History - Primary Sources: Science & Technology

Consists largely of images of artefacts that document the push for science and math education during the Cold War and the Space Race. (Smithsonian's History Explorer)

Recordings declassified in 2011. Download the audio files and find recording transcripts as well as other related material: a Congressional address, video of a speech at the San Antonio Aerospace Medical Center, photo gallery, and background documents from the archives of the JFK Presidential Library and Museum.

Digital collection of photographs, video footage, and information from Project Mercury, the first U.S. human spaceflight program, which ran from 1959 to 1963. (NASA Johnson Space Center and Arizona State Univ.)

Report written in May, 1946, by Project RAND, then active within Douglas Aircraft Company’s Engineering Division -- written more than eleven years before the orbiting of Sputnik, history’s first artificial space satellite. (RAND)

Compiled documents from National Archives and other sources. (Gene Dannen, independent researcher)

Documents the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Age. Several links on this page point to the Directory of Documents, Directory of Photographs, etc.

Full text of over 144,000 pages of source materials from the hearings of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which existed from 1946 to 1977 to "make continuing studies of the activities of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and of problems relating to the development, use, and control of atomic energy." (Stanford Univ.)

De-classified documents, photos, info, related reading lists, and links related to nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon policies, nuclear crises, and nuclear proliferation (in the U.S. and around the world) from the 1940s through the present. (George Washington Univ.)

Albert Wohlstetter became one of the world’s leading nuclear and national security strategists. His studies led to concepts for deterring nuclear war, and reduced the probability of accidental war. (RAND)