National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

NASA HISTORY DIVISION

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

IN THIS ISSUE:

1 From the Chief Historian

1 Simulated Shuttle Day (1985)

5 News from Headquarters and 

the Centers

13 Excerpt from “The Partnership: A 

History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test 

Project”

16 Other Aerospace History News

20 Upcoming Meetings

21 Featured Publications

22 The Man Who Fell To Earth: 

Remembering Al Worden, 

1932–2020

FROM

THE CHIEF 

HISTORIAN

De s p i t e t h e challenges of 

working during a 

pandemic, the NASA 

History Division has 

weathered the current storm fairly well, and 

I am proud of the flexibility and ingenuity 

of our team. For some details on what has 

happened this spring, flip ahead to the “News 

from Headquarters and the Centers” section. 

But what I would like to call your attention 

to here are the recommendations from the 

Office of Communications History Working 

Group (HWG) under the Mission Support 

Future Architecture Program (MAP). As you 

may recall from previous editions of News & 

Notes, the HWG was created last fall to look 

at NASA’s archival and history efforts and 

come up with recommendations for more efficient and effective historical support for the 

Agency. The Working Group included a dozen 

people representing a wide range of backgrounds and experience in our archival and 

history workforce across the Agency and also 

included interested parties from two Mission 

Directorates and one from the Office of the 

Chief Information Officer. 

The HWG has been a great group to work 

with, and I greatly appreciate how generous 

the members have been with their time and 

effort. As complicated as the situation has 

been with archivists and historians organized 

into various bureaucratic stovepipes across the 

continued on next page

SIMULATED SHUTTLE DAY (1985)

By Bob Arrighi (edited by Anne Mills)

On the morning of 30 May 1985, two student-crewed “Space Shuttle” 

vehicles embarked on a 4-hour mission 

that included experiments, data gathering, a vehicle rendezvous, and a visit to 

another “planet.” The Simulated Shuttle 

Day event, sponsored by Lewis Research 

Center, was a tremendous success and an 

unforgettable day not only for the scores 

of participating students but also for 

the NASA employees and teachers who 

helped pull it off.

Lynn Bondurant,1

1 https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/glenn-history/hall-of-fame/biographies/lynn-bondurant/

 head of Lewis’s 

Educational Services Office, conceived of 

the Simulated Shuttle Program the previous summer during a workshop with 

teachers from two Cleveland-area elementary schools. Over the months leading up 

to the summer, the concept became more 

and more elaborate.

In the spring of 1985, the third- to fifth-grade students at the two schools enthusiastically began preparing for the missions. One principal noted, “I’ve seen kids 

who wouldn’t normally go to a library in a million years do research and write 

things for this project.” The students created flight plans, mission patches, press 

kits, and flight suits. Each school converted a bus into a Space Shuttle—complete 

continued on page 4
From the Chief Historian (continued)

2

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Centers—and with two Centers having no archivists 

and five having no historians at all—the Working 

Group found coming to a consensus on the key 

points relatively easy. In fact, the more we dug into 

the detailed data of organizations, staffing, budgets, 

and operations, the more it became obvious that the 

answers were quite clear, although they might not be 

easy to implement. 

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT 

FINDING OF THE HWG WAS 

THAT HISTORY AND ARCHIVAL 

EFFORTS HAVE CONTINUED 

TO BE HOLLOWED OUT TO THE 

POINT OF NEAR COLLAPSE ALL 

ACROSS NASA.

The most significant finding of the HWG was that 

history and archival efforts have continued to be 

hollowed out to the point of near collapse all across 

NASA. For those Centers that still have a historian 

or archivist, many are so under-resourced that they 

cannot meet the needs of the organizations that they 

serve. As a result, they experience a vicious cycle of 

false expectations from management (“We have someone doing history or archival work, whatever that is, 

so we don’t have a problem”) and face the reality that 

organizations outside the mission support structure 

(i.e., programs and projects with substantial budgets) 

that need historical or archival support have to create 

history and archival operations of their own. These 

and many other problems were highlighted in NASA 

Inspector General Report 19-002, “Audit of NASA’s 

Historic Property.” While the Inspector General (IG) 

did not specifically call out the history program as a 

problem, the audit identified numerous problems that 

require archival support or historical expertise/advice 

to resolve. This is why the Headquarters Mission 

Support Directorate handed responsibility for resolution of some of those IG recommendations to the 

history program. Sadly, as noted above, the history 

program does not have the resources to do these extra 

tasks or the authority/budget to hire the Center archivists and historians needed to respond effectively to 

the IG recommendations.

Another painfully clear finding of the HWG is that 

NASA has not dealt with the archival consequences 

of the digital revolution. When secretaries and clerks 

vanished from the workplace in the 1990s, they were 

replaced by desktop computers that—it was imagined—would automatically take care of documenting 

and preserving key decision-making processes. In 

reality, as decisions went digital, they were easy to 

save but hard to separate from the flood of other dayto-day communications in employee e-mail accounts 

or stored (in the best cases) in individually organized 

electronic filing systems. When employees changed 

jobs or lost their electronic records as a result of the alltoo-common hardware/software failures, key records 

would vanish. The upshot is that the history program 

can tell you, for example, all about the management 

and development of Project Mercury because we have 

the file copies of letters and memos, but we have virtually nothing dated after 1992 on the development of 

the New Horizons probe to Pluto and beyond. While 

storage reliability has improved and search engines 

have become more powerful in recent years, we still 

do not have a systematic way to identify, capture, and 

preserve our history in the digital age. When researchers come calling to, hypothetically, write the book or 

film the movie Hidden Figures of Artemis, we will not 

be able to help them unless something changes soon. 

The good news here is that a more robust and organized 

archival program, equipped with appropriate software, 

can solve this problem moving ahead. The fiscal year 

2021 budget request for the history program includes 

a one-time major purchase of software that can reopen 

the flow of digital documents into our reference collections/archives. Assuming that the request is funded, 

we will be able to stop the flow of our history into 
3

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

digital “black holes.” We will still have a big backlog 

of work to reestablish our archival collections from the 

early 1990s to the present, but our archival collection 

will at least be healthy moving forward.

So what has the History Working Group come up 

with for recommendations? There are three, and the 

first two are probably obvious. First, we need to staff 

and appropriately fund our archival efforts. The key 

step is to make sure that each NASA Center has a 

trained archivist. Some Centers may need more than 

one, but due to the inherently governmental nature 

of the decisions being made regarding Agency policy, each Center should have at least one civil service 

archivist. The same logic applies to historical expertise, 

so the HWG’s second recommendation is that each 

Center should have at least one Ph.D.-trained and 

appropriately experienced civil service historian to 

provide historical analysis, to fill in the gaps identified in the IG audit, and to communicate with 

employees and the public on historical questions. The 

third recommendation has to do with the bureaucratic structure of the history/archival program. At 

present, Centers have their archivists and historians 

organized within different bureaucratic stovepipes 

inconsistently across the Agency. The HWG recommends that NASA leadership should reevaluate the 

structure and placement of the history program at 

Headquarters and the Centers, with an eye to unifying history and archival workers in an organization 

at the Administrator/Center Director staff support 

office level. At Headquarters, this is where the history 

program was located—in various incarnations of the 

organization chart—for 40 years. It is only in the last 

decade that the history program at Headquarters and 

at some Centers has been subordinated to the Office 

of Communications. While the history program 

does provide critical support to Agency internal and 

external communications, its primary function has 

always been the collection and analysis of historical 

data. There is an inherent tension between gleaning 

the sometimes painful lessons of history and fulfilling 

the public affairs function. This is precisely why no 

other significant history program in the federal government is under the authority of their public affairs 

or communications office. While NASA has been 

fortunate to have had little problem in this regard 

for the last decade, our arrangement is not in keeping 

with federal best practices and needs to change. There 

are probably other efficiencies that could be achieved 

if advisory and analytical functions related to history 

were grouped together in a senior staff support office, 

much as the Administrator and Center Directors have 

Chief Scientists, Chief Engineers, and others to advise 

them on scientific and technical matters. 

