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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

This is a book about a remarkable institution. It captures the soul of the place and the work of the people who made it what it is today. The NASA Ames Research Center has been in business for over 40 years and during that time a great many important contributions have been made by people at Ames to both the aeronautical and space missions of NASA.

(Extracted from the Foreword, by Hans Mark)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Table of Contents.

-Foreword. Hans Mark.

-Preface.

-1- The Beginnings, 1939-1945.
-2- The Postwar Period, 1945-1952.
-3- The Lean Years, 1952-1957.
-4- The Formation of NASA, 1958.
-5- The Life Sciences Directorate.
-6- Ames During NASA's Golden Years, 1958-1969.
-7- Ames After Apollo, 1969-1976.
-8- How a Research Directorate Works.
-9- Ames in a Larger Context.
-10- Research Center Instead of Aeronautical Laboratory.

-Appendix A -Organization Charts, 1940-1976.

-Appendix B -Budgets, 1940-1976.

-Appendix C -Personnel, 1940-1976.

-Appendix D -Support Contract Workers, 1966-1976.

-Appendix E -Chronology of Major Events in the Text.

-Appendix F -Chronology, 1977-1980.

-Appendix G -Major Professional Awards Won By Ames Personel, 1940-1980.

-Bibliographic Essay.

-Index.

-The Author.

-The NASA History Series.

OUR REVIEW

The Ames Reseach Center is one of the oldest ones at NASA. In actual fact, it was inherited from its predecessor, the NACA, and it was created in 1940 as a second laboratory of the agency, after the famous Langley, in Virginia. Since then, its facilities grew owing to its intense research activity, at first in aeronautics, and later in astronautics. The author describes how this center participated in the successive NASA programs, as well as its implementation according to the priorities that the agency required. Many of such programs were controlled and developed exclusively within the Ames center, as for instance the famous Pioneer, Galileo Probe, etc. An element of great interest is the appendixes, since they contribute a great deal of statistical information.

Just like all the other publications sponsored by NASA itself, this one also enjoys the documentary resources in the files of the agency, which have allowed Muenger to research this work in depth and for years. Step by step, NASA has been publishing the more or less official histories of each one of its research centers in such a way that currently we can but wait for their updating every now and then. In a word, Searching The Horizon should be a must for the library of those who already have the other works in this collection.