NASA History News and Notes – Summer 2025

In the summer issue of 2025 of the NASA History Office News and notes Newsletter, examples of leadership and critical decision -making in NASA history, the unifying theme. Among the subjects covered are the NASA Center-Novette shuttle shuttle program, assessing donations in the NASA archives, how the discovery of the first orbit exoplanet around a sun-shaped star catalyzed the NASA exoplanet program, and the chief of the gemine’s missions of medical operations A. Berry A. Berry’s Crew Health project.

Volume 42, number 2
Summer 2025

By Brian Odom

NASA is a marked story by critical decisions. From George Mueller’s decision in 1963 for the “All up” tests of the Saturn V rocket to Michael Griffin’s decision in 2006 to launch a final service mission to the Hubble space telescope, the agency continuously encountered key inflection points with daring decisions. These choices, such as the decision to send a crew mission of Apollo 8 around the Moon in December 1968, were held at the center of the agency’s national heritage and promoted confidence in times of crisis. Continue to read

By Robert Arrighi

“Although the shuttle / centaur’s decision is very difficult to make, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s time to do it.” With these words on June 19, 1986, the NASA administrator, James Fletcher, canceled the intensive effort to integrate the upper scene from Centaur to the space shuttle to launch the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft. The decision, which was linked to an increase in security measures after loss of challenger several months earlier, put in the foreground the decision of the 1970s to launch all the useful American charges with the space shuttle. Continue to read

By Kate Mankowski

January 27, 1967, The AS-204 mission (later known as Apollo 1) made a simulated countdown when a fire suddenly broke out in the spaceship, affirming the life of astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee. The disaster underlined the risks accompanying the space flight and the work which was still to be done to take up the challenge of President Kennedy to go to the moon before the end of the decade. With the complexity of the Apollo spacecraft, the discernment of the cause of the fire proved incredibly difficult. Continue to read

By Brad Massey

Robert Macdonald, the director of the NASA culture inventory experience (LACIE), was not satisfied in January 1978 after reading a project to copy the US General Accounting (GAO) report by satellite: Progress and problems “. The authors of the project argued that LaCie had not achieved its objectives to predict harvest yields in the mid -1970s. Consequently, Congress leaders should “be aware of the disappointing performance of LaCie to date during the examination of the future orientation of the NASA Landsat program and the plans of the agriculture department”. Continue to read

By Jillian Rael

This year, NASA commemorates 35 years of studying the Hubble space telescope on the cosmos. Observations of phenomena never seen in our solar system to discover distant galaxies, the confirmation of the existence of supermassive black holes and the precision measures of the expansion of the universe, Hubble has made incredible contributions to science, technology and even art. However, despite all its contemporary popularity, the Hubble program initially fought for the approval of the congress and consecutive financing. For its part, NASA has found new ways to compromise and reduce costs, while Congress has evaluated national priorities and other NASA spatial exploration efforts against Hubble’s long -term value. Continue to read

By Alan Arellano

The main functions of an archivist center include evaluation, organization, description, preservation and access to historical recordings and documents. Although these are the pillars of archive science, they are more an art than a science in their application, fundamentally requiring qualified decision -making. Throughout the NASA archives, staff members make these decisions day after day. Continue to read

By Rosson laws

On October 20, 1995, the New York Times reported the detection of a planet distant in orbit around a star -shaped star. The star, cataloged like 51 Pegasi by John Flamsteed in the 18th century, was visible to the naked eye as part of the constellation of Pegasus – and had wobbled on its axis just enough for two Swiss astronomers to deduce the presence of another object exercising its gravitational traction on the rotation of the star. The discovery was quickly confirmed by other astronomers, and 51 Pegasi B was announced as the first confirmed exoplanet in orbit around a star similar to our own sun. Continue to read

By Jennifer Ross-Nazzal

In 1963, critical decisions were to be taken about the next Gemini missions of NASA if the nation was to achieve the lunar objectives of President John F. Kennedy. Known as Pont to Apollo, the Gemini project was essential to win a man on the moon by the end of the decade and return it safely on earth. The project would demonstrate that astronauts could return and dock their spacecraft to another space vehicle and give the flight teams the possibility of testing the extravacular capacities provided in preparation for walking on the lunar surface on future Apollo flights. Perhaps even more important, Gemini had to show that humans could live and work in space for long periods, a fiercely debated subject inside and outside the agency. Continue to read

By Sandra Johnson

While we entered the house in Arizona of Bob McCall, it quickly became obvious that two talented and creative people lived there. Responsible for interviewing one of the first artists to be invited to join the NASA art program, our oral history team quickly realized that the session with McCall would include a unique perspective on the history of NASA. We Traveled to Arizona in the Spring of 2000 to Capture Interviews With Some of the Pioneers of SpaceFlight and Had Already Talked to An Eclectic Group of Subjects in Their Homes, Including A Flight Controller for Both Gemini and Apollo, An Astronaut Whho Had Flown and Space Shuttle Missions, to train Nasa Center Director, and Two Train Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (Wasps) who Ferried Airplanes During Second World War. However, unlike most interviews, the frame itself gave a rare overview of man and his inspiration. Continue to read

By Alejandra Lopez

Biomedical files (1966-2008) in the archives of the Johnson Space Center present the interior functioning of a NASA office established to carry out tests in order to better understand the impacts of space flight on the human body. Ranging from memos and notes to documents and reports, this collection is an invaluable resource on biomedical research carried out with the projects of Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle and Space de la NASA. Files from the collection collection have worked by branch groups such as toxicology, microbiology, clinical and biochemistry laboratories. It also reveals the evolution of the branch and changes in its decision -making process over the years. Continue to read