Historical Scientific Equipment

Vintage photographs of early scientific tools and protective gear used for rocket propulsion and astronomical research.

High angle view of a scientist working on a space probe in a laboratory, Pioneer V, Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA

Photograph of Georges Sablier demonstrating his latest invention, a portable helicopter for which he won a special award at the international helicopter competition and show at Saint Etienne, Central France. Dated 20th Century

El astrónomo Josep Comas i Solà. Museum: Museu Casa Verdaguer, Barcelona.

View of STS Discovery

United States: c. 1955 A scientist adjusting a Bureau of Standards 25 foot diameter radio telescope used to measure radio waves from the sun.

Anefo photo collection. Largest radio telescope in Europe in Hoeven will be put into use in May 18; Mrs Vermeesch at Telescoop. April 3, 1974. Hoeven

Thermostat.

FERDINAND ELLERMAN AT THE COELOSTAT ON TOP OF THE 150-FOOT TOWER TELESCOPE.

In preparation of the nations first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11 crew members underwent training to practice activities they would be performing during the mission. In this photograph, taken at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, an engineer, Bob Mason, donned in a space suit, goes through some of those training exercises on the mock lunar surface. He performed activites similar to those planned for astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin during their moon walk. The Apollo 11 mission launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida via the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) developed Saturn V launch vehicle on July 16, 1969 and safely returned to Earth on July 24, 1969. Aboard the space craft were astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael Collins, Command Module (CM) pilot; and Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module (LM) pilot. The CM, “Columbia”, piloted by Collins, remained in a parking orbit around the Moon while the LM, “Eagle, carrying astron

View of STS Atlantis

Sketch of a cross section of a curious apparatus for securing oysters. Two men work in a submarine-like pod at the bottom of the sea, scooping up oysters with a rake. Date: 5th Sep 1908

Cutaway drawing of a V-1 showing fuel cells, warhead and other equipment.

Dr. Robert H. Goddard and liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket in the frame from which it was fired on March 16, 1926, at Auburn, Mass. It flew for only 2.5 seconds, climbed 41 feet, and landed 184 feet away in a cabbage patch. From 1930 to 1941, Dr. Goddard made substantial progress in the development of progressively larger rockets, which attained altitudes of 2400 meters, and refined his equipment for guidance and control, his techniques of welding, and his insulation, pumps, and other associated equipment. In many respects, Dr. Goddard laid the essential foundations of practical rocket technology

T107 Machine damage.Aldebaran (depicted name)

With the diver securely sealed in, the observation diving bell is lowered over the side into the depths of the ocean. October 07, 1953.

Telescope built in the Newtonian configuration with one axis of the mount polar-aligned for tracking the sky circa 1936.

ECHO I, NASA's first communications satellite, was a passive spacecraft based on a Mylar balloon design. Launched in 1960, ECHO I expanded to a balloon with a 100 foot diameter that reflected radio transmissions from one ground station back to another.

Scale model of Mercury capsule shape A, indicating the position of the astronaut.

A weather balloon abandons by the meteo service A / B from Kruiser Hr.Ms. The Seven Provinces (C 802), 1957.

Whaling in the Ross sea Nitrate negatives, black-and-white negatives

Paul W. Merrill standing at the spectrograph mounted on the 60"" telescope

Robert Champine in X-Series Pressure Suit. Photograph published in Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958 by James R. Hansen. Page 305.

19 Airplane pilots know this mechanism as a: Throttle quadrant. July 6, 1950. (Photo by Cowles Syndicate).

S70-24016 (17 Jan. 1970) --- Astronaut Thomas K. Mattingly II, command module pilot of the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission, participates in water egress training in a water tank in Building 260 at the Manned Spacecraft Center.

North American X-15 Model being readied for tests in Langley Unitary Plan

With balloons like this, Melbourne University nuclear scientists are photographing the private lives of atoms 17 to 22 miles above the earth.They said that other scientists were doing the same work in Britain and tie United States - and that the balloons undoubtedly started the "flying *****" scare.Anybody finding one of these balloons must Not ***** the package inside it. They should get in touch with Dr. Hopper, of the Melbourne University Atomic Physics Laboratory. January 24, 1952.

