Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly

02/07/2025

SPACE 3.0 Mission Mail #53 -

Jay Honeycutt, former Director of the Kennedy Space Center, introduces a fantastic 28-minute video on the history of NASA human spaceflight. Produced by the American Space Museum and narrated by Astronaut Nicole Stott, it is wonderful overview that could (and should) be used by teachers and student...

26/06/2025

Hohn Casani, who led many of JPL's iconic planetary missions, has passed away.

During his work on several historic missions, Casani rose through a series of technical and management positions, making an indelible mark on the nation’s space program.

18/06/2025

SPACE 3.0 Mission Mail #52 -

While the high-energy Centaur upper stage is now known as being a workhorse (more recently during January’s Vulcan Centaur Cert-1 flight, which successfully demonstrated the Centaur V stage), its early years were dotted by numerous failures and difficulties “taming liquid hydrogen.” An articl...

16/06/2025

We are sorry to hear that space historian and Quest contributor Cargill Hall passed on April 10, 2025.

A prominent space historian Robert Cargill Hall, Sr. 88, died on April 10, 2025. A kind man and a great friend. We will miss him. Cargill had composed his own obituary in advance and a copy is attached.

31/05/2025

Read in Quest 32.2 about how views of femininity changed in the U.S. and the Soviet Union under the influence of the 1960s Space Race.

30/05/2025

This month included the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first Chief Astronomer who today is known as the Mother of the Hubble Space Telescope. Quest 32.2 carries David DeVorkin's 1980 oral history interview with Roman.

29/05/2025

The Apollo program took place against the background of 1960s Civil Rights tensions. Quest 32.2 features a look at the 1957 desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, that preceded Sputnik.

28/05/2025

Quest 32.2 includes an account of a dramatic but little known extra vehicular activity in the early days of the International Space Station

27/05/2025

Quest 32.2 features a biography of Anatoli A. Blagonravov, one of the early faces of the Soviet space program.

12/05/2025

Call for Papers: Commercial Space History

Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly is inviting historians and those that have worked in the industry to contribute articles that help to document commercial space.

Authors are invited to write about the contractors, entrepreneurial firms, executives, innovators, ventures, policies, economics, or another area of interest. Articles need not be limited to human space exploration and can target markets such as satellite communications; remote sensing; positioning, navigation, and mapping; satellite services such as radio, television, broadband; tourism; launch services; or commercial activities such as finance, insurance, policy, etc.

This upcoming special issue of Quest challenges authors and those who may have worked in the space industry to examine and profile an area that has not been well explored. We want this issue to stimulate discussion and analysis of “commercial space.”

Contributors to this special issue will be asked to submit pieces of roughly 3,000 to 5,000 words in length on their chosen topic.

Those who have questions or wish to contribute to this special issue should contact us at [email protected] by 30 June 2025.

We hope to publish this issue in the fourth quarter of 2025, Volume 32 #4, which would mean a tentative deadline of 1 September 2025.

29/04/2025

Here's the cover of Quest 32:2, now at the printers. It features astronaut Buzz Aldrin with Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer. NASA is preparing to launch a space telescope named after her.

03/03/2025

In 1960, George M. Low was head of Manned Space Flight for NASA, and he delivered an update on Project Mercury, which is reproduced in Quest 32:1. His remarks accurately forecast many upcoming events, including the likelihood of Soviet space accomplishments in 1961.