The NASA History Division and the National Air and Space Museum’s Division of Space History invite proposals for presentations to be held at its joint symposium, “1961/1981: Key Moments in Human Spaceflight,” at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., on 26-27 April 2011. This symposium reflects on 50 years of human spaceflight using these two key dates in time as an entrée for broader investigation and insight.

 

The symposium coincides with four significant anniversaries in the history of human spaceflight:

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s inaugural human orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961;

the U.S.’s first human spaceflight with American astronaut Alan Shepard on 5 May 1961;

the announcement on 25 May 1961 of the U.S. decision to go to the Moon by the end of the decade;

and the Space Shuttle’s first flight into orbit on 12 April 1981.

All four events resulted from a unique set of ideas, circumstances, and geopolitics which established a trajectory for future human operations in space. Although there will be a few invited speakers, most presentations will result from responses to the call for papers.

 

Please see the attached formal Call for Papers for more details.  Please feel free to circulate this widely.