NASA Reveals New Batch Of Space Program Artifacts

Michael Curie

Headquarters, Washington     

WASHINGTON -- NASA is inviting eligible education institutions, museums and other organizations to examine and request space program artifacts online. The items represent significant human spaceflight technologies, processes and accomplishments from NASA's past and present space exploration programs.

On Wednesday, June 15, NASA posted a seventh batch of artifacts. The National Air & Space Museum, NASA visitor centers and exhibit managers, other federal agencies, eligible education and non-profit institutions, public museums, libraries and planetariums can view and request space artifacts at http://gsaxcess.gov/NASAWel.htm.

This opportunity is being offered through NASA's partnership with the General Services Administration. Together they developed the first-of-its-kind Web-based, electronic viewing portal for space artifacts.

These artifacts are from the Space Shuttle, Hubble Space Telescope, Apollo and International Space Station Programs. Examples of artifacts include a space shuttle payload bay mockup, cockpit seats and Apollo era glove assemblies.

Each artifact will be available for 42 days. For the first 21 days, internal organizations such as NASA visitor centers, agency exhibit managers and the Smithsonian Institution may request artifacts. External organizations, including museums, schools, universities, libraries, and planetariums, may request artifacts the following 21 days. After the screening period closes, and at the completion of the request process, organizations will be notified about the status of their request.

Artifacts will be incrementally released when they no longer are needed by NASA and in accordance with export control laws and regulations. Artifacts are provided free of charge, however, requesting organizations must pay for shipping and any special handling costs.

To date, approximately 28,500 items of historic space significance have been offered, mainly from the shuttle, with contributions from Hubble, Apollo, Mercury, Gemini and space station programs. Approximately 3,000 artifacts have been requested.

For information about NASA's space shuttle transition and artifacts, visit http://www.nasa.gov/transition.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

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NASA Art Exhibit Opens At National Air And Space Museum

Katherine Trinidad

Headquarters, Washington

 

Isabel Lara

National Air and Space Museum, Washington

WASHINGTON -- You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an astronaut to work for NASA. Engineers, pilots, physicists, astrobiologists, and, yes, artists, too, have helped further the mission of the space agency.

In 1962, NASA administrator James E. Webb invited a group of artists to illustrate and interpret the agency's missions and projects. Artists, participating in the NASA art program, many of them renowned, have been documenting the extraordinary adventure of spaceflight ever since. Granted special access to historic moments, they have offered their perspectives on what they have witnessed.

"NASA | ART: 50 Years of Exploration," on view from May 28 to Oct. 9 at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, features works by artists as diverse as Annie Leibovitz, Alexander Calder, Nam June Paik, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and William Wegman. The exhibition includes drawings, photographs, sculpture and other art forms and media from the collections of NASA and the National Air and Space Museum. The more than 70 works, ranging from the illustrative to the abstract, present a different view of NASA than the one in history books or on news shows.

Several of the artists have captured the faces and personalities of the men and women who have flown in space. Other members of the team, scientists, engineers, technicians, managers and thousands of others who made the space program possible, also are portrayed. Bunkers, gantries, radio dishes and the towering Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, attracted other program artists, some of whom were struck by the co-existence of the space-age architecture of the Cape with the beaches, swamps, birds, and animals that surround the facility.

The exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and NASA in cooperation with the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The museum, located at Sixth Street and Independence Avenue SW, is open daily from 10 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission is free.

To see images from the NASA | ART exhibit and for more information, visit http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal211/NASA_art.cfm.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

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NASA Administrator Announces Shuttle Distribution

At a ceremony held at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden announced that Atlantis would be placed on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Discovery would be donated to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., Endeavour would be displayed at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, and the Enterprise prototype would be transferred from the Udvar-Hazy Center to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.

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