
W. Brain Dunlap (left), high school student from Youngstown, Ohio, is pictured here with Harry Coons of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) during a visit to the center. Dunlap was among 25 winners of a contest in which some 3,500 high school students proposed experiments for the following year’s Skylab mission. The nationwide scientific competition was sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The winning students, along with their parents and sponsor teachers, visited MSFC where they met with scientists and engineers, participated in design reviews for their experiments, and toured MSFC facilities. Of the 25 students, 6 did not see their experiments conducted on Skylab because the experiments were not compatible with Skylab hardware and timelines. Of the 19 remaining, 11 experiments required the manufacture of additional equipment.

Gregory A. Merkel (left), high school student from Springfield, Massachusetts, is pictured here with Harry Coons of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) during a visit to the center. Merkel was among 25 winners of a contest in which some 3,500 high school students proposed experiments for the following year’s Skylab mission. The nationwide scientific competition was sponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The winning students, along with their parents and sponsor teachers, visited MSFC where they met with scientists and engineers, participated in design reviews for their experiments, and toured MSFC facilities. Of the 25 students, 6 did not see their experiments conducted on Skylab because the experiments were not compatible with Skylab hardware and timelines. Of the 19 remaining, 11 experiments required the manufacture of additional equipment.

Sen. Christopher Coons (D-DE) gives remarks during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony recognizing NASA’s Hidden Figures, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Congressional Gold Medals were awarded to Katherine Johnson, Dr. Christine Darden, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary W. Jackson in recognition of their service to the United States as well as a Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of all the women who served as computers, mathematicians, and engineers at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and NASA between the 1930s and 1970s. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Several Goddard technologists are involved in a new CubeSat technology-demonstration mission called SNoOPI, which employs a novel remote-sensing technique for measuring soil-moisture levels. From left to right: Jeffrey Piepmeier, Chase Kielbasa, who is holding a first-generation prototype circuit board for the SNoOPI instrument, Joseph Knuble, Manuel Vega, Michael Coon, and Derek Hudson.

S65-19600 (3 June 1965) --- The prime crew for the Gemini-Titan 4 mission have an early morning breakfast prior to their historic flight which was launched at 10:16 a.m. (EST) on June 3, 1965. Shown here seated around the table (clockwise starting front center) are Dr. D. Owens Coons, chief, MSC Center Medical Office; astronaut James A. McDivitt, GT-4 command pilot; Dr. Eugene F. Tubbs, Kennedy Space Center; Rt. Rev. James Heiliky, McDivitt's priest at Cocoa Beach, Florida; Msgr. Irvine J. Nugent and astronaut Edward H. White II, GT-4 pilot. The group had a breakfast of tomato juice, broiled sirloin steak, poached eggs, toast, strawberry gelatin and coffee.