So I went to NASA Headquarters on Friday morning!

This was the result of the work blog post that I wrote in what was meant to be antagonistic to my editor(s), and then everyone loved it, including NASA Chief Historian Bill Barry.

So here are some quick takeaways from this little adventure to the “Space Brain” of the USA. (Quick aside: I intend to stay away from really drawn out, long-form think pieces here. For the sake of everyone’s attention span, content should be distilled. Higher proof if you will.)

So just in case NASA ever reads this, please get a real bike rack, always feel sketchy locking onto a parking meter. You could have them shaped like spaceships, this could be a lovely addition to the buildings exterior, which is otherwise very quaint.

Going inside …. dang …. based on the security, you would think this is where you could access high-level NASA “shit”. (Because you can :P) But everyone was friendly and tolerant of my out-of-breath self. Bill was waiting for me in the lobby which was cool, because he is like, an executive.

In keeping with my spacey self, I arrived sporting my Phenomenauts Officer Jacket, and while no one asked about it, it felt good to have it in such an important place to the space-going mission.

Going into the building, the archives are basically all paper (go figure) with Bill explaining that the stuff NASA would preserve (read: returned spacecraft) costs a whole hell of a lot to take care of, so NASA is pretty quick to give stuff to the Smithsonian and other museums that do aerospace.

This was actually my first trip to an archive, and I came away wishing I had gotten to one sooner. It comes with this encompassing feeling of being “in” history and having tangible materials in front of you is remarkable.

The people of the History Office themselves struck me as exactly the folks you would expect to be there … nerds. Meeting folks I bug on Twitter fairly consistently was cool, albeit not as fun as the NYC Annual Meeting. That featured a much easier going group with one telling me she would shoot the next person who used the word “Ontological” (I agree with her, they deserve a bullet for using such a needlessly pedantic term) or getting Chinese with scholars old enough to be my parents and goofing off with them. (we added “… in between the sheets.” to our fortune cookies)

Coming back full circle, the NASA offices are great because of how many models and displays are around, which really had me kinda angsting over taking one and running for it. YES! My desk does need more space junk on it, and a Soviet Energia/Buran scale model would look great.

However, while everyone had their desks decked out in NASA stuff, is was much too cubical for my liking. This lead me to realize how open and talkative the AHA office is, which is good and bad.

Dr. Barry spoke with me about his research for a bit, he basically contributed to figuring out what the hell the Soviet space program was all about right after the USSR collapsed. His dissertation focused on the role of the Chief Designer, which is a huge deal, as the Soviets kept that position super duper secret, and indirectly killed the designer that got the USSR so much of their early successes. He complimented my former professor Dr. Jenks’ book on Yuri Gagarin (1st person in space) as a really well-written book, so go Beach!

They absolutely loaded me down with books, four titles, 1,000+ pages to read. They just gave them out, so that was rad! The gift shop however, was severally lacking in terms of the novelty and kitschy stuff I go for, that Air and Space Museum stocks so much of! Not that I could have carried anymore, especially with having to ride up the stupidly steep Capital Hill to go to my office for the remainder of the day.

Gimmicks!

Things I Wanted to Steal: Many
Things I Stole at Lunch Instead: 1 Beer Glass

Scene from Armageddon I Could Not Get Out of My Head: This One

Song of the Post: Telstar by The Tornados