Proposal and Guide for Development of an Archival Special Collection for the Preservation of the Contributions of Auburn University and its Alumni to NASA and Space Exploration

Abstract

Auburn University, a major research institution, has a long and rich history of engineering scholarship as well as scholarship in the history of technology and aviation. Many graduates of Auburn have gone on to serve the United States both in public sector as well as private sector occupations. What is of central interest are those Auburn alumni who have had significant involvement with the exploration of space as well as Auburn University itself, which has contributed to the exploration of space through its work as a Space Grant Institution and as a participating member of the Space Grant Consortium. Through concerted effort focused on identifying alumni, collecting oral histories, and collecting, arranging, and preserving documents and photographs acquired through donation, gift, purchase, and generated research and instructional material by Auburn University faculty and staff, an archival collection documenting the involvement of Auburn University and its alumni in the development of Space exploration can be created. This collection will serve to further the institution’s mission as a Space Grant institution, as well as an institution that hosts programs in Aerospace Engineering and History of Technology. In the development of this thesis, emphasis is placed on the creation of a document that will serve as the foundation for a proposal to initiate a collection within the Auburn University Archives and Special Collections. This collection will consist of oral histories, documents, photographs, and other artifacts collected either through donation or that were generated as a part of the research, instructional, and outreach scope and mission of Auburn University.