Resources related to NASA: Home

The following books are useful resources for their own narratives, as well as the footnoted pointers to original sources.

• Kean, Melissa. “Desegregating Private Higher Education in the South: Duke, Emory, Rice, Tulane, and Vanderbilt.” Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008. Fondren Library call #  LC214.22 .S68 K43 2008 or available online via Fondren proxy at this link
• Brinkley, Douglas. "American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race." New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2019. Fondren Library Call # TL789.8.U5 B73 2019.
• Murray, Charles A. ; Cox, Catherine Bly. "Apollo: The Race to the Moon." New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989. Fondren Library Call # TL789.8.U6 A558 1989
• Paul, Richard ; Moss, Steven. "We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program." Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Fondren Library Call # TL521.321.P39 2015. 
• Logsdon, John M., "John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon." New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Fondren Library Call # TL789.8. U5L64 2010. 
• Dethloff, Henry C. "Suddenly Tomorrow Came: The History of the Johnson Space Center." Houston Texas: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, 1993. Available at this link on the NASA Johnson Space Center History portal

The following archival collections are open for research and are described in finding aids / guides (see links below).
Woodson Research Center archival collections can be searched generally at http://archives.library.rice.edu/.

• F. Curtis Michel Scientist-Astronaut Papers, 1963-1981, MS 043, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
  • Papers related to F. Curtis Michel's participation in NASA's Scientist-Astronaut program (1965-1969); materials (primarily concerned with the Gemini and Apollo Programs) include information on astronaut training, experiments, technical reports, course and seminar notes, handbooks, familiarization materials, training manuals, scientific reports and reprints, photographs, correspondence, and memorabilia; also included are academic papers from his years as a graduate student in physics at California Institute of Technology, and from his academic position at Rice University.
• Jack McCaine NASA papers, 1963-1994, MS 045, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
  • Photographs, correspondence, maps, charts, and memorabilia collected by McCaine while employed at Project Manager for the Army Corps of Engineers during the construction of the Manned Space Center (Johnson Space Center), 1962-1964 and while working with NASA, 1964-1979.
• Space Shuttle Atlantis memorabilia, 2007, MS 080, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
• John W. Freeman Papers, 1965-1979, MS 344, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
  • The collection consists of reports, photographs, and films related to the NASA Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment (SID), part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP). This experiment, involving equipment developed by Freeman, was part of the work of Apollo missions 12, 14, and 15.
• Jim Newman space mementos, 1993, MS 446, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
• Takao Doi's Rice Flight Kit for Space Shuttle Endeavour, 2008-2009, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
• Rice University Information Files, "NASA," UA 361, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library
• Rice University Carey Croneis office records (Provost, Acting President, Chancellor), UA 093, Box 9, Folder 3, Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library

The Johnson Space Center (JSC) History Portal offers access to the JSC History Database, other JSC history materials, and hundreds of NASA history web pages.

The JSC History Collection is maintained by the University of Houston - Clear Lake, and consists of the following series: Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), Shuttle, Space Station, as well as Center History and MSC/JSC General Series. Also, the collection includes documents collected from JSC, contractors, and other NASA Centers, which were compiled by historians working on chronologies and histories of NASA's human spaceflight programs; and the JSC Oral History Project, consisting of recordings, transcripts and biographical data books. 

Rice and NASA: profiles Rice University's collaborations with NASA. In 1959, just months after the agency was founded, Rice alumnus and board chairman George R. Brown ’20 was already hard at work behind the scenes, trying to make sure that Houston and Rice would play leading roles in the race for space. In 1961, thanks in large part to Brown and his friend and former Rice roommate, Congressman Albert Thomas ’20, Houston’s transformation to “Space City USA” officially began when the city was named the site of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center).

Digitized archival materials are available in Rice's Institutional Repository.

Photograph of President John F. Kennedy speaking at Rice Stadium, 1962 https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/71191

Photograph of President Kennedy and Dr. Kenneth Pitzer entering Rice Stadium, 1962 https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/68446

Space Science Department Display on NASA, circa 1961, https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/63510

Jack McCaine NASA papers, 1963-1966, https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/107730

Clear Lake Project Plat, 1961, https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/107764

Memorandum to the members of the Rice Board of Governors from Carey Croneis regarding the Manned Space Flight Center, 1961, https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/107768