Glenn Research Center Image Archive Storage Bunker at Plum Brook Station in 2005. 

(Photo credit: NASA)

The History Working Group has briefed key leaders on 

these recommendations and will present them through 

the MAP meeting process this summer. Significant 

decisions on these recommendations are not likely 

to come before the fall at the earliest. There is much 

work ahead of us, but we have taken the first steps to 

fix problems that have been both long-standing and 

growing worse. I am hopeful that NASA leadership 

will seize the opportunity to systematically address 

these issues in the coming months.

Until then, Godspeed,

William P. Barry

Chief Historian
4

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Simulated Shuttle Day (1985) (continued)

with main engines, nose cone, tail, and interior control stations.

A school bus converted into a “Space Shuttle” with its crew of elementary school students in 1985. (Photo credit: NASA) 

Teachers oversaw student committees that selected 36 

astronauts and 18 alternates from the multitude of 

applicants. Each crew included a commander, pilot, 

photographer, communicator, health technician, scientist, meteorologist, engineer, biologist, geologist 

and aerial technician. The extensive program, however, 

had roles for every interested student. These included 

devising experiments, staffing mission control and 

communications centers, forming medical teams, and 

acting as extraterrestrials. 

After student-led countdowns, the two shuttles 

departed from their respective schools at 9:30 a.m. 

and 10:30 a.m. amid much fanfare. Local media and 

NASA photographers trailed in chase cars. During the 

journeys down major local thoroughfares, the crews 

conducted experiments and made stops to deploy 

balloon “satellites.” The two vehicles rendezvoused 

at a city park to collect rock and vegetation samples. 

The shuttles then visited each other’s schools, where 

they were greeted by masked aliens. The crews then 

returned to their home bases, where they received mission debriefings and medical reviews. The astronauts 

gave brief speeches and received congratulatory messages from Sally Ride2

2 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/sally-ride-first-american-woman-in-space

 and Caspar Weinberger. This 

was followed by a celebratory parade that included a 

red carpet and confetti.

The Simulated Shuttle Day was a triumph, and spirits were high afterward. Bondurant said, “From the 

people I’ve talked to who’ve seen a real Shuttle launch, 

there was as much or more excitement here.” 

“We wanted to give the kids a moment they wouldn’t 

forget,” one school principal added, “and I think we 

accomplished that.”

The event repeated in 1987 and expanded to include 

eight schools.
5

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

NEWS FROM HEADQUARTERS AND THE CENTERS

NASA HEADQUARTERS

Washington, DC

By Bill Barry

J

ust when you think you have seen it all, spring 

2020 comes along with a new challenge. As you 

may recall, we were a bit short-staffed in our archive 

as the year started following Colin Fries’s retirement 

in December. Craig Haibon did a great job of filling 

in the gap until his Science Mission Directorate project was done and he moved on to a civil service job 

(thanks, Craig!). The pandemic quarantine has complicated our contractor’s search for a replacement, and 

we continue to operate short-handed in the archive. 

However, procedures for bringing on new staff while 

maintaining social distancing have been developed, 

and I am hopeful that the wait for another contract 

archivist will be over by the time you read this. 

For most of us in the History Division, the shift to mandatory telework was relatively smooth. Headquarters 

has had a generous telework policy for many years, and 

most of the history staff worked from home on a fairly 

regular basis. Much of our work these days is digital, 

and we can function effectively from anywhere with a 

decent internet connection. For the archival staff, this 

hasn’t been the case, and our contract would not have 

allowed Liz Suckow to work from home. Fortunately, 

Robyn Rodgers saw this coming and started work with 

our contracting office early to define archival tasks 

that could be done remotely. It turns out that was a 

pretty long list. When NASA Headquarters declared 

mandatory telework on March 17, we were able to 

keep our archive “open,” and Liz got to experience 

NASA telework for the first time.

The situation with our interns was also complicated. 

Alisa Greenhalgh’s semester in Washington, DC, was 

canceled, so she went home to Utah at the same time 

that we were moving into mandatory telework. Her 

internship with us was originally planned to end on 

9 April, so it looked like we would lose her about 4 

weeks early—just as we were preparing an anniversary-heavy April. Fortunately for us, Alisa was interested 

in continuing, and we were able to work out ways 

for her to stay on the history team, even without a 

NASA badge or computer. In fact, we were able to 

extend her internship to the end of April and had her 

help for longer than we had planned. This was a great 

boon because she was working on plans for the 50th 

anniversary of Earth Day—plans which had to be 

overhauled into an “at home” version. She did a great 

job with that while working part time for us and juggling a job on campus at Brigham Young University. 

Intern Stacy Bishop lives in the Washington, DC, 

metro area and was able to shift into telework without an airplane flight or having to turn in her NASA 

laptop and badge. Her background as a teacher 

proved invaluable as NASA turned some attention 

to the question of how we could help all of the kids 

and parents who were now faced with the prospect 

of homeschooling. We “loaned” Stacy to the ad hoc 

team led by the Office of STEM (science, technology, 

engineering, and mathematics) Engagement aimed at 

adapting NASA materials into school-standard lesson 

plans. Stacy made a big contribution there and was 

“back” to mostly full-time history work in time for 

the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13. If you enjoyed 

our social media coverage of Apollo 13, you have 

Stacy to thank for it. Having immersed herself in the 

newly revised Apollo 13 Flight Journal (thank you, 

Johannes Kemppanen, for that amazing update) and 

the Apollo 13 in Real Time site (thank you, Ben Feist 

and team), Stacy created a nonstop barrage of social 

media enhanced with fascinating links and amazing 

infographics. 

From your perspective, this spring may have seemed 

like business as usual for the history interns, but it 

was anything but the usual internship. In fact, Alisa 

and Stacy also got to experience another “first”—our 

first virtual intern farewell late in the day on 30 April 

on Microsoft Teams (we posted a screenshot of it on 
6

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

Twitter and Facebook). As I write this, we are working 

to start our summer interns on a virtual internship 

at the end of May. One of the big attractions of our 

internship has been the opportunity to interact with 

folks at NASA Headquarters, and that will be difficult 

to do in a work-from-home situation. But our energetic intern wrangler, Cat Baldwin, pioneered the use 

of video chats for our spring interns to chat with some 

of the Headquarters staff whom they had not had an 

opportunity to meet. We plan to continue that this 

summer to provide as rich an intern experience as we 

can while teleworking.

One of the experiences that I thought we would have 

to forgo this spring was our quarterly “brown bag” 

history speaker series. We had planned for a lunchtime 

talk in mid-April by NASA SHOT (Society for the 

History of Technology) fellow Dana Burton, and I was 

about to pull the plug on it at the end of March. But 

based on our increased experience with videoconferencing, Steve Garber and Nadine Andreassen proposed 

holding the talk as a video session. Dana was willing 

to give her talk on her planetary protection research, 

and we were pleasantly surprised by the number of 

people who participated. We had the biggest audience 

for one of our brown bags in a while. In fact, it was so 

successful that Steve and Nadine are now planning on 

monthly virtual brown bags. We expect to keep this 

up through the quarantine. Considering the general 

level of disruption that COVID-19 has caused in 

everyone’s lives, the mandatory telework experience 

for the history team has been relatively smooth. We 

certainly miss one another’s company and the chance 

to interact in person. But we have found that using 

videoconferencing tools, with a rather liberal approach 

to meeting agendas, has been a way to get the job 

done—and even to get to know each other just a bit 

better. The “new normal” is working well enough that 

when Steve was offered a great opportunity to take 

an assignment on detail to the Office of the Assistant 

Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and 

Integration, we were able to find a virtual backfill for 

Steve so that he could be free for the detail. While 

Steve is working at the Pentagon for the next year, 

Marshall Space Flight Center Historian Brian Odom 

will be picking up Steve’s duties from his home in 

Alabama. So, while it has been an unusual spring, 

the history team at NASA Headquarters has adapted 

quickly and continued to operate effectively—but we 

do hope that 2021 has fewer surprises.

