posted 07-03-2011 12:51 PM
Today is the day "The Archive" is born. What Archive? you ask. The Archive of the documents that flew in space with our astronauts and cosmonauts! That's a lot of paper you say. To which I say "it's digital". What shall we call this archive? I honestly am not sure yet. "Documents in Space Digital Archive"? I am looking for people to work with in this purely non-profit effort to preserve the flown space documentation of 1961 through present, and perform as a knowledge base to the locations and availability of these documents where possible.
Scope of Collection: Quality Digital scans/pictures in pdf (preferred), jpeg, djvu of any paper document flown on any human mission into space to be available and adapted to the technology of the time such to be available to future generations.
Priorities:
- Documents actually used and or annotated in any human flight.
- Documents that are a part of Historical Missions. Apollo 11, MR-3, MA-6, STS-1, Voskhod-2, ASTP would sit as shining examples, but are mentioned here to demonstrate guidance.
Case and point the Apollo 11 Flight Plan would carry a greater priority in general than the Entry Pocket Checklist from STS-117, but neither would be excluded from the collection at any time. All of these documents carry value greater than their digital bits and bytes.Forgeries: An issue raised when this topic has been raised includes forgeries. The truth is the opposite. If the original document is shown clearly and provenance of the document is described, this in effect becomes a form of protection to the current owners. It would be easier to forge a document whose style and, contents are only generally known when there is no basis for comparison.
At risk of some causing some offense, I will say this forgery fallacy has been created by those with belief that the obscurity of the information in the documents has tangible financial value. This statement also implies that the documents owner believes this perceived value (which can only be held with the document locked away) to be greater than the knowledge and experience of future generations.
It is not the goal of any future organization to dispute the legitimacy of ownership legally or morally of any physical document. The only goal is to make the information within the document available. To those still wondering, yes, even our National Archives do not have a complete collection of flown documents by any stretch of the imagination, nor does the Smithsonian.
Some checklists used on Apollo flights could genuinely be lost forever or genuinely never seen in their entirety by any person ever again. Surprising but true. Original Gemini flown documents have been repeatedly sold into private collections - without any backup copy or unflown copy existing anywhere. (I have checked)- I cite here an Apollo Surface Procedures, the Gemini 4 EVA checklist sold last year, and the Gemini 10 Rendezvous Book the year before - for all practical purposes lost to this country and humanity forever.
Again, let me reiterate. Its not my place to judge if the flown physical document is sold for whatever real (or unreal) price, cut into pieces and stuck into lucite or a pinata at the owners discretion. While I would hope this isn't the case, things happen to documents that go beyond bad conservatorship. Fires, Flood, theft, war, inadvertent or ignorant discarding in a future generation after we die are known destroyers of history.
This site can be a way to preserve this era. In 500 years they with all the annotations and transcripts will indeed be a Lewis and Clark diary of this age - and will fit into someone's pocket on a not yet invented device as the first flights to the stars are made. Do you want to be a part of this legacy?
One day we as people will be gone. The paper documents will continue to yellow and crumble and even get tossed into landfills. The real legacy is what is done NOW by US. 
Let's talk. I really want a meeting of the minds here.
posted 07-03-2011 12:51 PM
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