globalized and 

provincialized the scope of astroculture beyond western-centric modes of 

knowledge production, thus expanding and troubling the aforementioned 

“canon” of space thought in the making. The concept of planetarity threads 

through the philosophical backbone 

of space history but is simultaneously 

transformed and reinterpreted by it. 

For space historians, how to unpack 

this complex entwinement remains an 

open task. 

Endnote

1 See https://www.thinking-outer-space.

com for more information, including 

the complete conference program, 

lineup of speakers, and abstracts of all 

presentations.

Poster for the “Thinking Outer Space” 

conference held at NYU Berlin, 19–21 

July 2023.

Thinking Outer Space (continued)

they desire to be treated rather than 

abiding by human frames of reference. 

Panelists explored how Metalaw and 

other related legal doctrines contested 

existing definitions of national sovereignty and advocated the utopian 

ideal of supranational order against the 

backdrop of the Cold War.

Astroculture

The three panels “Cosmic Philosophies,” 

“Poetics of Planetization,” and

“Narrating Outer Space” addressed

cultural manifestations of outer space

and how they evoked different ways of 

relating to planet Earth. The subjects

of inquiry ranged from public experiences of planetariums in the Weimar

Republic, to the cyborgian thinking in 

1950s American science fiction, to the

autobiographical writings of contemporary Black astrophysicists and authors,

to varied understandings of cosmism in 

present-day esoteric thought. In particular, panelists examined the constant

mirroring between our imaginations of 

outer space and human responsibility

to the planet. In a close reading of three 

modern Scandinavian writers—Harry

Martinson (1904–78), Nils Mustelin

(1931–2004), and Thorkild Bjørnvig

(1918–2004)—varying degrees of caution against dystopian aspects of spaceflight could be detected, which c alled

on the public to reflect on environmental destruction on Earth due to human 

activities. In another presentation on

the growing UFO debates in Europe

and North America in the latter half

of the 20th century, it was evident

that humans not only had established

a more intimate connection to outer 

space, but also had come to encounter 

their own vulnerability on an existential level. In juxtaposition, based on the 

cosmology of Buddhist modernist Alan 

Watts (1915–73), human knowledge 

32
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

News from Around NASA

Rebuilding a Mountain: Adventures in Web Modernization

» By Michele Ostovar, Communications Specialist 

and Sandra Johnson, Oral History Lead

ON 26 JULY, the world got its 

first look at a NASA project representing tens of thousands of 

hours of toil from a far-flung cadre of 

participants: not the launch of its newest space mission, but the beta release 

of the Agency’s new website. The previous design, introduced in April 2015, 

was in sore need of a rehaul to deliver a 

more modern, streamlined, and visually 

compelling web experience. The goals 

for the new website included better 

accessibility for users with disabilities; 

more logical organization and navigation; improved integration of NASA’s 

visual brand; more effective communication of NASA’s value to the American 

public; and, by combining numerous 

comparable NASA sites, a more unified user experience. After NASA’s 

new WordPress Content Management 

System (CMS) design was created and 

a strategy for the project developed, 

NASA and contractor staff embarked 

on building content starting in January 

2023, and the effort continues as additional NASA websites are integrated.

NASA’s History and Archives branch 

within the Agency’s new History and 

Information Services Division kicked 

off the evaluation of existing content 

at https://history.nasa.gov, https://

historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov, and 

https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/glennhistory/, as well as history articles 

and features within the www.nasa.gov 

domain, starting in early July 2022. 

With a new enterprise approach to the 

History and Archives branch operations, we reviewed relevant web content from each of the NASA Centers 

with the new goal of presenting a unified, streamlined, and centralized web 

presence. Next, the initial team turned 

to developing a plan for reorganizing 

and incorporating content into the new 

site and prioritizing the information to 

make sure our limited resources could 

accomplish the most essential building tasks by the scheduled launch date. 

Any user familiar with the material 

at https://history.nasa.gov can testify 

to its sprawling tangle of microsites, 

pages, and PDFs representing 30 years 

of additions. Metrics revealed that over 

12,000 pages lived in the history.nasa.

gov domain, most of which were rarely 

visited. Efforts centered on rebuilding 

the most-visited content and those 

resources central to the History and 

Archives branch functions, all with an 

eye to simplifying the user’s experience 

while creating visually engaging web 

content. Some sections, like the NASA 

Archives content, were rebuilt from 

scratch, whereas some microsites were 

imported in their existing format until 

the content can be rebuilt in the new 

WordPress CMS.

Before and after: Historical resources 

about the STS-51L accident from https://

history.nasa.gov/sts51l.html (top) and 

https://beta.nasa.gov/challenger-sts-51laccident/ (bottom) are shown.