CONSIDERING THE GENERAL 

LEVEL OF DISRUPTION THAT 

COVID-19 HAS CAUSED IN 

EVERYONE’S LIVES, THE 

MANDATORY TELEWORK 

EXPERIENCE FOR THE HISTORY 

TEAM HAS BEEN RELATIVELY 

SMOOTH.

NASA History Publications

By Steve Garber 

The Aeronautics and Space Report of the President, FY19 

Activities, is almost ready for virtual printing as a final 

PDF document. Thanks to Cat Baldwin for shepherding this edition of the “President’s Report” through a 

complex maze of concurrences. 

Linda Billings’s edited collection of solar system 

exploration essays is now in copyediting at the 

Communications Support Services Center (CSSC). 

This volume includes a variety of thoughtful, interesting chapters and originated in a symposium we had 

several years ago on the 50th anniversary of robotic 

solar system exploration. 

Chris Gainor’s operational history of the Hubble 

Space Telescope (HST) is also in copyediting while 

simultaneously undergoing what promises to be a 

gorgeous layout.
7

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

The third volume of Wind and Beyond, an aerodynamics documentary history, is currently in layout. 

Edited by Jeremy Kinney and Jim Hansen, this comprehensive volume will cover airships, flying boats, 

and rotorcraft. 

After undergoing peer review, Emily Cook is finishing 

revisions to her strong manuscript on the history of 

NASA’s Stennis Space Center (SSC). This carefully 

researched and well-written manuscript should serve as 

an excellent follow-up to Mack Herring’s Way Station 

to Space and focus on the 1996–2016 time period. 

AMES RESEARCH CENTER (ARC)

Moffett Field, California

By April Gage and James Anderson

On Sunday, 8 March, Ames received notification of 

the first confirmed case of COVID-19 among the 

workforce. The emergency alerts arrived as e-mails and 

text messages and calls from colleagues sharing the 

news that the Center was now on mandatory telework, 

effective immediately. Many of us had participated 

in the Agency-wide telework exercise the previous 

Friday, and what began as a temporary condition has 

now extended into almost three months of living and 

working in this unprecedented time.

Just before the shift to this “new normal” occurred, the 

Center historian gave a talk about the history of Ames 

to students taking part in the NASA Community 

College Aerospace Scholars program. The students 

were at Moffett Field for a multiday workshop that 

took place at the end of February. The talk focused 

on the Center’s contributions to lunar research up 

through the present day. Two artifacts were included 

in the presentation for the students to see up close: 

an arc jet test sample and a breccia returned by the 

Apollo 15 mission. The Center historian also gave 

an internal presentation to Center management for a 

new concept for the illustrated timeline of the major 

milestones that trace the history of Ames up to its 

present. A version of the timeline will be included in a 

new overview brochure that is under way.

Computers calculating data from the Ames 16-Foot Wind Tunnel, January 1943. (Photo credit: NACA)

Also under way are two ambitious data collection 

projects for which the History Archives has devised 

documentation strategies: Women of Ames and the 

Ames Research Center Response to COVID-19. The 

archivists teamed up with the Center historian and 

others to collect existing materials and create new 

materials to document these topics.

The Women of Ames project seeks to capture 

biographical information about women who have 

worked at Ames in order to expand and improve the 

information currently available in the archives. The 

archivists analyzed the holdings to examine the quality 

and quantity of data and identify gaps in coverage, 

and they formed a small team of interested scientists 

and others to tackle a two-phased approach for the 

project. Phase one, which involves the identification 

of a list of women and gathering of information such 

as curricula vitae, biographical sketches, memoirs, 

photographs, and achievements, is already under way. 

Phase two, the capturing of women’s stories through 

oral interviews, is in the planning stages, with the 

Center historian leading efforts to develop interview 

topics and working methods.

The Ames Research Center Response to COVID-19

project will capture the Center’s civil servant and contractor response to the pandemic. The collection will 

focus on how the Center’s management, operations, 
8

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

communications, and culture evolve to adapt to 

new working conditions while ensuring workforce 

safety, health, and well-being, as well as how Ames 

responds as a research center by bringing its expertise 

and technical facilities, such as the NASA Advanced 

Supercomputing Facility, to bear on solving problems 

posed by the virus. One such Ames-led effort initiated 

by Dr. Afshin Beheshti and GeneLab is the formation of the COVID-19 International Research Team 

(COV-IRT). COV-IRT comprises a large and growing 

team of international researchers who are working 

together as an open science collaboration group to 

study the virus, understand how it impacts the host, 

and seek pathways to potential therapeutic options.

In other archives news, orbital space colony concept 

artwork from the History Archives collections presenting compelling visions of living and working in 

space will appear in The High Frontier: The Untold 

Story of Gerard K. O’Neill, an upcoming documentary film about the late physicist Gerard O’Neill 

from Princeton University. A pioneer and advocate 

for the design and development of space settlements, 

O’Neill teamed up with Ames Research Center and 

Stanford University in a series of summer studies in 

the 1970s, which culminated in the design of largescale spaceborne habitats that could support millions 

of people. The trailer for the film premiered during 

the Yuri’s Night Global World Space Party livestream. 

One of the paintings from this effort, featuring the 

interior of the Bernal Sphere settlement design by 

Rick Guidice, is scheduled to go on exhibition at the 

Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology, 

Tekniska Museet. The work forms a part of the popular 

Moving to Mars exhibition developed by the Design 

Museum in London, which is traveling to Stockholm 

this winter.

One final note on a topic of particular pride and 

delight: We just received advance copies of a graphic 

novel-style account of NASA’s Galileo mission to 

Jupiter, written and illustrated by former Ames History 

Archives intern Holly Trechter with coauthor Jane 

Donovan. Written for a young audience and using 

commentary by the medieval astronomer Galileo 

as a narrative device, Galileo! Galileo! weaves factual 

information into a compelling, suspenseful, and informative story designed to connect with young readers 

in a humorous way. The well-researched and wonderfully illustrated graphic novel was inspired by Holly’s 

internship work on the papers of John D. Mihalov, a 

NASA Ames scientist who served as co-investigator for 

the Galileo Probe Atmospheric Structure Instrument.

Cover illustration of Galileo! Galileo! The book will be released this 

summer. (Image credit: Holly Trechter)

ARMSTRONG FLIGHT RESEARCH 

CENTER (AFRC) 

Edwards Air Force Base, California

By Christian Gelzer

As with the rest of the history program, Armstrong 

has been working from home since the Center 

restricted access.
9

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

Christian answered several image and video requests 

for an hour-long program on former Center pilot 

Don Mallick and has been working on his Prandtl 

project manuscript. Mallick came to work at NASA 

Armstrong in 1963 and became chief pilot in 1967. 

He flew vehicles ranging from the Lunar Landing 

Research Vehicle to the SR-71, and his work focused 

on lifting bodies. The company producing the feature 

is currently trying to lodge it with a network.

The Prandtl project seeks to validate an alternate spanloading, one that is 11.5 percent more efficient than 

the elliptical, with the added benefit of control authority. Christian conducted three interviews in May and 

has several more to go before he’s finished. 

