Previously this blog covered a few aspects of training performed by the Apollo 11 prime crew in preparation for the mission to the Moon. This time we’ll dive deeper (literally, as you’ll see below) into Apollo 11 astronaut training. We last featured the use of the KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft for simulating the 1/6th gravity of … Continue reading Gearing Up for Launch: More Scenes from the Apollo 11 Training Program
What do corporations like Pillsbury and Whirlpool have to do with Apollo 11? Quite a lot, as it turns out. In fact, many consumer corporations contributed to the success of the moon landing. For example, engineers at Playtex designed the Apollo spacesuits and Westinghouse provided the cameras that transmitted video signals back to Earth. Pillsbury … Continue reading Beyond Astronaut Ice Cream: How Consumer America Engineered Food for Space Exploration
You may have recently seen Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11 documentary, featuring archival film from the National Archives’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) holdings. The film footage of Apollo 11 makes the July 16, 1969 launch and subsequent Moon landing look like a breeze. But the years leading up to the launch were full … Continue reading Practice Makes Perfect: How the Apollo 11 Crew Prepared for Launch
In honor of Grand Canyon National Park celebrating it’s 100th Anniversary on February 26th, The Unwritten Records presents select records from our holdings.
The NASA Science and Engineering Series (255-SE) consists of footage of experiments and events associated with various programs including Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. NARA staff have processed 5,848 film reels so far. Fortuitously, most of the films came to us labeled with excellent metadata including title, date, and location, or even with paper scene lists. … Continue reading Big Shot 2: A Shiny Space Balloon
On August 26, 1966 an image graced the front page of the New York Times under the headline, “How the Earth Looks from the Moon.” The image was of such low quality that the grey sphere which all of mankind calls home was barely recognizable. Nevertheless, the photograph was remarkable. For the first time, humans … Continue reading Shooting the Moon: Photos of the Lunar Surface and Beyond
This Saturday, September 8th, marks the 52nd anniversary of the debut of the “Star Trek” series on television. For over two hundred years, ships called Enterprise have been helping us “Boldly Go”. From vessels that sailed the Great Lakes of the United States in the War of 1812 to the most decorated ship of World … Continue reading What’s In a Name? American Vessels Called Enterprise
August 25th marks the birthday of the National Park Service, which was established on that date in 1916. Over the course of the last 100 plus years, the National Park Service has grown, and now includes over 400 parks, representing America’s vast array of natural wonders and significant historic sites. The Cartographic Branch holds a … Continue reading Capturing the Beauty of America’s National Parks: National Park Service Master Plan Covers
Throughout the decades of the Cold War, the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) produced a vast library of programs for distribution to stations around the world. Service personnel heard popular and classical music, news, entertainment shows that originated on commercial radio, and many, many public service announcements. Tens of thousands of AFRTS audio … Continue reading In the Year 2000…
Sixty years ago today, October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union sent into orbit the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. The beach ball sized satellite, weighing 183.9 pounds, took 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. Sputnik’s launch captured the world’s attention and caught the American public off-guard. They feared the Soviets’ ability … Continue reading Spotlight: The Launch of Sputnik 1
