What historical topics do we have new data on that has not yet been examined ?

[Blackstar]

SNAP-8 is an example of what I'll call "glitch history," where it was real, people worked on it, money was spent, but somehow due to a glitch in the space-time continuum, it has been completely forgotten. Another example, which I have written about, is the M-1 rocket engine. Look through space histories and rocket histories and you may find a paragraph about the M-1 at most. I had never heard about it. And then over a decade ago I was in the NASA history archives looking at their file on the F-1 engine and I found this thick set of files on the M-1. My first thought was that they had been mislabeled. And then I looked at them and discovered that not only was the M-1 a real program, but that a bunch of very large test stands had been built to test it, and turbopump tests had been conducted. It was canceled before it went to full-scale testing.

Like SNAP-8, I had no idea...

Now the reason for the glitch is that it never flew, so you could argue that it was not important. But I don't think that's the way to look at historical projects. First of all, did it have impacts on other programs that did fly? Or other impacts in general? Second, understanding why projects fail can be valuable.

[LittleBird]

SNAP-8 is an example of what I'll call "glitch history," where it was real, people worked on it, money was spent, but somehow due to a glitch in the space-time continuum, it has been completely forgotten. Another example, which I have written about, is the M-1 rocket engine. Look through space histories and rocket histories and you may find a paragraph about the M-1 at most. I had never heard about it. And then over a decade ago I was in the NASA history archives looking at their file on the F-1 engine and I found this thick set of files on the M-1. My first thought was that they had been mislabeled. And then I looked at them and discovered that not only was the M-1 a real program, but that a bunch of very large test stands had been built to test it, and turbopump tests had been conducted. It was canceled before it went to full-scale testing.

Like SNAP-8, I had no idea...

Now the reason for the glitch is that it never flew, so you could argue that it was not important. But I don't think that's the way to look at historical projects. First of all, did it have impacts on other programs that did fly? Or other impacts in general? Second, understanding why projects fail can be valuable.

... and thirdly, understanding who wanted to build it, and why, can be most illuminating. Iirc You, me, leovinus and others had an interesting discussion about this in the thread about the M-1 and in one of the threads on large rocket concepts before Saturn V.

Led me to fascinating obscurities like Aerojet’s early LH2 experiments with a modified Titan II engine.

[Jim]

There is an official Vela history, right?

I only have the introduction to the program and not the official history.

[LittleBird]

Okay, so the thread title refers to "new data" that has not yet been examined. But I think we could parse that out a bit.

My draft title for the thread was "So, Blackstar, what do you think we should be working on then ... ;-)" so I am very happy to have it parsed further by you, and indeed anyone else. I like those subthreads.

(Just to be clear, by "data" we're referring to historical records, for the most part.)

-new data (as in newly declassified records, archives, or records)

-old data that has been around but nobody has really done anything about it

-subjects that should be explored and can be explored, but have not been

-newly emerging/available subjects and data


On the last point, the NRO and the shuttle is one that I think is ripening, but slowly. Jim David and Parker Temple did books that deal with this subject and since their publication, more information has emerged. I've written about that with my articles on DAMON and more recently FARRAH and PARCAE. But there is still a lot more to explore on that matter. Not only the payloads, which remain classified, but internal NRO deliberations about how much they wanted to use the shuttle and for what. We now have an emerging picture of the payload choices by NRO (putting FARRAH and PARCAE on shuttle, then pulling FARRAH off). But we don't have any good insights into whether NRO in the early 1980s considered using shuttle for satellite servicing and/or recovery. It would be great to know more about that.

[Blackstar]

Okay, so the thread title refers to "new data" that has not yet been examined. But I think we could parse that out a bit.

My draft title for the thread was "So, Blackstar, what do you think we should be working on then ... ;-)" so I am very happy to have it parsed further by you, and indeed anyone else. I like those subthreads.

But I only represent one corner of the space history field. The historians who focus on cultural and social history will have their own lists of what is important.