L57-660 A technician prepares dynamic models of the Bell X-1E and the Vought XF-8U Crusader for wind tunnel testing in 1957. The Crusader was then the Navy's fastest aircraft- maximum speed Mach 1.75 at 35,000 Feet. Photograph published in Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958 by James R. Hansen. Page 307.

Walter (Wally) M. Schirra in Visual Docking Simulator From A.W. Vogeley, "Piloted Space-Flight Simulation at Langley Research Center," Paper presented at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 1966 Winter Meeting, New York, NY, November 27-December 1, 1966. "This facility was later known as the Visual-Optical Simulator. It presents to the pilot an out-the-window view of his target in correct 6 degrees of freedom motion. The scene is obtained by a television camera pick-up viewing a small-scale gimbaled model of the target. "For docking studies, the docking target picture was projected onto the surface of a 20-foot-diameter sphere and the pilot could, effectively, maneuver into contract. this facility was used in a comparison study with the Rendezvous Docking Simulator - one of the few comparison experiments in which conditions were carefully controlled and a reasonable sample of pilots used. All pilots preferred the more realistic RDS visual scene. The pilots generally liked the

ICARUS - Lunar Walker with Pilot Dick Yenni. Yenni in ICARUS rig for jet propelled lunar mobility, at Lunar Landing Research Facility or Gantry.

satellite san marco dell'aeronautica militare italiana, 1966

Aldebaran (depicted - name).Aldebaran (depicted - name)

Fairchild technicians check out the extended Pegasus meteoroid detection surface. The Pegasus was developed by Fairchild Stratos Corporation, Hagerstown, Maryland, for NASA through the Marshall Space Flight Center. Three Pegasus satellites were flown aboard Saturn I SA-8, SA-9, and SA-10 missions. After being placed into orbit around the Earth, the satellite unfolded a series of giant panels to form a pair of wings measuring 96 feet across. The purpose of the satellite was to electronically record the size and frequency of particles in space, and compare the performance of protected and unprotected solar cells as important new preliminaries to a marned flight to the Moon.

Anefo photo collection. MR. D. Spiers with mayor d Ailly. February 8, 1951

Black and white photo of the lottery drawing machine.

COELOSTAT OF SNOW TELESCOPE AS SEEN FROM INSIDE SHELTER.

Inspection tour of NASA installations: Houston, Texas, NASA Rich Building, departure, 11:10AM. President John F. Kennedy (center right) tours spacecraft displays inside a hangar at the Rich Building of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas; astronaut Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (mostly hidden, right of President Kennedy), briefs the President on a mock-up of the lunar lander, also known as the Bug. Also pictured: Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Dr. James E. Webb; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Dr. Robert Gilruth. Photographers, including newsreel photographer for United Press Movietone, Thomas J. Craven, Sr., and members of the press observe at right. President Kennedy visited the Center as part of a two-day inspection tour of NASA field installations.

S65-28643 (June 1965) --- Artist concept showing the position of Gemini experiment In-flight Photometer in Gemini spacecraft.

Famed astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon during the historic Apollo 11 space mission in July 1969, served for seven years as a research pilot at the NACA-NASA High-Speed Flight Station, now the Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards, California, before he entered the space program.Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (later NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, and today the Glenn Research Center) in 1955. Later that year, he transferred to the High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards as an aeronautical research scientist and then as a pilot, a position he held until becoming an astronaut in 1962. He was one of nine NASA astronauts in the second class to be chosen.As a research pilot Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100A and F-100C aircraft, F-101, and the F-104A. He also flew the X-1B, X-5, F-105, F-106, B-47, KC-135, and Paresev. He left Dryden with a tot

Young woman looking through a telescope

New staff member Paul Margosian inspects a cluster of ion engines in the Electric Propulsion Laboratorys 25-foot diameter vacuum tank at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

A Venusian 'scout craft' photographed by George Adamski Date: 1952

Inspection tour of NASA installations: Houston, Texas, NASA Rich Building, departure, 11:10AM. President John F. Kennedy (at lectern) delivers remarks, following a tour of spacecraft displays inside a hangar at the Rich Building of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas. President Kennedy holds a scale model of the Apollo command module, presented to him by Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Dr. Robert Gilruth; a mock-up of the lunar lander (also known as the Bug) sits at left in background. Standing in back: Director of Operations for Project Mercury, Dr. Walter C. Williams; Naval Aide to the President, Captain Tazewell T. Shepard, Jr.; Senator Alexander Wiley (Wisconsin); Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson; Dr. Gilruth; White House Secret Service agent, Ron Pontius. Photographers observe at right. The President visited the Center as part of a two-day inspection tour National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) field installations. See also MO 63.1913, Model of Apo

Launch of the Apollo 8 on December 21, 1968, Anonymous, 1968 photograph United States of America (possibly) photographic support gelatin silver print United States of America

imbottigliamento, 1959

Mock-up of the Mercury capsule on display at the first NASA inspection held on October 24, 1959.