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NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

The majority of the NASA History and 

Archives staff are now trained to work 

in the new CMS and have been active 

contributors to rebuilding content in 

the new system. They have taken time 

out of their already-jam-packed days 

to build archives information, NASA 

Center histories, mission pages, and 

biographies; to migrate articles from 

the old site; to check history-related 

pages for accuracy; and to coordinate 

work with other participants at NASA 

Centers across the country. All this was 

done while the figurative plane was still 

being built: new modules, new content 

types, and new bugs appeared weekly 

as the project progressed.

With the official launch of the new 

www.nasa.gov planned for sometime 

in the coming weeks, the journey is not 

by any means over. The NASA History 

and Archives teams continue to add 

content and features. Most notably, a 

tool for users to search NASA’s public 

archival holdings will be added. We 

also look forward to adding content 

from Johnson Space Center’s History 

Portal, including over 1,300 oral history 

transcripts; building out new historical subtopic hubs; and incorporating 

engaging new modules, like timelines, 

quizzes, and other interactive features 

as these capabilities are brought online.

More than ever before, www.nasa.gov 

is becoming a powerful and engaging 

means of communicating NASA’s 

history to the public and providing 

research opportunities and resources 

for researchers.

News from Around NASA (continued)

Visit the new NASA History and 

NASA Archives home pages on the 

beta site: 

beta.nasa.gov/history/

beta.nasa.gov/archives/

If you see a problem or have a 

question, let us know!

Vaibhavi Mahajan is a sophomore at 

Georgetown University studying science, technology, and international 

affairs in the School of Foreign Service. 

At the History Office this summer, she 

worked on a research article highlighting the important work of the TESS 

mission. (See her article in this issue.)

She also helped with creating content 

highlighting aerospace anniversaries for NASA History’s 

social media accounts.

Joshua Schmidt is currently on detail 

from the United States Forest Service 

to NASA’s History Division. He grew 

up in Richmond, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia 

with a bachelor of arts degree in history in 2012. Upon graduation, Joshua 

received his commission in the U.S. 

Navy and went through flight school 

in Pensacola, Florida, before spending the next 10 years as 

a helicopter pilot. Prior to leaving active duty, he received 

his master’s degree in public administration and policy from 

American University and subsequently transitioned into the 

Presidential Management Fellowship program after separation. Joshua’s work while on detail has primarily focused on 

early rotary aviation research performed under the direction 

of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Be 

sure to read his article in the summer 2023 edition of News 

& Notes!

Eleanor Drummond is a graduate student at the University 

of Maryland, working toward a dual master’s degree in history and library science and specializing in environmental 

history and archives. During their work as a summer intern 

at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Archives, they digitized weekly reports made to the GSFC Director in 1989 and 

processed two collections: the Malcolm Niedner Collection, 

which contains records relating to cometary research in the 

1980s, and the SMEX Collection, which contains photographs of the first five Small Explorer missions.

INTERN SPOTLIGHT

34
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Call for Papers: “NASA and Archaeology from Space”

A Symposium in Honor of Dr. Thomas L. Sever 

18–19 September 2024 • Washington, DC

The organizers invite proposals for 

papers to be presented at a two-day 

symposium to be held in person 18–19 

September 2024 in Washington, DC. 

We welcome diverse voices and perspectives to examine the history of NASA 

and archaeology from space.

The purpose of this symposium is to 

honor the pioneering work of former 

NASA archaeologist Dr. Thomas L. 

Sever in the field of archaeology and 

remote sensing over his many decades 

of service and numerous contributions. 

The symposium also seeks to provide 

insight and contextualization of past 

archaeology projects at NASA, highlight the current state of the field in 

terms of research and capabilities, and 

point to new opportunities in government and commercial sectors.

Potential topics include, but are not 

limited to, past archaeological projects, 

technology/capability developments, 

geopolitical considerations, assessments of the current state of remote 

sensing/archaeology, future trajectories, 

potential breakthroughs, and interdisciplinary approaches.

Presentations might also consider the 

impact of environmental, geopolitical, 

social, and cultural issues on archaeology/remote sensing projects over the 

decades and today.

The symposium will be a combination 

of panel discussions, keynote talks, and 

presentations on current NASA and 

industry capabilities. The intention is to 

publish an anthology of selected papers.

Submission Procedures

If you are interested in presenting, 

please send your presentation’s title, an 

abstract of no more than 300 words, 

and a short biography or curriculum 

vitae, including affiliation, by 15 April 

2024 to Brian C. Odom or Kelsey 

Herndon. Questions about the symposium are also welcome. 

NASA HISTORY OFFICE 

LUNCHTIME 

SPEAKERS

The NASA History Office invites you 

to attend these upcoming presentations on Microsoft Teams. Join 

our mailing list for event links.