GLENN RESEARCH CENTER (GRC)

Cleveland, Ohio

By Bob Arrighi (edited by Anne Mills)

With nearly all schools moving to an online format 

for the duration of the school year in the wake of 

COVID-19, NASA has been increasing efforts to 

provide STEM education resources and content. 

Inspiring students in unique ways is nothing new to 

NASA—this summer marks 35 years since Glenn 

Research Center (then Lewis) led students in one of 

its most engaging and ambitious STEM education 

initiatives, Simulated Shuttle Day, which you can read 

about in the feature article. 

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER (JSC)

Houston, Texas

By John Uri

In mid-March, the JSC History Office staff, along 

with the rest of the Center, the Agency, and much of 

the country, transitioned to telework, quickly becoming well acquainted with Microsoft Teams as a novel 

form of communication. While we continue most of 

our work in this remote environment, the pandemic 

has resulted in some impacts. For example, new faceto-face interviews for the Oral History project are 

temporarily suspended, although we’ve discussed the 

use of Teams, if necessary. Also, the intern program 

was days from making an offer to an outstanding 

candidate for a summer internship to help catalog 

archival materials, but that activity could be completed remotely, and the invitation was withdrawn. 

Another impact to the office is that the hiring of an 

archivist to oversee the JSC History Collection at the 

University of Houston–Clear Lake is suspended due 

to the overall hiring freeze at the university, with no 

action expected until the fall.

TO CAPTURE THE IMPACTS OF 

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC 

ON THE JSC WORKFORCE, OUR 

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR 

SANDRA JOHNSON IS 

SPEARHEADING AN EFFORT 

TO GATHER INFORMATION IN 

REAL-TIME FROM THE CENTER 

COMMUNITY.

To capture the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic 

on the JSC workforce, our Production Coordinator, 

Sandra Johnson, is spearheading an effort to gather 

information in real time from the Center community. 

Benchmarking efforts by several museums, universities, 

and libraries, the system still under development will 

capture information in the form of stories and other 

supplemental information provided by employees on 

the internal JSC Knowledge Management website. 

The information will be archived for future research 

and used as the first step in determining and preparing 

for a follow-on oral history project to capture this 

unprecedented event across the Center. More to come 

on this exciting project as it nears rollout.

Prior to the stay-at-home orders, the JSC History 

office team completed several oral histories. Sandra 
10

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

conducted an interview with former Crew Systems 

Photo/TV photographer and astronaut instructor 

William H. Bowers in February, but sadly, Bowers 

passed away on 6 April. Even though he was ill at 

the time of the interview, his determination to complete his oral history allowed us to capture a unique 

aspect of astronaut photography training. Sandra also 

conducted an interview with Justin “Jay” Rennilson, 

a NASA-appointed co-investigator on the Lunar 

Surveyor Television Experiment and Apollo Lunar 

Geology Investigative Teams on all missions. At 93, 

Rennilson is currently working with the University of 

Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Department to collect, 

digitize, and archive all the 70-millimeter films on 

the Surveyor missions. They have completed all of 

the collection and digitization and are in preparation 

for submission to the Planetary Data System later 

this year. Interestingly, one positive note on this new 

teleworking environment is that it has 

given the team the opportunity to process 

a backlog of oral history transcripts.

Dr. Ross-Nazzal giving the B. K. Smith Lecture at the University of St. Thomas. (Photo credit: 

Dr. Jim Ross-Nazzal)

JSC Historian Jennifer Ross-Nazzal gave 

the invited B. K. Smith Lecture at the 

University of St. Thomas in Houston 

on 5 March. Her well-attended talk 

“Apollo and the Creation of the Clear 

Lake Community” summarized the 

effects the establishment of the Johnson 

Space Center had on the development 

of the community surrounding the 

Center. Lisa Mundey, Chair of the 

History Department at St. Thomas, 

wrote, “Thanks so much for coming! I’ve 

gotten good feedback from the evening.” 

Attendees included the former president 

of the university. Dom Aquila, another 

history faculty member, said, “We are 

most grateful to you for an excellent, 

engaging lecture. Your work is humanizing an historical event that for many students today remains a technical-scientific 

achievement. Would that another project 

like the moonshot unify our nation’s 

energy in a positive direction.”

After editing and revisions by Jennifer and Sandra, 

Jennifer submitted her chapter “We Are Family: Apollo 

and the Creation of the Clear Lake Community” to 

the Marshall Space Flight Center Historian. The chapter will be included in an anthology to be published by 

the University of Alabama Press. 

The JSC History Office continues to respond to 

research requests from a variety of sources, the need for 

historical research seemingly unaffected by the pandemic. The team responded to requests from within 

NASA, such JSC’s External Relations Office (ERO) 

and the JSC Records Manager, and from universities, 

academies, and museums. 

The JSC History Office has been actively participating in an effort led by the JSC ERO to celebrate 
11

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

key moments leading up to the 20th anniversary of 

permanent occupancy of the International Space 

Station (ISS) on 2 November 2020. Feature articles memorialized Major Robert Lawrence, the 

first African American astronaut and after whom 

Northrop Grumman named the Cygnus-12 cargo 

resupply vehicle during African American History 

Month; summarized long-duration missions on the 

ISS; recognized the contributions of female astronauts aboard the ISS during National Women’s 

History Month; remembered the launch of Norman 

Thagard as the first U.S. astronaut aboard Mir as part 

of the ISS Phase 1 Program; summarized preparations for the first ISS expedition six months prior 

to launch; reviewed the missions of Space Flight 

Participants; recognized the contributions of Asian 

American astronauts during Asian American and 

Pacific Islander Heritage Month; and entertained 

with a story about music on the ISS.

We continue to work with the JSC ERO to publish 

a series of articles commemorating other significant 

historical milestones, such as the 50th anniversaries 

of Apollo 13 and follow-on Moon landing missions, 

the 45th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project 

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

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

gov website and JSC’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

Select articles are posted on JSC’s Roundup Reads, 

and abstracts of the articles appear online in JSC’s 

Roundup Today. The features often highlight the anniversaries of less celebrated events and people that were 

nevertheless important events in the Apollo program 

and other spaceflight endeavors. We would like to 

thank history and archive personnel at other NASA 

Centers for their valued help and contributions to 

many of these products. We would especially like 

to thank Elaine Liston at Kennedy Space Center for 

her unending supply of Spaceport News back issues, 

uninterrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. In early 

April, we reached a significant milestone with the 

publication of the 250th article since the series began 

in August 2017.

MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER 

(MSFC)

Huntsville, Alabama

By Brian Odom

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of 

our work in the Marshall History Office and Archives 

transitioned to telework status in mid-March. One 

key project since then has been documenting the 

impact of the virus on the Center’s workforce as well 

as programs and projects. This process has involved 

creating a collection development strategy capable 

of capturing the various aspects of this history, compiling a timeline of those impacts, and working with 

program and project managers to better understand 

the overall impacts. This work is part of a larger effort 

across NASA history and archival programs to document this important history. Historical and archival 

efforts also reflect actions across the Agency, including 

those of NASA’s Earth Science Division, to utilize 

satellite data in order to gain a clearer understanding 

of environmental, economic, and social impacts of 

the pandemic, including the impact of air pollution 

reduction on the atmosphere. 

This series of illustrations demonstrates the incredible technologies necessary to fabricate the 

1.5-inch-diameter quartz rotors that were within 40 atomic layers (0.3 millionth of an inch) of a perfect 

sphere. (Image courtesy of Stanford University)
12

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

As part of continued research into the history of 

Gravity Probe B, a program launched in 2004 to test 

two aspects of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, I recently had the opportunity to interview (by 

phone) preeminent artist and illustrator Barron Storey. 

