As the U.S. Space & Rocket Center celebrates its anniversary this year and looks back over the last 50 years, take a journey with us through the Center archives, which houses priceless and extraordinary materials from mankind’s greatest expedition – manned spaceflight.
Fifty years ago, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center embarked on a mission to educate and inspire all those who walk through its doors in the past, present and future of human spaceflight. The museum archives had its origin in the earliest planning for the museum during the 1960s.
The initial step for the U.S. Space & Rocket Center archives collection was taken at the first meeting of the Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission on Dec. 13, 1965. Commission member James Record asked Dr. Werhner von Braun if he would place his personal papers in a library at the new science exhibit.
In 1968, von Braun decided to make the Rocket Center the repository of his personal papers, memorabilia and other effects. These papers became the first collection of the center’s archives. Other members of von Braun’s team came forward to donate their memorabilia as well. Books, papers and personal items were soon added to the collection. This was the official start of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center archives. It was then known as a “library.”
In December 1976, von Braun supervised the selection and packaging of his papers and memorabilia. He insisted on overseeing what he considered an important personal task, perhaps remembering his earlier words: “I hope to live the last days of my life with full clarity of mind, so if there should be a transition with another state of existence, I will be able to follow that transition with clear mind and spirit.”
Over the two decades following the opening of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, the archives became the location for 75 unique collections relating to the history and development of rocketry and space exploration in their most formative years. The collection covered both military and civil rocketry.
An even larger collection of material on astronomy, rocketry and astronautics is that of Frederick I. Ordway III, who was an American scientist and well-known author of more than 30 books and 300 articles. He was also a Technical Advisor for the film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” His collection at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center archives contains more than 750,000 items of scientific and engineering literature and materials.
The Ordway collection is also noteworthy for a large and rare group of science fiction magazines from the 1920s forward. Within these faded and brittle pages are early science fiction stories written by such then-popular writers as David H. Keller, John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov and others.
As the archives grew in the 1970s and 1980s, many of von Braun’s former colleagues continued to donate their papers and memorabilia. Among this collection is a wealth of information on rockets and spacecraft such as the Redstone, Jupiter-C, June 2, Saturn 1, Skylab, Space Shuttle and more.
Today, the archives contain some of the most important technical documents and historic papers of the 20th century. The archives serve as an excellent source of research material for the historian of modern rocketry and astronautics. The archives have served a number of researchers from around the world, including historians, scholars, educators, writers, filmmakers and more. Access to the archives is granted by appointment only, and a research application must be completed. For more details, visit rocketcenter.com/archives.