My own biases: I tend to be focused on intelligence space programs, military space programs, and civil space programs (probably in that order). I tend to be interested in space science programs more than human spaceflight programs. And my interest is American programs, not non-American programs. I also am document/archives oriented.

There are historians interested in the cultural impact of spaceflight, the way different social, racial and ethnic groups view and participate in spaceflight and space exploration. And of course there are those who focus on non-American programs, like Russia. We have some history of India's space program, and only a superficial understanding of China's space program. But there are also the social and cultural aspects of those programs as well. Americans tend to view and talk about spaceflight in a certain way, but other cultures will view and talk about it in a different way.

[LittleBird]

Okay, so the thread title refers to "new data" that has not yet been examined. But I think we could parse that out a bit.

My draft title for the thread was "So, Blackstar, what do you think we should be working on then ... ;-)" so I am very happy to have it parsed further by you, and indeed anyone else. I like those subthreads.

But I only represent one corner of the space history field. The historians who focus on cultural and social history will have their own lists of what is important.

My own biases: I tend to be focused on intelligence space programs, military space programs, and civil space programs (probably in that order). I tend to be interested in space science programs more than human spaceflight programs. And my interest is American programs, not non-American programs. I also am document/archives oriented.

Indeed, and that's why although your comments about the value of "joining the dots" were the spur to my post, I thought it better to make it more general.

You are making me think about what my equivalent summary of interests/biases would be-more on this later.

There are historians interested in the cultural impact of spaceflight, the way different social, racial and ethnic groups view and participate in spaceflight and space exploration. And of course there are those who focus on non-American programs, like Russia. We have some history of India's space program, and only a superficial understanding of China's space program. But there are also the social and cultural aspects of those programs as well. Americans tend to view and talk about spaceflight in a certain way, but other cultures will view and talk about it in a different way.

Indeed, and Asif's thoughts in your dialogue on TSR were interesting on this, for example.

 I also enjoyed the 3 volume "astroculture" set from Palgrave, a taster here: https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/fmi/astrofuturismus/publikationen/Geppert-2018---Imagining-Outer-Space.pdf

[leovinus]

For the topic of "early European spaceflight", roughly 1960 to 1980, I had the pleasure to visit the archives at the Deutsche Museum in Munich. The archives and library are adjacent to the museum of the Deutsche Museum all on the "Museumsinsel". Now I have lots of new materials to read for follows ups to  EUROSPACE and the European spaceplane.

In general, the archive has materials on air and space flight from companies, people and other institutes. For example, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Dornberger and more in the 13,000 more folders in Luft und Raumfahrtdokumentation (LRD) == Air and Space documentation.

You will note immediately that your cannot search all collections in earnest online. I had the same experience. I went with a list of materials to study and when I asked "Don't you have more, e.g, on European Spaceflight Symposium (DE: Europäische Raumfahrttagung)?" they looked for a while and gave me a list of folders with the complete proceedings. I asked here  a while back in another thread about it and now made some serious progress.

After a chat with the curators why some search aids, aka "Findbücher", are not online, it was suggested that it would be a good idea to make a note in a thread like this that the archive is happy to help everyone with their research. Just send a question to [email protected] and they will try to help you. They have fantastic materials from across Europe and the world and the amount surprised me.

Finally, the library one floor down has a great collection of aerospace and spaceflight books. I looked for two particular books which I thought would take them a day to locate. However, when I came there and showed them the shelf marks, someone walked me to the correct bookshelf and I had both books to study in minutes They also have bookscanner which you can use and they told me they have five million documents in their possession. Their search is here.

[JulesVerneATV]

a website
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forums/aviation-space.7/
Aviation and Space discussions on historic program

[Blackstar]

a website
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forums/aviation-space.7/
Aviation and Space discussions on historic program

I've been on there for a long time. But it's not very high-value. Note that the subject area is mostly unbuilt stuff, not things that were actually built. Engagement in the space section tends to be low, and there is not a lot of high-quality content.

The other section there that I regularly look at is the naval section, and I've found that to be higher quality.