Born in Dallas, Texas in 1940, Storey trained under 

Robert Weaver at the New York School of Visual Arts. 

His long list of credits as an illustrator include Neil 

Gaiman’s The Sandman: Endless Nights (Vertigo, 2011), 

The Absolute Sandman, volumes two (Vertigo, 2007) 

and five (Vertigo, 2011); and the iconic cover artwork 

for the 1980 reissue of William Golding’s novel Lord 

of the Flies. Storey’s work has certainly received much 

acclaim, with Neil Gaiman once describing him as “a 

visionary; the man behind the eye.” 

This illustration is of the Gravity Probe B spacecraft. Located in the lower right corner of the illustration is a diagram of the predicted movement of the 

gyroscope in response to both the frame-dragging effect (39 milliarcseconds/year) and the geodetic effect (6,606 milliarcseconds/year). (Image courtesy 

of Stanford University) 

Storey’s connection with Gravity Probe B began in 

1987 when the Stanford University group, led by 

Francis Everitt, approached him about illustrating 

a promotional brochure entitled “Gravity Probe B: 

Testing Einstein with Orbiting Gyroscopes.” This was 

not Storey’s first project for the space program. In 

1979, he produced one of the first illustrations of the 

completed Space Shuttle—an illustration that currently resides at the National Air and Space Museum 

in Washington, DC. Storey remembered wanting to 

create something that would be a “celebration of the 

science and a celebration of Einstein’s genius,” but also 

an “accessible vision of the people who were making 

it happen.” Storey contends that the “success of the 

project was an indication that artists and scientists 

can work together to a mutual advantage.” The final 

illustrated brochure proved remarkably effective 

in conveying the program, and the science behind 

it, to both the public and members of the United 

States Congress. 
13

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

EXCERPT FROM THE PARTNERSHIP: A HISTORY OF THE 

APOLLO-SOYUZ TEST PROJECT

July marks the 45th anniversary of the ApolloSoyuz Test Project (ASTP), a joint mission 

between the Soviet Union and the United States. 

ASTP became a symbol of peace between two 

opposing nations and helped create the international cooperation we foster in the space industry 

today. The excerpt below is from the introduction of 

The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test 

Project, where the authors set out their process for 

writing this history.

This history is an official history only because it was 

sponsored by NASA. The authors were invited through 

a contract to record their version of the events that led 

to, shaped, and emerged from the joint flight. When 

we first met with Glynn S. Lunney, the American 

Technical Director for ASTP, we asked, “Why do you 

want to have a history written?” Lunney responded 

that he had never asked himself precisely that question 

but that he did desire to see preserved the subtlety 

of human interaction that he had observed during 

the first four years of the project. Lunney went on to 

suggest that the technical aspects of ASTP were not 

nearly as interesting, or perhaps as significant, as the 

working relationships that had emerged among the 

technical specialists of the two nations. Written documents tend often to be dry and distilled he thought. 

Lunney wanted a historian to see firsthand some of 

the personal interplay so that the flavor of the working 

sessions could be preserved along with the story that 

could be found in more conventional documents. 

Our history is to a large extent based upon oral records. 

Sometimes dubbed “combat historians,” or less favorably, “instant historians,” we stalked the halls of the 

joint meetings in Houston with tape recorders in hand. 

Although never quite a part of the furniture, we were 

not an apparent disturbance to any of the negotiations we witnessed. And although we never traveled 

to the Soviet Union, those who did gave freely of their 

time, recollecting their experiences or answering our 

questions. Sometimes we cornered them in the halls 

between negotiating sessions, at other times by telephone. But whether it was over a quick cup of coffee 

while they waited for Xerox copies of a document or 

during a hamburger break, these men and women went 

out of their way to help, to explain, and to re-explain.

Astronaut Vance D. Brand (left), Command Module pilot of the American ASTP first (prime) crew, and 

cosmonaut Valeriy N. Kubasov, engineer on the Soviet ASTP prime crew participate in training for the 

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in Building 35. (Photo credit: NASA)

The book that emerged from these efforts has both 

strengths and weaknesses. First, we have told essentially the NASA side of the story. We had free access to 

American materials and members of the NASA team. 

In addition, NASA has an ongoing history program, 

which makes the historian’s task an easier one. Most of 

the information on earlier programs is readily at hand 

in published histories or works in progress. The Soviet 

space program by contrast is shrouded in mystery. The 

Soviets have not produced any comparable historical 

studies of their programs, and when we requested 

Soviet assistance with this history we were informed 

politely, but firmly, that they did not wish to discuss 

history. As a consequence, we had only limited opportunities to speak with members of the Soviet ASTP 
14

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

team. Where possible, to balance our presentation, 

we have cited Russian language sources, but our story 

remains one told from the American perspective. 

Second, history written as events are unfolding can be 

neither entirely objective nor complete. But we have 

attempted to be fair in our judgments as we explained 

what the project meant to the participants through 

their personal recollections—recollections that otherwise might not have been preserved. We have tried to 

write an interesting narrative, sufficient in technical 

detail for the intelligent reader to grasp the mechanical elements of ASTP, but simple enough so that pages 

do not become bogged down by complex description. 

Those who worked on ASTP know that for every page 

of description in this history there are often hundreds 

of pages of technical documents, thousands of feet of 

computer tape, and seemingly endless hours of work. 

Some will be dismayed that their efforts were passed 

over or given only a line or two, but our goal has been 

to preserve some of the spirit of ASTP with the hope 

that some historians in the future will evaluate the 

project’s significance more fully. Years will pass before 

we know if the partnership of so many engineers, 

spacemen, negotiators, and diplomats represents a 

stepping stone, plateau, or pinnacle in the history of 

international cooperation. Only time will determine 

the true perspective of their performance. 

Docking Module pilot Donald K. Slayton with no shirt on, wearing medical 

sensors during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in July 1975. (Photo credit: 

NASA)

Third, there are topics that we chose not to discuss in 

detail because they will be recorded in other NASA 

publications. For example, we did not describe in 

depth the manufacturing history of the Apollo spacecraft, since that is covered in the fourth volume of 

The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology (NASA SP-4009) 

and is the subject of the forthcoming history Chariots 

for Apollo. We may be accused of slighting certain 

groups—the State Department, the Department of 

Defense, or Rockwell International, the spacecraft 

contractor. But we think that our treatment of these 

organizations in this history reflects adequately their 

participation in ASTP. More than any single manned 

space flight before, ASTP was a Johnson Space Center 

enterprise. Technical negotiations were conducted 

almost exclusively by personnel from Houston. Even 

NASA Headquarters typically assumed an advisory 

and supportive role, with the notable exception of 

Deputy Administrator George M. Low, who played 

a central part in planning and directing the program. 

When it came to the design of the docking system and 

the docking module, the JSC engineers took the lead 

and basically told the contractor in detail what they 

wanted. Again, this was a departure from earlier programs and does not reflect the manner in which the 

Space Shuttle was to be developed. We hope our book 

adequately reflects the unique nature of Apollo-Soyuz. 

Because the flight of Apollo and Soyuz can be understood only in the international context from which it 

emerged, we have presented two introductory chapters 

that describe the early years of Cold War competition 

(chap. I) and the first efforts at cooperation (chap. II). 