Anefo photo collection. Largest synthesis radio telescope in the world in Westerbork The synthesis radio telescope (12 telescopes). June 18, 1970. Drenthe, Westerbork

Poll photo collection. Visit to Naples and Vesuvius. Professor Luigo Carmera in the Observatory. 1938. Italy, Naples

virginia, rilevatore di traiettoria dei satelliti a sfera, 1960.

Astronaut Eugene Cernan at Lunar Lander Research Facility. Cernan under gantry, in training module. Captain Cernan was one of fourteen astronauts selected by NASA in October 1963. On his second space flight, he was lunar module pilot of Apollo 10, May 18-26, 1969, the first comprehensive lunar-orbitalqualification and verification flight test of an Apollo lunar module.

Donzere-Mondragon Project - Flax. Photographs of Marshall Plan Programs, Exhibits, and Personnel

S61-03121 (21 July 1961) --- Mercury-Redstone 4 (MR-4) launch of Virgil I. Grissom on July 21, 1961, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

'Reading the Temperature with a Lens. 12 July, 1894', 1894 (1897). Artist: Unknown.

Engraving of Dr. Robert H. Goddard next to a liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts. Dated 1926

Installing Pioneer IV, payload for AM-14 (Juno II) onto the fourth stage on the cluster before a spin test, February 16, 1959. The Pioneer IV, lunar and planetary exploration satellite, was the first U.S. satellite to orbit the Sun.

Flying wing airship model

DOUGLAS DUNCAN AT THE COUDE FOCUS OF THE 100-INCH TELESCOPE.

Anemometer, genova, liguria, italy, 1930-40.

Antares (depicted - name).Antares (depicted - name)

LAL 95,647 University of Maryland-Republic Terrapin sounding rocket mounted on special launcher, September 21, 1956. Photograph published in A New Dimension Wallops Island Flight Test Range: The First Fifteen Years by Joseph Shortal. A NASA publication. Page 506.

Technical explanation to a visitor during the 1989 fleet days.

Ford Chats With Flying Piccards -- Henry Ford, automobile manufacturer, (left) chatted with Dr. and Mrs. Jean Piccard at Ford Airport, Detroit, while waiting for the start of the projected stratospheric flight early on the morning of Oct 13. Prof. W.F.G. Swann, of the Franklin Institute, Swarthmore, PA., can be seen looking through a Porthole of the Gondola in which the Piccards plan to ride high into the stratosphere. A few minutes after this picture was taken, the Filght was postponed because of high winds. October 13, 1934. (Photo by Associated Press Photo).

Artists concept of a dual mode Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) on the Lunar surface. This represents the Bendix version in an unmanned configuration. The LRV was developed under the direction of MSFC to allow Apollo astronauts a greater range of mobility during lunar exploration missions.

This photograph was taken during assembly of the bottom and upper floors of the Skylab Orbital Workshop (OWS). The OWS was divided into two major compartments. The lower level provided crew accommodations for sleeping, food preparation and consumption, hygiene, waste processing and disposal, and performance of certain experiments. The upper level consisted of a large work area and housed water storage tanks, a food freezer, storage vaults for film, scientific airlocks, mobility and stability experiment equipment, and other experimental equipment.

Photo collection Government information service. Astronomy, astronomy. undated. Drenthe, Westerbork

PAINTING THE 60-INCH TELESCOPE DOME.

I.Hälsingland's propeller.Hälsingland (depicted - name)

Elsevier photo collection. Series "Neerland's difficult times". Noordoostpolder laboratory. outcomes soil investigation recorded maps, development plans based again. 1943. Noordoostpolder

Project 21 - Operation Ivy (Enewetak/Bikini) Test Activities. Placing Protective Shroud on Sampler Pilot. Photographs of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing at Pacific Island and Nevada Test Sites.

