Naval Research Laboratory Space Science interviews [videorecording] / 1986-1987.

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Naval Research Laboratory Space Science interviews [videorecording] / 1986-1987.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82863014

World War II and the advent of the Cold War led the U.S. government to underwrite basic scientific research that could be applied to military purposes. Because the U.S. Navy was concerned about the effect of nuclear radiation on its wireless radio communication system, it funded studies in astronomy and aeronomy--the examination of the earth's atmosphere--at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. Wartime advances in rocketry and electronics enabled physicists and engineers to study non-visible radiation at ever greater distances from the earth's surface. These studies resulted in more sophisticated views of the composition of the atmosphere and of solar radiation, and in the revelation of the presence of stellar X-ray radiation between 1946 and the early 1960's. By the latter period, however, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began to eclipse NRL's pre-eminence in space science. David DeVorkin, curator at the National Air and Space Museum, recorded five sessions with the men at the NRL who pioneered the sciences of aeronomy and X-ray astronomy: Herbert Friedman, Edward T. Byram, Talbot A. Chubb, and Robert Kreplin. DeVorkin was particularly interested in how technologies and techniques developed for one purpose crossed disciplinary boundaries to affect or create others. Participants detailed how they adopted, applied, or improved on extant technologies for their hybrid research; throughout the sessions there is ample visual documentation of artifacts and working equipment used at the NRL. The video sessions were arranged in two collection divisions: 1) X-ray astronomy and 2) aeronomy.

Videorecordings: 8 cassettes (13.9 hours)Transcripts : 5 sessions.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8290637

Related Entities

There are 4 Entities related to this resource.

Naval Research Laboratory (U.S.)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6m94431 (corporateBody)

DeVorkin, David H., 1944-....

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65x2b2g (person)

Friedman, Herbert, 1916-2000

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6st7rqd (person)

Herbert Friedman received his Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1940, and began working at the Naval Research Lab a year later. After two years of using X-ray radiation to detect manufacturing flaws, he was appointed head of the Electron Optics (1943-1958) branch of the Rocketry Division. In 1958 Friedman took over the Space Science Division until his retirement. From the description of Oral History interview with Herbert Friedman, 1983 June 7. (Unknown). WorldCat rec...

Smithsonian Videohistory Program

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w67983c9 (corporateBody)

Professor of astrophysics, Harvard University, and astrophysicist, Smithsonian-Harvard Center for Astrophysics, was universally regarded for her revolutionary work on the large-scale structure of the universe. The discovery by Geller, John Huchra and Valerie de Lapparent of the bubble structure of galaxies was argubly among the most important work in the late twentieth century. From the description of Margaret J. Geller oral history interviews [videorecording] / 1989-1990. (Unknown)....