About
Three Programs. Four Decades. One Family.
This is an independent research project documenting a family whose members served at NASA across three of the agency's defining programs — from the Apollo lunar missions through the Space Shuttle era and into the International Space Station. Their combined careers span more than forty years of continuous service to the American space program.
From guidance systems that helped land men on the moon, to the avionics redundancy management that kept Space Shuttle crews safe for over two decades, to the leadership of programs that built humanity's permanent home in orbit — this family was there for all of it. And nobody wrote it down. Until now.
The Book
A Story That Was Never Written Down
Apollo. Shuttle. Station. is a work of historical nonfiction tracing three members of a single family through more than forty years at NASA. From the early days of the Apollo lunar program in the 1960s, through all 135 Space Shuttle missions, to the construction and management of the International Space Station, their careers form an unbroken thread through the defining chapters of American spaceflight.
This is not a book about astronauts. It is the story of the engineers, managers, and technical staff who solved the problems that made human spaceflight possible — the people whose names never appeared in headlines but whose work kept crews alive and missions on course. It is a memoir built from firsthand accounts, personal records, and decades of institutional memory that might otherwise have been lost.
The book is currently in progress. Publication details will be announced here.
The Research
Archival Investigation at Scale
This project draws on thousands of pages of government records, technical reports, and institutional publications obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and the National Archives and Records Administration. It incorporates oral history interviews, NASA Technical Reports Server publications, personnel directories, and contemporaneous agency media — the kind of primary source material that distinguishes rigorous historical nonfiction from secondhand narrative.
The research also relies on personal records and firsthand recollections from family members who lived this history. Their accounts provide the connective tissue between the documents — the human context that transforms a paper trail into a story.
The Author
Tim Phelps
Independent Historian & Author
Tim Phelps is an independent historian researching the untold contributions of working-level engineers and technical staff who built America's space program. His current project traces three family members' careers at NASA — from the guidance systems that landed men on the moon, through the avionics that kept Shuttle crews safe for 135 missions, to the management of the International Space Station. He conducts his research through archival investigation, Freedom of Information Act requests, oral history interviews, and collaboration with NASA's historical community.
- ◆ Member, National Space Society - North Houston Chapter
- ◆ Member, Society for History in the Federal Government
- ◆ Certified Researcher, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
- ◆ ORCID: 0009-0002-5977-7343
Contact
Get in Touch
If you have archival leads, photographs, NASA records, or information related to this research, I'd love to hear from you.