In the summertime 2025 concern of the NASA Historical past Workplace’s Information & Notes e-newsletter, examples of management and important decision-making in NASA’s historical past kind the unifying theme. Among the many matters mentioned are NASA’s Shuttle-Centaur program, assessing donations to the NASA Archives, how the invention of the primary exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star catalyzed NASA’s exoplanet program, and Chief of the Medical Operations Workplace Charles A. Berry’s selections surrounding crew well being when planning the Challenge Gemini missions.
Quantity 42, Quantity 2
Summer time 2025
By Brian Odom
NASA’s is a historical past marked by crucial selections. From George Mueller’s 1963 choice for “all up” testing of the Saturn V rocket to Michael Griffin’s 2006 choice to launch a closing servicing mission to the Hubble Area Telescope, the company has frequently met key inflection factors with daring selections. These decisions, resembling the choice to ship a crewed Apollo 8 mission across the Moon in December 1968, stand on the heart of the company’s nationwide legacy and promote confidence in occasions of disaster. Continue Reading
By Robert Arrighi
“Though the Shuttle/Centaur choice was very troublesome to make, it’s the correct factor to do, and that is the time to do it.” With these phrases on June 19, 1986, NASA Administrator James Fletcher canceled the intensive effort to combine the Centaur higher stage with the Area Shuttle to launch the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft. The choice, which was tied to elevated security measures following the lack of Challenger a number of months earlier, delivered to the forefront the Seventies choice to launch all U.S. payloads with the Area Shuttle. Continue Reading
By Kate Mankowski
On January 27, 1967, Mission AS-204 (later often called Apollo 1) was conducting a simulated countdown when a hearth instantly broke out within the spacecraft, claiming the lives of astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee. The catastrophe highlighted the dangers that include spaceflight and the work that also wanted to be completed to satisfy President Kennedy’s problem of going to the Moon earlier than the tip of the last decade. With the complexity of the Apollo spacecraft, discerning the reason for the hearth proved to be extremely troublesome. Continue Reading
By Brad Massey
Robert MacDonald, the supervisor of NASA’s Giant Space Crop Stock Experiment (LACIE), was not happy in January 1978 after he learn a draft copy of the U.S. Common Accounting Workplace’s (GAO’s) “Crop Forecasting by Satellite tv for pc: Progress and Issues” report. The draft’s authors argued that LACIE had not achieved its targets of precisely predicting harvest yields within the mid-Seventies. Due to this fact, congressional leaders ought to “pay attention to the disappointing efficiency of LACIE to this point when contemplating the long run route of NASA’s Landsat program and the plans of the Division of Agriculture.” Continue Reading
By Jillian Rael
This 12 months, NASA commemorates 35 years of the Hubble Area Telescope’s research of the cosmos. From observations of never-before-seen phenomena inside our photo voltaic system, to the invention of distant galaxies, the affirmation of the existence of supermassive black holes, and precision measurements of the universe’s enlargement, Hubble has made unbelievable contributions to science, know-how, and even artwork. But, for all its up to date reputation, the Hubble program initially struggled for congressional approval and consequential funding. For its half, NASA discovered new methods to compromise and reduce prices, whereas Congress evaluated nationwide priorities and NASA’s different house exploration endeavors in opposition to the long-range worth of Hubble. Continue Reading
By Alan Arellano
The key capabilities of an archivist heart embody appraising, arranging, describing, preserving, and offering entry to historic data and paperwork. Whereas collectively these are pillars of archival science, they’re extra of an artwork than a science of their utility, basically necessitating expert choice making. All through the NASA archives, employees members make these selections day in and time out. Continue Reading
By Lois Rosson
On October 20, 1995, the New York Instances reported the detection of a distant planet orbiting a Solar-like star. The star, catalogued as 51 Pegasi by John Flamsteed within the 18th century, was seen to the bare eye as a part of the constellation Pegasus—and had wobbled on its axis simply sufficient that two Swiss astronomers have been in a position to deduce the presence of one other object exerting its gravitational pull on the star’s rotation. The invention was quickly confirmed by different astronomers, and 51 Pegasi b was heralded as the primary confirmed exoplanet orbiting a star just like our personal Solar. Continue Reading
By Jennifer Ross-Nazzal
In 1963, crucial selections needed to be made about NASA’s upcoming Gemini missions if the nation have been to realize President John F. Kennedy’s lunar targets. Often known as the bridge to Apollo, Challenge Gemini was crucial to touchdown a person on the Moon by the tip of the last decade and returning him safely to Earth. The challenge would reveal that astronauts may rendezvous and dock their spacecraft to a different house automobile and provides flight crews the chance to check the deliberate extravehicular capabilities in preparation for strolling on the lunar floor on future Apollo flights. Maybe most significantly, Gemini needed to present that people may stay and work in house for lengthy intervals of time, a fiercely debated subject inside and outdoors of the company. Continue Reading
By Sandra Johnson
As we walked into Bob McCall’s Arizona dwelling, it shortly turned apparent that two proficient and artistic individuals lived there. Tasked with interviewing one of many first artists to be invited to affix the NASA Artwork Program, our oral historical past workforce shortly realized the session with McCall would come with a novel perspective on NASA’s historical past. We traveled to Arizona within the spring of 2000 to seize interviews with among the pioneers of spaceflight and had already talked to an eclectic group of topics of their properties, together with a flight controller for each Gemini and Apollo, an astronaut who had flown on each Skylab and Area Shuttle missions, a former NASA heart director, and two former Ladies’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) who ferried airplanes throughout WWII. Nonetheless, in contrast to most interviews, the setting itself offered a uncommon glimpse into the person and his inspiration. Continue Reading
By Alejandra Lopez
The Biomedical Department Information (1966–2008) within the Johnson Area Middle archives showcase the inside workings of a NASA workplace established to carry out testing to offer a greater understanding of the impacts of spaceflight on the human physique. Starting from memos and notes to paperwork and reviews, this assortment is a useful useful resource on the biomedical analysis accomplished with NASA’s Apollo, Skylab, Area Shuttle, and Area Station initiatives. Information within the assortment cowl work accomplished by teams inside the department such because the Toxicology, Microbiology, Medical, and Biochemistry Laboratories. It additionally reveals the department’s evolution and modifications in its decision-making course of over time. Continue Reading