NASA History News & Notes

CONTENTS

• A vast photo collection capturing over 65 years of Wallops Flight Facility history
• Paul Lowman, the first geologist hired by NASA
• Hear David DeVorkin present research on scientist and inventor George Carruthers
• Celebrating excellence in the NASA History Office
• Solar science trivia challenge

ARCHIVING NASA'S HISTORY

Looking Skyward

65 Years of Photography from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility

Identifier: WI-65982
Title: Prof. S. Saito, Univ. of Tokyo and Bob Flowers at FPQ-6. 
Date: July 8, 1965 
Photographer: Hansen

In 1945, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) established a research site on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The site would be known by many names throughout its history but today is known as NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. 

Over the years, the Wallops Facility’s primary mission areas have included sounding rockets, scientific balloons, flight tests of spacecraft and aircraft, launches of orbital and suborbital vehicles, and data collection and research. The campus currently houses tracking facilities for satellites, a research airport, and a rocket launch range. The Wallops Facility also hosts both government and commercial organizations, including the United States Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Northrop Grumman, and Rocket Lab. 

From its inception in 1945, the history of Wallops was extensively documented through photographs. The Wallops Flight Facility Photograph Collection depicts the daily life and events at the facility up until 2009. In 2015, a team of Wallops and Goddard Space Flight Center personnel performed a holdings review of the photograph collection, deeming it necessary (for purposes of preservation, risk reduction, accessibility, and information gathering) for these photos to be digitized and transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). To accomplish this, the NASA Archives Program brought on a project archivist to perform archival and logistical support, followed by digitization through a collaboration with a team at Johnson Space Center (JSC).

Identifier: WI-65528
Title: NASA Photo Personnel on the Job. 
Date: April 7, 1965
Photographer: Hansen

The goal of the Wallops Photograph Collection project is to capture, preserve, and make accessible photographs representing nearly 65 years of history. The collection, consisting mostly of negative photographs, color prints, and film strips, was originally housed in a suboptimal environment. As part of the preservation effort, the material is being removed from that environment and transferred to Goddard, where it is prepared for digitization. Metadata, including unique identifier numbers, photo titles, dates, and photographers, must be captured, and the photographs temporarily rehoused. Once prepared, the photos travel to JSC where they are scanned. After digitization, the photographs are ready to be sent to their permanent home in cold storage at NARA.

So far, the project has largely proceeded smoothly, but it has not been without challenges. Some conservation work has been necessary to prepare materials for long-term storage at NARA. Most troublesome was the discovery of a particular adhesive, applied to several negatives via a literal red tape, that required removal with a specialized photographic emulsion cleaner under a fume hood. 

Dealing with the effects of “vinegar syndrome” on many of the early negatives has also been a challenge. Vinegar syndrome occurs when cellulose film deteriorates over time, creating moisture and a strong vinegar smell. It is infectious (vapors emitted by materials with vinegar syndrome can cause other materials nearby to begin decaying) but can be slowed down with cold storage. The decay, however, cannot be reversed, and materials must be handled with care. The Johnson team has ensured that the scanner and other assets being used for this collection are in a separate building, isolated from other film materials. Despite these few hurdles, the project team has found the process to be challenging, rewarding, and unique.

Included in the Wallops photograph collection are aerial views, building construction, research structures, rocket models, launches and launch set-ups, mishaps and accidents, and Wallops personnel. These images are an incredibly important historical record, providing a scientific context for Wallops’ development and history, and a human context as well. Photographs of vibrant and colorful rockets sit alongside instances of launch failures and payload destruction. Depictions of comets and eclipses accompany automobile accidents and natural disasters. And humorous images, such as a puppy posing at a command console, and a funny poem inscribed on fragments of a metal payload, allow glimpses into the world of the facility’s employees. 

The collection offers incredibly valuable insight into the technical, scientific, and personal history at Wallops. Once complete, these many different facets of the facility’s story will be accessible worldwide through NARA’s catalog. 

Zoe Costanza

NASA Project Archivist

with contributions from Warren Harold and David DeHoyos

ARCHIVES HIGHLIGHT

Paul Lowman, the First Geologist Hired by NASA

Paul Lowman, NASA Geophysicist. Source: NASA Archives

“Thanks, but no thanks.” That’s how Paul D. Lowman Jr. described the letter he received in response to his first application to work at NASA in 1959. Working for NASA was the first choice for this doctoral student studying at Colorado University, eager to apply his geological studies to studying the Moon.

Showing up at NASA Headquarters while visiting the East Coast, it was recommended he meet pioneering space scientist John O’Keefe at the newly formed Goddard Space Flight Center. The two hit it off, and Lowman became the first geologist to be hired by the new agency. Thus began Lowman’s distinguished 49-year career at NASA.

» Remembering Lowman’s work on the early Landsat program

» Read Lowman’s 1996 publication Lunar Limb Observatory: An Incremental Plan for the Utilization, Exploration, and Settlement of the Moon

SPEAKER SERIES

The Quiet Genius of George R. Carruthers

Julie Pramis, NASA Headquarters archivist and winner of the 2025 NASA History Office Award.

Fun Fact: The spacecraft in question was launched on a Titan IIIE, the same rocket used to launch the Viking probes to Mars in 1975 and the Voyager probes to the outer solar system in 1977. Credit: NASA

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