20 September, noon ET 

Cathy Lewis

“A Cultural View of Soviet and Russian 

Cosmonauts”

11 October, noon ET

Joshua Winn

“TESS and Exoplanets”

18 October, noon ET

Michael G. Smith

“Early Rocketry Education, the NACA, 

and Purdue University”

8 November, noon ET

Craig Gralley

“From NASA to NSA to STEM: The Pisgah 

Astronomical Research Institute”

29 November, noon ET

Alwin Cubasch

“Space Food for the Elderly”

13 December, 2 p.m. ET *

Hugh Slotten

“Global Satellite Communications”

News from Around NASA (continued)

* Please note the later time for this presentation.

Learn more about Dr. Thomas 

Sever’s archaeological research.

35
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Other Aerospace History News

2023 Sacknoff Prize for 

Space History

Attention students: Your research paper 

could win a $500 prize! Since 2011, the 

Sacknoff Prize for Space History has 

been awarded annually to an undergraduate or graduate student for an original research paper in the field of space 

history—it could be a paper you wrote 

for a course! Winners receive the cash 

prize and will see their article published 

in the peer-reviewed journal Quest: The 

History of Spaceflight Quarterly. The 

deadline is 28 November 2023. Learn 

more about the prize and how to submit 

your article at https://spacehistory101.

com/space-history-resources/

sacknoff-prize/. 

Call for Applications for the 

Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/

Library of Congress Chair 

in Astrobiology, Exploration, 

and Scientific Innovation 

» By Kevin Butterfield, Director, 

John W. Kluge Center 

As a partnership between NASA’s 

Astrobiology Program and the Library 

of Congress, the Blumberg Chair, an 

annually selected position, supports 

an established scholar in the sciences, 

humanities, or social sciences to take 

up residence in the Library’s John W. 

Kluge Center. 

The Blumberg Chair creates an opportunity to use the Library’s extensive 

collections to research the range and 

complexity of societal issues related 

to how life begins and evolves and 

to examine philosophical, religious, 

literary, ethical, legal, cultural, and 

other concerns arising from scientific 

research on the origin, evolution, and 

nature of life.

Within the parameters of NASA’s 

mission, a chair might also seek to 

investigate how innovative quests for 

fundamental understanding may lead 

to major developments for the betterment of society. Barry Blumberg, for 

whom the chair is named, conducted 

groundbreaking research addressing 

a simple but fundamental question: 

Why do some people get sick while 

others, exposed to the same environment, remain healthy? That this work 

unexpectedly led to the discovery of 

the hepatitis B virus, the development 

of a vaccine, and the awarding of the 

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 

illustrates the potential for unconventional thinking about fundamental 

questions to yield great rewards. Using 

methodologies from the history and 

sociology of science; the philosophy 

of science; legal, political, and cultural history; and other disciplines, a 

Chair might study and tell the story 

of how a basic research initiative led 

to completely unexpected discoveries 

and applications.

Possibilities for research subjects are 

many and wide-ranging in scope. The 

following potential topics of research 

are meant to inspire, not limit, 

your creativity:

• Legal issues related to governance of 

planets and space

• “High risk, high reward” initiatives 

within the parameters of NASA’s 

mission, from a historical, legal, 

philosophical, or ethical perspective 

or one that draws on several disciplinary modes of analysis

• Ethical implications of crosscontamination

• Scientific and philosophical definitions of life

• Conceptions of the origins of life in 

theistic and non-theistic religions

• Comparison of the discussion of 

these issues in multiple nations and 

cultures

• Life’s collective future—for humans 

and other life, on Earth and beyond

• Impacts on life and future evolutionary trajectories that may 

result from both natural events and 

human-directed activities

Located in the Library’s magnificent 

Jefferson Building, the Kluge Center 

offers a rich intellectual atmosphere 

for research, informal discussion, and 

exchange of perspectives.

Completed applications are due by 

15 October 2023. For further information (including a new, streamlined process that does not require 

reference letters), please consult the 

Center’s web page: https://www.

loc.gov/programs/john-w-klugecenter/chairs-fellowships/chairs/

blumberg-nasa-chair-in-astrobiology/.

36
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Other Aerospace History News (continued)

American Astronautical 

Society (AAS) History 

Committee

» By Michael Ciancone, Chair

2022 Emme Award for 

Astronautical Literature

The Emme Award, named for NASA’s 

first 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, 

guided the review of submitted and 

solicited titles. Other members of the 

Panel are Dr. Rick Sturdevant and Dr. 

Jennifer Levasseur.

The Emme Award Panel has announced 

the following recipients:

Hugh R. Slotten, Beyond Sputnik and 

the Space Race: The Origins of Global 

Satellite Communications ( Johns 

Hopkins University Press)

Honorable Mention: Andy Saunders, 

Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate 

Photographic Record (Black Dog & 

Leventhal)

2023 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 non-print 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, and Andrew Chaikin (2022 

recipient).

