Finding Aid for the Richard W. Nygren Papers (HSF-80)

Abstract

The Richard Nygren Papers is composed of notebooks, reports, memos, notes, photographs, correspondence, technical manuals, technical requirements records, technical documents, technical drawings, certificates and awards, directories, training and meeting logs, telephone directories, charts, audiocassette tapes, VHS video tapes and other materials, used and kept by Richard Nygren during his NASA career. Nygren worked at NASA Johnson Space Center, NASA Headquarters, and as an independent consultant with NASA throughout his career. He began working at NASA Manned Spacecraft Center [later Johnson Space Center] in 1966 on the Apollo Program. Nygren is most known as being the Chief of the Vehicle Integration Test Team (VITT), for which he would travel with the NASA Shuttle astronauts from Johnson Space Center to Kennedy Space Center leading up to Shuttle mission launches. The bulk of the materials are Nygren’s green fabric work notebooks, in which he documented details from meetings, business trips, and work with NASA astronauts prior to the launch of Space Shuttle missions. They also contain NASA project information, contact information for aerospace professionals and other NASA personnel, and any information that Nygren thought was significant to record for his daily work. The notebooks date from November 1966 to September 2001, covering Nygren’s entire NASA career. The collection includes correspondence, memos, and photographs documenting Nygren’s role with the Space Shuttle Program, as well as various other NASA activities and projects. One of the more unique items in the collection are a set of 18 Russian-language diazo reproduction blueprints of engineering drawings for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). These drawings are of the outer and internal components of the American and Russian space vehicles showing the docking mechanisms during the test of space rescue operations