The next chapter describes the evolution of manned 

spacecraft in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. (chap. III), while 

“Mission to Moscow” (chap. IV) outlines the experiences of the American technical specialists during their 

first visit to the U.S.S.R. in October 1970. In January 

1971, discussion about cooperation in space flight 

turned from general talk of the “future” to specific 

proposals for a test mission using existing hard ware 

(chap. V). During the ensuing 16 months, NASA and 

Soviet Academy engineers began to learn to work with 

one another, and by May 1972 the two sides were confident that they could design and build the necessary 

hardware by mid-1975 (chap. VI). Once given the official seal of approval at the Nixon-Kosygin Summit in 
15

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

May 1972, work began in earnest toward the creation 

of a test project (chap. VII). As the hardware evolved, 

the United States and the Soviet Union monitored 

progress with reviews, planned public release of ASTP 

information (chap. VIII), and selected their crews, who 

began their technical and linguistic training for the 

flight (chap. IX). Final reviews of the project were held 

in the spring of 1975, while critics questioned the 

wisdom and safety of the joint mission (chap. X). All 

the efforts culminated in a nearly flawless flight in July 

1975 (chap. XI), and the only unanswered question 

concerned what the future would hold for cooperation in space between two nations that had dared to 

break down old rivalries. As for accolades to those 

who helped us with this history, their names are best 

preserved in our essay on sources, which describes the 

materials we used, where they came from, and how 

they are arranged for future use. On 24 July 1975 after 

Apollo had splashed down and the crew was aboard the 

U.S.S. New Orleans, we chanced to encounter Glynn 

Lunney as he left the Mission Operations Control 

Room. Suit coat over his shoulder, he smiled and said, 

“Now you have a story to tell.” He was right. 

Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, commander of the American ASTP prime crew, and cosmonaut Aleksey A. Leonov, commander of the Soviet ASTP prime crew, 

training at Johnson Space Center. (Photo credit: NASA)

ALL THE EFFORTS CULMINATED 

IN A NEARLY FLAWLESS 

FLIGHT IN JULY 1975... AND 

THE ONLY UNANSWERED 

QUESTION CONCERNED WHAT 

THE FUTURE WOULD HOLD 

FOR COOPERATION IN SPACE 

BETWEEN TWO NATIONS THAT 

HAD DARED TO BREAK DOWN 

OLD RIVALRIES.

Edward Clinton Ezell 

Linda Neuman Ezell 

Houston, July 1976

Read the full book for free here: 

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4209.pdf.
16

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

OTHER AEROSPACE HISTORY NEWS

AMERICAN ASTRONAUTICAL SOCIETY 

(AAS)—HISTORY COMMITTEE

By Michael Ciancone

2019 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature 

The Emme Award Panel, chaired by Dr. Don Elder, 

is early in the process for soliciting and reviewing 

selected titles. Other members of the panel are Dr. 

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

Witt Kilgore.

International Academy of Astronautics History Series 

The series editor, Dr. Rick Sturdevant, reports that the 

edited papers for International Astronautical Congress 

2017 (Adelaide, volume editor: Michael Ciancone) are 

in the hands of Univelt. The edited papers from IAC 

2018 (Bremen, volume editor: Hannes Mayer) are on 

hold. The edited papers from IAC 2019 (Washington, 

DC, volume editor: Ofrid Liepack) are expected by 

the end of August 2020.

Springer-Nature will assume publication of future 

History Series volumes following the 2019 volume. 

Univelt will continue publication of material in hand 

as of March 2021. This represents a clean break since 

we will not have proceedings for 2020 due to the 

impact of the novel coronavirus on IAC plans.

Korolev Presentation

Michael Ciancone and Professor Asif Siddiqi provided 

a virtual presentation of early nonfiction books about 

spaceflight, with a focus on Russian publications, at 

the Korolev Academic Conference. The January 2020 

presentation, held in Moscow, highlighted entries 

from Foreword to Spaceflight (2018), which compiles 

the most extensive list of rocket and spaceflight-related publications published prior to the launch of 

Sputnik in 1957. The authors described key monographs, influential authors, and general trends in 

publishing on space exploration in the first half of 

the 20th century, before spaceflight became a reality 

(January 2020: Moscow, Russia).

8 July 1975: The three American ASTP prime crew astronauts participate 

in a photography mission briefing with Dr. Farouk El-Baz (wearing face 

mask) during Apollo-Soyuz Test Project preflight activity at NASA’s Johnson 

Space Center. They are, from left to right, Thomas P. Stafford, commander; 

Vance D. Brand, command module pilot; Dr. El-Baz; and Donald K. Slayton, 

docking module pilot. Dr. El-Baz is with the Center for Earth and Planetary 

Studies, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. The 

face mask is to protect the crewmen from possible exposure to disease 

prior to launch time. (Photo credit: NASA)

CALL FOR PAPERS

NASA and the Rise of Commercial Space 

Symposium, 18–19 March 2021

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) 

History Office and the University of Alabama in 

Huntsville (UAH) History Department are pleased 

to invite paper proposals for a two-day symposium in 

Huntsville, Alabama, exploring the history of commercial space to the present day. Today, the commercial space industry is taking on an increased leadership 

role and position of innovator in both space access 

and exploration. This growth of commercial space 

over the past decades offers the potential for a new 

paradigm for space exploration—one in which industry transitions from supplier to partner. Still, many 

questions remain. These questions span from the most 

seemingly consequential, “How will humanity explore 

the Moon and Mars?” to the most basic, “What is 

‘commercial space?’”
17

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

To develop further the historical context of commercial space—and thereby better inform decision-making at NASA going forward—the organizers of this 

symposium invite proposals on a broad range of topics 

related to the history of commercial space operations, 

including, but not limited to, the following:

Contextualizing “Commercial Space”: How has 

the concept of commercial space evolved in different 

fields and disciplines? Submissions can address topics 

of interest in fields of policy, law, environment, political science, economics, or organizational studies.

• Evolution of United States and international commercial space policy

• Pre-NASA conceptions of commercial space 

activities

• Environmental impacts of commercial space

• Social history of commercial space

• Historical impact of innovative technologies

Exploring the History of Nongovernmental 

Activities: What have been the major events and 

milestones in the emergence and evolution of commercial space activities in the United States and 

internationally?

• Commercial space in United States and international law/property rights/space mining

• Commercial analogs for space exploration and 

exploitation

• Development of commercial efforts in space tourism, colonization, and exploration

• Commercial activities in low-Earth/geosynchronous orbit

• Public perception of space tourism (suborbital vs. 

orbital, lunar, Mars)

• Advance of the philosophy, economics, and politics 

of commercial space

Examining Relevant Government Activities Past 

and Present: How has the U.S. government assisted 

or impeded the emergence and evolution of commercial space activities?

• Origins of programs such as Commercial Crew

• Comparison of commercial space industry to 

Apollo/Shuttle procurement models

• Comparative experiences in commercialization 

from governmental and private industries

• Applicable experiences of national security and civil 

space programs

• Development of public-private partnerships at 

NASA

The format of the symposium will be a combination of 

panel discussions, keynote talks, and group discussions. 

The intended outcome is a deeper understanding of 

the relationship between NASA and commercial space 

as well as an improved definition of commercial space. 

As part of this goal, each presenter must also propose 

a definition of “commercial space” and develop that 

definition as it relates to their chosen topic. The intention is to publish an anthology of selected papers.

As part of the effort to offer insight to broad constituencies, the organizers envision a range of products 

emerging from this symposium. The possibility of 

online blogs and other means of communication are 

being considered, as is a fully referenced edited collection of essays on the origins and development of 

commercial space activities. Participants are invited to 

make their presentations available in written form for 

dissemination.

Submission Procedures

If you wish to present a paper, please send an abstract 

of no more than 400 words and a short biography or 

curriculum vitae, including affiliation, by 1 November 

2020, to Dr. Brian C. Odom at brian.c.odom@nasa.

gov or Dr. Stephen P. Waring at warings@uah.edu.

Decisions about acceptance will be made by 1 

December 2020.