The Ordway Award Panel has 

announced the following recipients:

Dr. David Livingston is recognized 

for his steadfast and sustained efforts 

to raise public awareness of spaceflight 

history and current affairs as creator 

and host of “The Space Show” for more 

than two decades. 

Marcia Dunn is recognized for her 

long career as an aerospace journalist covering the space beat for the 

Associated Press and providing timely, 

detailed, and accurate accounts of 

space history as it happened.

Chris Gainor, Author of 

Not Yet Imagined, Receives 

the Royal Astronomical 

Society of Canada’s Ken 

Chilton Prize

Established in 1977 in memory of 

amateur astronomer Ken Chilton, this 

prize is awarded for a specific piece 

of astronomical research or work carried out or published recently. Chris 

Gainor’s book, Not Yet Imagined: A 

Study of Hubble Space Telescope 

Operations, documents the history 

of the Hubble Space Telescope from 

its launch through its first 30 years of 

operation in space. Focusing on the 

interactions among the general public, 

astronomers, engineers, government 

officials, and members of Congress, 

the book reveals the decision-making 

related to service missions that made 

the Hubble Space Telescope a model of 

supranational cooperation.

The book also covers the impact of the 

Hubble Space Telescope and the images 

it produces on the public’s appreciation 

for the universe and how the Hubble 

Space Telescope has changed the way 

astronomy is done.

Dr. Gainor’s book was published by 

NASA’s History Office. 

 Dr. Christopher Gainor received the Ken 

Chilton Prize for his book Not Yet 

Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space 

Telescope Operations. (Image credit: 

NASA)

 NASA’s InSight mission tested an engineering version of the spacecraft’s 

robotic arm in a Mars-like environment at 

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 

2018. The test is being conducted under 

reddish “Mars lighting” to simulate activities on the Red Planet. (Image credit: 

NASA/JPL-Caltech)

37
NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES Volume 40, Number 3 • Fall 2023

Upcoming Meetings

2–6 OCTOBER 2023

International Astronautical 

Congress 2023

Baku, Azerbaijan

https://www.iafastro.org/

events/iac/iac-2023/ 

18–21 OCTOBER 2023

2023 Oral History Association 

Annual Meeting

Baltimore, Maryland

https://oralhistory.org/

annual-meeting/

25–29 OCTOBER 2023

Society for the History of 

Technology Annual Meeting

Long Beach, California

https://www.historyoftechnology.

org/annual-meeting/2023-

shot-annual-meeting-october2023-long-beach-california/

8–11 NOVEMBER 2023

Society for Social Studies of 

Science (4S) Annual Meeting

Honolulu, Hawaii

https://www.4sonline.org/

meeting.php

9–12 NOVEMBER 2023

History of Science Society 

Annual Meeting

Portland, Oregon

https://hssonline.org/page/HSS23

4–7 JANUARY 2024

American Historical Association 

Annual Meeting

San Francisco, California

https://www.historians.org/

annual-meeting

DISCOVERY 

PROGRAMI30

YEARS

NEW FRONTIERS 

PROGRAMI20

YEARS

SYMPOSIUM

18–19 JANUARY 2024

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, WASHINGTON, DC

8–12 JANUARY 2024

American Institute of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics (AIAA) SciTech Forum

Orlando, Florida

https://www.aiaa.org/eventslearning/event/2024/01/08/

default-calendar/2024-aiaa-scienceand-technology-forum-andexposition-(aiaa-scitech-forum)

18–19 JANUARY 2024

Discovery@30, New 

Frontiers@20 Symposium

Washington, DC

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/

call-for-papers-for-discovery30-

new-frontiers20-symposium

 The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s 

HiRISE instrument captured this image 

from Mars’s northern latitudes two days 

after the winter solstice, when the Sun 

was just a few degrees above the horizon. 

Winter frost covers the colder, north-facing 

half of each of the sand dunes. The frost 

here is a mixture of carbon dioxide ice 

and water ice. (Image credit: NASA/JPLCaltech/University of Arizona)

38
COMING SOON

NASA’s Discovery Program

By Susan M. Niebur with 

David M. Brown (ed.)

COMING SOON

A Wartime Necessity

Edited by Alex M Spencer

EXPLORE

New Titles 

in the NASA 

History Series

NACA to NASA to Now 

by Roger D. Launius

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters

300 E Street SW 

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov

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NASA HISTORY NEWS&NOTES

Newsletter Editor and Graphic Designer » Michele Ostovar

Copyeditor » Lisa Jirousek

DOWNLOAD this and other recent 

editions of NEWS&NOTES at 

https://www.nasa.gov/history/news-and-notes/

This mosaic of NEAR Shoemaker images, taken on 3 December 2000, provides an overview of the 

eastern part of the asteroid Eros’s southern hemisphere. NEAR Shoemaker was the first spacecraft 

launched in NASA’s Discovery Program. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL)