Monthly Archives: April 2009

The View from the Tail Turret

Posted on by
8

NASM-9A04899
NASM 9A04899

When Eighth Air Force gunner Art Krieger turned his camera on one of the other Consolidated B-24 Liberators in his squadron’s formation, he probably didn’t realize he was making a self-portrait. Swathed in heavy flight gear, his oxygen mask firmly in place in the thin air at an altitude of 20,000 feet, Krieger’s own face squints back at us, reflected in the shiny Plexiglas of the big bomber’s tail turret.

Krieger flew his first mission on July 7, 1944, in a B-24 carrying a load of twelve 500-pound demolition bombs destined for a Junkers aircraft factory in Aschersleben, Germany. He wrote about the mission after his return to base:

“We bombed plant making new JU-188s, and hit target well. Just as we passed the target on the right a formation run right into a flak wall and the fighters jumped them at the same time. It was hell and 24s were going down like flies. Going down in flames, two blew up and about three spun and broke up on the way down. As we were over the target a P-38 chased a ME-109 up to our right side, just off our wing, about a hundred yards off and got a direct hit and the 109 just blew to little bits. The bits floating down in small bits of flame. We lost a number of 24’s but can’t say. Was a hot mission but cold as hell there at 20000. If all the missions will be like this one, I’m ready to call it quits already.”

Krieger survived World War II and a dozen of his photographs and a handful of papers—notes to a friend describing his wartime experiences—found their way to the National Air and Space Museum Archives, one of the numerous small collections of material contained in the Archives’ Technical Reference Files.

Melissa Keiser is chief photo archivist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

The Mutual Concerns of Air and Space Museums

Posted on by
Reply

Every spring, the National Air and Space Museum hosts a conference for other air and space museums to discuss our “mutual concerns.” The conference gathers representatives of over one hundred such museums, sometimes from as far away as Poland and Australia, and allows participants to communicate on best practices, innovative educational programs, and keeping our museums going through tough economic times, amongst other shared issues.

This year, from April 18 – 21, we gathered in Ottawa, Ontario, in part to celebrate Canada’s Centennial of Flight with our co-hosts at the Canada Aviation Museum. The agenda included twenty-one sessions presented by seasoned museum employees and newcomers alike on a variety of topics. This is truly a unique gathering of scholars, technicians, educators, administrators, conservators, and other museum employees looking to learn from colleagues outside their own museum’s walls.

Having worked on this conference since 2005, one thing quickly became apparent to me in working with such a diverse community of museum professionals…all of them are absolutely passionate about educating the public on the history of aviation and spaceflight. While the conference requires work I don’t normally do as a museum specialist (I’m in charge of our collection of space cameras), and takes time I might rather spend on doing research, the experience of interacting with this dedicated community always brings a sense of excitement that outshines any of the difficulties we have to overcome to make the conference a success.

Even after I returned from Ottawa, and during the next years-worth of work for the 2010 conference here in D.C., I’ll keep thinking about this wonderful group of people I get to reconnect with every spring. With them, I share common stories, common interests, and most of all, a common cause to see that my museum does its best to convey stories about the people, artifacts, and technology related to air and space history.

Mutual Concerns Participants

Jennifer Levasseur is a museum specialist in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Climate Change and Spaceflight: Is There A Connection?

Posted on by
1

I was struck by the relationship between climate change and spaceflight while rereading lately Jared Diamond’s fascinating 2004 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. The broad premise of Diamond’s book is that societies have collapsed many times in the past and that we may understand how and why this occurred. He contends that these disasters in human history are the result of a confluence of five major elements: (1) environmental damage resulting in resource depletion; (2) climate change; (3) hostile neighbors; (4) loss of trade partners; and (5) a society’s responses to its challenges (p. 15).

Diamond applies this analytic model to several past civilizations, including Easter Island (this society collapsed due mostly to environmental damage), the Polynesians of Pitcairn Island (environmental damage and loss of trading partners), the Anasazi of the Southwestern United States (environmental damage and climate change), the Maya of Central America (environmental damage, climate change, and hostile neighbors), and the Greenland Norse (who collapsed because of all five factors). He also includes a few success stories from history as well—especially in Tikopia, New Guinea, and Japan—before moving on to more recent societies.

This is a sweeping analysis; one with much to offer those interested in effecting public policy at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Diamond contends that environmental damage, resource depletion, and climate change all portend disastrous consequences for the future. On the other hand, he has confidence that humanity can respond to these challenges but that the time for action has arrived.

This book received considerable attention when first published in 2004, but no one has applied these ideas to space policy. Jared Diamond’s concern with environmental damage and resource depletion lends credence to an element of the pro-space community who believe that humanity has a finite period of time to colonize other worlds before the resources on Earth are unable to sustain human migration.

Some space advocates have asserted that resource depletion—and perhaps environmental degradation and climate change as well—will ensure that resources on Earth necessary for interplanetary travel will become more precious in future years. Because of this in 1970 some members of this community formed the Committee for the Future (CFF) with the central purpose, as stated in its charter: “To survive and realize the common aspiration of all people for a future of unlimited opportunity, this generation must begin now to find the means of converting the planets into life support systems for the race of Men.”

The CFF has evolved over the years and eventually ceased to exist but its central ideas have remained. In 1988 some inheritors of it legacy formed the Space Frontier Foundation “To advocate expansion of human presence to other parts of the solar system as a counter to “the image held by many young people that the future will be worse than the present, and [to] reject the idea that the world’s greatest moments are in its past.” This sense of impending societal decline—Diamond would call it collapse—is certainly present in the spaceflight community and escape is the option most often advocated. The elements of Diamond’s arguments serve as useful points of discussion of this aspect of spaceflight history and advocacy.

Roger Launius is a curator the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.