For more information, contact Brian Odom at 

brian.c.odom@nasa.gov
18

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL AIR AND 

SPACE MUSEUM (SNASM)

By Margaret Weitekamp

The curatorial departments, including Space History, 

Aeronautics, and the Center for Earth and Planetary 

Studies, at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space 

Museum began teleworking full time on Friday, 13 

March 2020. Although it has been a significant 

adjustment, the curators’ work has been well-suited 

for being done from remote settings. Even before 

March ended, Senior Curator Mike Neufeld met the 

members of the Reston Book Club online to discuss 

his book Von Braun. 

FORTUNATELY, THE MUSEUM’S 

INCREASED EMPHASIS ON 

EXTENDING THE SNASM 

EXPERIENCE BEYOND THE 

WALLS OF THE BUILDING HAD 

CREATED A STRONG BASIS 

ON WHICH TO BUILD VIRTUAL 

PROGRAMMING.

Fortunately, the museum’s increased emphasis on 

extending the SNASM experience beyond the walls 

of the building had created a strong basis on which to 

build virtual programming. Within a week or so, the 

Museum’s Education department led the staff to begin 

broadcasting a moderated Facebook Live Chat featuring curators or special guests at least once a week. That 

program solidified quickly into a regular Thursday 1 

p.m. timeslot. One such chat featured Tom Watters of 

the Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies 

paired with Space History curator Jennifer Levasseur 

to talk about Moon photography. Curator Cathleen 

Lewis and conservator Lisa Young presented about 

spacesuits, including their work on the conservation 

of Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 lunar suit. 

Using these resources and others, the Space History 

department supported the 50th anniversary of Apollo 

13 through blog posts and online programming. A 

signature highlight was Apollo curator Teasel MuirHarmony appearing as a guest alongside Captain 

Jim Lovell on the Air and Space Live Chat carried on 

Facebook. Muir-Harmony also joined NASA Chief 

Historian Bill Barry and Ben Feist, creator of the website Apollo 13 in Real Time, for a Reddit “Ask Me 

Anything” about Apollo 13. One evening, department 

chair Margaret Weitekamp joined Jeff Kluger, the 

space journalist who wrote Lost Moon with Lovell, on 

Facebook Live. Together they held a film discussion 

with the public about Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 (1995), 

which was based on Lost Moon. 

At the same time, curator Martin Collins was one of 

the leaders of the Smithsonian-wide effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. 

The Earth Optimism Summit that had been meticulously planned as a live, in-person event, was hastily—

but successfully—converted into a digital summit. 

The diverse slate of international speakers, including 

such notables as chef José Andrés and businessman 

David Rubenstein, were introduced with remarks 

from Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch. According 

to the webpage https://earthoptimism.si.edu, “More 

than 55,000 devices in over 170 countries tuned in 

to watch our 102 hours of live stream. The hashtag 

“#EarthOptimism” reached over 19 million people 

during the Summit.” Collins also published blog posts 

on the Museum’s webpage as well as the Smithsonian

magazine’s blog. 

The Museum also marked the 30th anniversary of the 

deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope. Senior 

curator David DeVorkin published a piece on Dr. 

Nancy Grace Roman in Physics Today. In addition to 

DeVorkin’s blog post and one by Stanford’s Elizabeth 

Kessler, the regular Thursday Facebook Live included 

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, a senior astrophysicist at 

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; Dr. Lou Strolger, 

observatory scientist at the Space Telescope Science 

Institute; and NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, who 

flew on two Hubble Servicing Missions. 
19

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

The Museum has also been supporting the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II with a series of blog 

posts authored by curators, including one titled “The 

Myth of the German ‘Wonder Weapons’” by Mike 

Neufeld. Unfortunately, the Arsenal of Democracy 

fly-in planned for early May to mark the 75th anniversary of V-E Day has been postponed. 

The Apollo Lunar Module below the Spirit of St. Louis in the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. (Photo credit: National Air and Space Museum)

Margaret Weitekamp and David DeVorkin also participated with illustrator and Museum educator Diane 

Kidd in an online reading of their children’s book 

Pluto’s Secret as a part of the Museum’s digital Story 

Time program. 

The Exploring Space lecture series has also been converted to an online format, with the first presentation 

on 2 June. Sheperd Doeleman, founding director of 

the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, also of 

the Smithsonian’s Astrophysical Observatory, spoke 

about the Event Horizon Telescope project. 

In other kinds of outreach, Teasel Muir-Harmony 

appeared on a teleconference panel about jobs outside of the academy for the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology’s History, Anthropology, Science, 

Technology and Society (HASTS) Program seminar. 

The Museum’s AirSpace podcast team, which includes 

Space History curator Matthew Shindell, also started 

producing new mini-episodes focusing on films. One 

of the first featured a discussion about Troop Zero, 

focusing especially on the depiction of space themes 

and the Voyager golden record. 

Although the pace has been slowed, the Museum’s 

construction efforts have been able to continue under 

new guidelines for cleaning, mask-wearing, and distancing. As was described in a previous update, half 

of the Museum’s downtown building was evacuated 

and shuttered to allow for demolition beginning in 

December 2018. Once the west end of the building 

had been taken back to the studs, the reconstruction began. Inside, the walls, stairways, and doorways 
20

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

that will define the renovated space are being built. 

Outside, the first exterior stones of the building have 

been reinstalled. Even ahead of the completion of the 

“black box” exhibit spaces inside, there are already 

some artifacts—those which were too large or cumbersome to move—still on site. In May, the massive 

F-1 engine that had been a signature of the Apollo to 

the Moon gallery since it opened in 1976 was hoisted 

and moved across the building to a new location down 

the hall. Now hanging vertically, it will be featured in 

the new, reimagined “Destination Moon” exhibit. 

All the while, the curators have continued their 

planning efforts for new exhibits planned as a part 

of revitalization and transformation. Although these 

meetings were once held in conference rooms with the 

design contractors on the other end of teleconference 

calls, now all of the team members, as many as a dozen 

and a half at a time, log into the meetings through 

Microsoft Teams or other software. It’s not nearly as 

fun. Gone are the witty asides between colleagues or 

diversions for jokes or movie references inspired by 

the content. But the actual work can continue quite 

well, and plans are coming together for the second half 

of the Museum’s immense renovation. 

To counter the grind, the Museum’s internal lunchtime 

brown bag presentations have continued as Teams 

meetings, allowing curators to share their research 

with each other in a less formal setting. For instance, 

just before the isolation began, Jim David gave a talk 

titled “The 60th Anniversaries of America and the 

World’s First Two Successful Spy Satellites—GRAB 

and CORONA.” The Space History department also 

started hosting weekly happy hours on Thursday 

evenings, inviting a different department from the 

Museum to join us as guests each time. It’s still a teleconference, but we do get to catch up a little. 

The Museum is excited about several new books. 

Matthew Shindell’s biography of Harold Urey from 

the University of Chicago Press, The Life and Science 

of Harold C. Urey, has been well reviewed since its 

publication in December 2019. David DeVorkin’s 

definitive Fred Whipple’s Empire: The Smithsonian 

Astrophysical Observatory, 1955–1973 is available 

online for download from the Smithsonian Institution 

Scholarly Press at https://scholarlypress.si.edu/store/

history-american-culture/fred-whipples-empiresmithsonian-astrophysical-obs/. Aeronautics curator 

Alex Spencer’s new book, British Imperial Air Power: 

The Royal Air Forces and the Defense of Australia and 

New Zealand Between the World Wars, appeared from 

Purdue University Press. Also from Purdue University 

Press and also in June, Jennifer Levasseur published 

Through Astronaut Eyes: Photographing Early Human 

Spaceflight. Moreover, Michael Neufeld’s Spaceflight: 

A Concise History (MIT Press, 2018) will appear in 

a Chinese translation later in 2020 and an Arabic 

translation in 2021. 