(L TO R): WALTHER MAYER, CHARLES ST. JOHN, & ALBERT EINSTEIN AT THE COELOSTAT AT THE TOP OF THE 150-FOOT TOWER TELESCOPE.

Anefo photo collection. Art moon circles around the earth. October 7, 1957

Vintage Photograph. A surveyor inspecting the land. Frame 1.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Some of the former Apollo program astronauts tour the new Apollo/Saturn V Center (ASVC) at KSC prior to the gala grand opening ceremony for the facility that was held Jan. 8, 1997. The astronauts were invited to participate in the event, which also featured NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and KSC Director Jay Honeycutt. Discussing old times beneath the KSC Apollo/Saturn V rocket inside the building are (from left) Apollo 10 Lunar Module Pilot and Apollo 17 Commander Eugene A. Cernan; Apollo 10 Commander Thomas P. Stafford and Apollo 16 Commander John W. Young. The ASVC also features several other Apollo program spacecraft components, multimedia presentations and a simulated Apollo/ Saturn V liftoff. The facility will be a part of the KSC bus tour that embarks from the KSC Visitor Center

Post-World War I military weatherman prepares to release balloon to probe atmosphere for wind information. He tracked flight visually with theodolite that resembles a surveyor's transit. Data then was reported by wire to weather station.

Project 23 - Redwing (Enewetak/Bikini) Test Activities. Observers facing away from ERIE blast. Photographs of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing at Pacific Island and Nevada Test Sites.

Photograph of a fixed radio interferometer aerial at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge. Dated 20th century

Mercury Spacecraft

Etching from 1768 by William Pether depicting a philosopher giving a lecture on a table planetarium, showing human figures and astronomical models.

1960S Man Using A Theodolite While Surveying

Project 20 - Operation Greenhouse (Enewetak) Test Activities. Proj. 8.2A (F-80 Fuselage) on Mijikadrek. Photographs of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing at Pacific Island and Nevada Test Sites.

Firing rocket into stratosphere to test cosmic rays by US onboard "Northwind".Rocket goes 87 miles & finds scientific cosmic radiation twice as strong *****. August 1, 1949. (Photo by Associated Press Newsphoto).

CHARLES ABBOT CARRYING HIS RADIOMETER ON MT. WILSON, OUTSIDE THE GALLEY IN FRONT OF THE 100-INCH TELESCOPE DOME.

Walter Olson, Chief of the Chemistry and Energy Conversion Division, examines equipment in the new Energy Conversion Laboratory at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection of the Dutch Heidematschappij. Water cards, Zeiss Opton N12. 1968

Model aircraft construction. marcel brems. 1959.

Suspended hours with gramophone

Dr. W. Taylor leaves the water at Melbourne city baths after tasting a breathing-unit that may enable spear fishermen to stay underwater for two hours at a time.The unit, invented by Edward Eldred, of Melbourne, is now undergoing tests. supervised by two Melbourne doctors and a RAN underwater expert.The operator inhales pure oxygen. His exhaled breath, containing carbon dioxide, is purified and its oxygen content restored, so that he can inhale it again. May 17, 1953.

technics woman with ""atom cannon"" 1960s,

Eric Hosking setting up an automatic trip for use with High Speed Flash to Photograph birds in flight -1948

View of O&C Building Altitude Chambers

Lunar Landing Testing at NASA Langley. Lunar Landing Testing at NASA Langley. A simulated environment that contributed in a significant way to the success of Apollo project was the Lunar Landing Research Facility, an imposing 250 foot high, 400 foot long gantry structure that became operational in 1965. Published in the book "Space Flight Revolution" NASA SP-4308 pg. 376

This artist's concept from 1962 show a three hundred-sixty ton spaceship, powered by a forty-megawatt nuclear-electric power plant, transporting a three-man crew to Mars. As envisioned by Marshall Space Flight Center engineers, a five-ship convoy would make the round trip journey in about five hundred days.

S61-01490 (4 April 1961) --- Astronaut Virgil Grissom photographed in the new Mercury spacesuit, holding his helmet.

NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) sign at entrance to Ames Laboratory

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