One of the most important developments of the twentieth century has been the movement of humanity into space with machines and people. The underpinnings of that movement-—why it took the shape it did; which individuals and organizations were involved; what factors drove a particular choice of scientific objectives and technologies to be used; and the political, economic, managerial, and international contexts in which the events of the space age unfolded—are all important ingredients of this epoch transition from an Earthbound to a spacefaring people. This desire to understand the development of spaceflight in the United States sparked this documentary history series.

The extension of human activity into outer space has been accompanied by a high degree of self-awareness of its historical significance. Few large-scale activities have been as extensively chronicled so closely to the time they actually occurred. Many of those who were directly involved were quite conscious that they were making history, and they kept full records of their activities.

Because most of the activity in outer space was carried out under government sponsorship, it was accompanied by the documentary record required of public institutions, and there has been a spate of official and privately written histories of most major aspects of space achievement to date. When top leaders considered what course of action to pursue in space, their deliberations and decisions often were carefully put on the record. There is, accordingly, no lack of material for those who aspire to understand the origins and evolution of U.S. space policies and programs.

This reality forms the rationale for this series. Precisely because there is so much historical material available on space matters, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) decided in 1988 that it would be extremely useful to have easily available to scholars and the interested public a selective collection of many of the seminal documents related to the evolution of the U.S. civilian space program.

While recognizing that much space activity has taken place under the sponsorship of the Department of Defense and other national security organizations, the U.S. private sector, and in other countries around the world, NASA felt that there would be lasting value in a collection of documentary material primarily focused on the evolution of the U.S. government’s civilian space program, most of which has been carried out since 1958 under the Agency’s auspices. As a result, the NASA History Office contracted with the Space Policy Institute of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs to prepare such a collection. This is the sixth volume in the documentary history series; two additional ones containing documents and introductory essays related to human space flight, including microgravity research in Earth orbit, will follow.

The documents collected during this research project were assembled from a diverse number of both public and private sources. A major repository of primary source materials relative to the history of the civil space program is the NASA Historical Reference Collection of the NASA History Office located at the Agency’s Headquarters in Washington, DC. Project assistants combed this collection for the “cream” of the wealth of material housed there. Indeed, one purpose of this series from the start was to capture some of the highlights of the holdings at Headquarters. Historical materials housed at the other NASA installations, institutions of higher learning, and presidential libraries were other sources of documents considered for inclusion, as were papers in the archives of individuals and firms involved in opening up space for exploration.

Copies of the documents included in this volume in their original form will be deposited in the NASA Historical Reference Collection. Another complete set of project materials is located at the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. These materials in their original forms are available for use by researchers seeking additional information about the evolution of the U.S. civil space program or wishing to consult the documents reprinted herein in their original form. ... (From Introduction)

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Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program
Volume VI: Space and Earth Science

John M. Logsdon, General Editor
with Stephen J. Garber, Roger D. Launius, and Ray A. Williamson
The NASA History Series

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA History Office
Office of External Relations
Washington, DC 2004

Biographies of Volume VI Editors:

Stephen J. Garber is a historian with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He has worked in the NASA History Office since 1995 and served as the acting head of this office from July 2002 through October 2003. He has edited a book on the past and future of human spaceflight, and written on such aerospace history topics as the congressional cancellation of NASA’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence program, President Kennedy’s attitudes toward space, the design of the Space Shuttle, and the Soviet Buran Space Shuttle.

Roger D. Launius is chairman of the Space History Department of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum and is the former NASA Chief Historian. He has produced several books and articles on aerospace history, including Innovation and the Development of Flight (Texas A&M University Press, 1999); NASA & the Exploration of Space (Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 1998); Frontiers of Space Exploration (Greenwood Press, 1998); Organizing for the Use of Space: Historical Perspectives on a Persistent Issue (Univelt, Inc., AAS History Series, Volume 18, 1995), editor; NASA: A History of the U.S. Civil Space Program (Krieger Publishing Co., 1994); History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics (Univelt, Inc., AAS History Series, Volume 11, 1994), editor; Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis (Monographs in Aerospace History, Vol. 3, 1994); and Apollo 11 at Twenty-Five, electronic picture book issued on computer disk by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, 1994.

John M. Logsdon is Director of the Space Policy Institute of George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he is also a professor of political science and international affairs. He holds a B.S. in physics from Xavier University and a Ph.D. in political science from New York University. He has been at George Washington University since 1970, and previously taught at The Catholic University of America. He is also a faculty member of the International Space University. He is an elected member of the International Academy of Astronautics and a member of the board of The Planetary Society. He is a former member of the NASA Advisory Council and served during 2003 on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Dr. Logsdon has lectured and spoken to a wide variety of audiences at professional meetings, colleges and universities, international conferences, and other settings, and has testified before Congress on numerous occasions. The electronic and print media frequently consult him for his views on various space issues. He has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was the first holder of the Chair in Space History of the National Air and Space Museum. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Ray A. Williamson is a Research Professor of Space Policy and International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, focusing on the history, programs, and policy of Earth observations, space transportation, and space commercialization. He joined the Space Policy Institute in 1995.

Previously, he was a Senior Associate and Project Director in the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress. He joined OTA in 1979. While at OTA, Dr. Williamson was Project Director for more than a dozen reports on space policy, including: Russian Cooperation in Space (1995), Civilian Satellite Remote Sensing: A Strategic Approach (1994), Remotely Sensed Data: Technology, Management, and Markets (1994), Global Change Research and NASA’s Earth Observing System (1994), and The Future of Remote Sensing from Space: Civilian Satellite Systems and Applications (1993). He has written extensively about the U.S. space program. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in physics from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Maryland. He spent two years on the faculty of the University of Hawaii studying diffuse emission nebulae and ten years on the faculty of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. He is a member of the faculty of the International Space University and of the editorial board of Space Policy.

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