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) 

AirVenture is canceled due to COVID-19. Visit 

https://www.eaa.org/en/airventure for more details.

The annual meeting of the Society of American 

Archivists will be held virtually 3–8 August 2020. 

Visit https://www2.archivists.org/conference for more 

details.

The annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of 

Science (4S) will be held virtually 18–21 August 2020. 

Visit http://www.4sonline.org/meeting for more details.

The annual meeting of the Society for the History of 

Technology is exploring options for virtual panels in 

October 2020. Visit https://www.historyoftechnology.

org/annual-meeting/ for more details.
21

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS

Howard McCurdy, Financing the New Space 

Industry: Breaking Free of Gravity and 

Government Support (Palgrave, 9 November 

2019)

William Causey, John Houbolt: The Unsung Hero 

of the Apollo Moon Landings (Purdue University 

Press, 15 March 2020) 

Brian Harvey, China in Space: The Great Leap 

Forward, second edition (Springer, 2019). 

(Correction to title in previous newsletter.)

Disclaimer: These are collected from promotional materials and do not represent an endorsement by NASA.

NASA HEADQUARTERS HISTORY DIVISION 

STAFF CONTACT INFORMATION

William Barry bill.barry@nasa.gov

Chief Historian 202-358-0383

Nadine Andreassen nadine.j.andreassen@nasa.gov

Program Support Specialist 202-358-0087

Catherine Baldwin catherine.e.baldwin@nasa.gov

Editor 202-358-4397

Stephen Garber stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov

Historian (on detail) 202-358-0385

Sarah LeClaire sarah.k.leclaire@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-1380

Brian Odom brian.c.odom@nasa.gov

Historian 256-544-5670

Robyn Rodgers robyn.k.rodgers@nasa.gov 

Chief Archivist 202-358-2798

Elizabeth Suckow elizabeth.suckow-1@nasa.gov

Archivist 202-358-0375

Alejandro Perez alejandro.j.perez@nasa.gov

Intern 

Michael Plocinik michael.b.plocinik@nasa.gov

Intern
22

NASA HISTORY DIVISION — News & Notes

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH: 

REMEMBERING AL WORDEN, 1932–2020

By Mark Stewart

Astronaut Al Worden inspects a Saturn V model. (Photo credit: NASA)

“Quietly, like a night bird, floating, 

soaring, wingless. We glide from 

shore to shore, curving and falling but 

not quite touching; Earth: a distant 

memory seen in an instant of repose, 

crescent shaped, ethereal, beautiful, 

I wonder which part is home, but I 

know it doesn’t matter...the bond is 

there in my mind and memory; Earth: 

a small, bubbly balloon hanging 

delicately in the nothingness of space.”

—Al Worden 

“Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do.”

—David Bowie from Space Oddity,

The best of the Apollo astronauts brought something back with them from the Moon: a creative 

gift that opened new avenues in their lives. Some chose 

to paint, others to write. Al Worden’s book Falling to 

Earth is one of the most vivid accounts of what it was 

actually like to voyage to the Moon and back.

While Neil Armstrong chose to avoid publicity after 

leaving the first set of boot-prints in the lunar dust, 

publicly re-engaging with spaceflight only toward 

the end of his life, Worden was a champion of space 

exploration for the rest of his days. He should be 

remembered and celebrated for that—and for standing up to congressional pressures when there were 

those who sought to fire him nine months after the 

end of his Apollo mission. Some men grow in stature 

in the face of adversity, and Worden was one of them. 

While his companions spent three days on the lunar 

surface, Worden orbited the Moon, circling the mysterious far side of the cratered globe in a remarkable 

feat of solo endurance, bringing to mind another line 

from Bowie’s “Space Oddity”: “here am I floating in 

my tin can.” Like a character in a J. G. Ballard short 

story, Worden experienced the dislocating effects of 

being marooned so far from Earth, passing in his 

capsule beyond all hope of rescue and retrieval, his 

spacecraft a radio beacon passing in and out of the 

lunar night. 

He did come back, of course, along with his fellow 

space voyagers; but the experience moved him to 

reflect that the real purpose of the mission had not 

been to take a closer “look at the Moon, but to look 

back at our home, the Earth.” In this, he was continuing with a project uniquely suited to astronauts: 

the redrawing of interplanetary perspectives, as begun 
23

Volume 37, Number 2 Second Quarter 2020

by the crew of Apollo 8 with their famous “Earthrise” 

photo. His comments also prefigured much of the 

Green Movement, with its emphasis on seeing our one 

world as an ark of all living things, a repository of the 

planet’s biomass. 

...THE EXPERIENCE MOVED HIM 

TO REFLECT THAT THE REAL 

PURPOSE OF THE MISSION 

HAD NOT BEEN TO TAKE A 

CLOSER “LOOK AT THE MOON, 

BUT TO LOOK BACK AT OUR 

HOME, THE EARTH.” IN THIS, 

HE WAS CONTINUING WITH A 

PROJECT UNIQUELY SUITED TO 

ASTRONAUTS: THE REDRAWING 

OF INTERPLANETARY 

PERSPECTIVES...

In the long fall back to Earth, so like the descent from 

the summit of a mountain, Worden spacewalked, suspended above an incalculable abyss, tethered to the 

Moon-vehicle by a single lifeline—a technological 

umbilical—with Earth rising above a dark horizon, 

still impossibly remote but all the while drawing closer 

through the night of long shadows. Worden eventually 

returned from his solo trek, clambering back through 

the hatch of the capsule, a sealed airlock that would 

not open again until splashdown. All three of the 

Moon voyagers (Worden, David Scott, and James 

Irwin) returned as changed men, reunited with their 

home world, and ready to embark on the true starting 

point of their mission: coming to terms with all that it 

meant to have visited another world.

It is tempting to view the surviving astronauts as a 

dwindling fraternity. One thinks of the quiet demeanor 

of Michael Collins, the pugnacity of Buzz Aldrin 

(surely the most human of all the sons of Apollo), and 

the capability and resourcefulness of Ken Mattingly, 

who did so much from Mission Control to support his 

fellow space travelers, particularly during the Apollo 

13 incident. But in a very real sense, this fraternity is 

not diminishing at all. Those who help to shape the 

course of history—especially explorers—never really 

die. They live on in our collective memory, which is 

perhaps the only true form of immortality that any of 

us can hope for. 

By these standards, Al Worden will always be with 

us—falling back to Earth from his lonely outpost, 

circling the Moon as the Command Module pilot on 

the Apollo 15 expedition. He may not have walked 

on that airless world, but in traveling to and from that 

distant goal, he took giant steps of his own.

Al Worden, Command Module pilot of the Apollo 15 lunar landing mission, 

floats in space outside the spacecraft during his trans-Earth extravehicular 

activity (EVA). (Credit: NASA)
CREATED AND PRODUCED BY:

Catherine Baldwin, Newsletter Editor

Anne Factor, Editor

Michele Ostovar, Graphic Designer

Trenita Williams, Mail Coordinator

Carl Paul, Distribution

DOWNLOAD THIS AND OTHER RECENT 

EDITIONS OF NEWS & NOTES AT 

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

JOIN THE

NASA HISTORY 

DIVISION 

ONLINE ON 

OUR SOCIAL 

NETWORKS! 

Get short, timely messages and stay updated on a wide 

variety of topics by following @NASAhistory on Twitter.

Learn the history of NASA’s exploration of the universe 

and its many discoveries about our home planet by 

liking the Facebook page at 

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

Find our collection of great images from NASA 

history at NASA on the Commons on Flickr at 

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

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street SW 

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov