I need your help.
I found this set of eight stunning images on the National Archives website, they are too good to keep to myself. All of them are marked NASA GRC, 1962. In one of the images, the artist’s signature is visible – D. Rosebrook – and it’s dated 1960. That’s all I’ve got.
The original finding aid described this as:
Description: SPACE VEHICLE – COPIES OF FORD MOTOR COMPANY MATERIAL
Ford didn’t build – as far as I know – the Gemini space capsule. No seriously! They did not. However, Ford operated a large aerospace division at one time. And that’s interesting because in mid-1962, Marshall launched the Early Manned Planetary Interplanetary Roundtrip Expeditions (EMPIRE) study. EMPIRE focused on Mars missions that could be made in the 1970s using a ‘modest’ extrapolation of Apollo technology. In other words, figure out how to go to Mars using whatever is lying around.
So, to me, these depict the evolution of a manned Mars mission of some description. And in 1962, that’s just what Aeronutronic (the defense division of Ford Aerospace was looking at: Mars. It’s also entirely possible that I’m seeing what I want to see. So take a look.
You know what I know, and I’d love to hear what you think.
