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Oh the Horror! What eldritch tales of scientific terror hath the NASA Technical Reports Server wrought?

November 4th, 2011 1 comment

I just found out about a wonderfully winsome project at the NASA Science and Technical Information Program (STIP) to promote its enormous collection of aerospace research and technical reports going back to the dawn of the space age. As explained in a blog post by STIP employee Gerald Steeman, the idea sprang from some illustrations in a 1966 report about a proposed design for a moon-crawling “worm” vehicle.

Says Steeman:

By chance, one day we discovered a web article about the lunar worm vehicle concept complete with a citation back to our own NTRS. We were at once enamored with the curious image of the worm crawling over the surface of the moon. An idea sprung forth to pay homage to the remarkable report by giving it a suitably cool cover.

The result is a series of four (so far) technical report covers modeled after the lurid pulp science fiction art of a bygone era. These works of art were created by Wade Mickley, Multimedia Designer at NASA Langley’s Media Solution Branch.

Here are the “Tales from the STIP.” You can search out and read any of these reports by going to the NASA Technical Reports Server.

Here are the original illustrations in the 1966 technical report, Feasibility study for lunar worm planetary roving vehicle concept (NASA-CR-66098):

worm-drawing_300

worm-drawing2_300

Here they are, re-imagined as a pulp magazine cover. Click the image below for a large version:

stip worm



And here are other reports, with their re-imagined covers. Click to make them bigger:


The peculiar extinction of Herschel 36 (NASA-TM-84893)
stip-herschel


Pressure Flammability Thresholds of Selected Aerospace Materials (JSC-CN-20193)

stip-pressure

Developing and flight testing the HL-10 lifting body: A precursor to the Space Shuttle (NASA-RP-1332)

stip-lifting

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.