Portrait of Floyd L. Thompson NASA Langley Center Director from 1960 to 1968. Died in 1976

Portrait of Floyd L. Thompson NASA Langley Center Director

Portrait of Floyd L. Thompson NASA Langley Center Director

Portrait of Floyd L. Thompson NASA Langley Center Director 1960-1968. Died in 1976

Langley Center Director Floyd Thompson shows Ann Kilgore the "picture of the century." This was the first picture of the earth taken from space. From Spaceflight Revolution: "On 23 August 1966 just as Lunar Orbiter I was about to pass behind the moon, mission controllers executed the necessary maneuvers to point the camera away from the lunar surface and toward the earth. The result was the world's first view of the earth from space. It was called "the picture of the century' and "the greatest shot taken since the invention of photography." Not even the color photos of the earth taken during the Apollo missions superseded the impact of this first image of our planet as a little island of life floating in the black and infinite sea of space." -- Published in James R. Hansen, Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo, (Washington: NASA, 1995), pp. 345-346. Mayor Ann Kilgore was married to NASA researcher Edwin Carroll Kilgore. Mrs. Kilgore was Mayor from 1963-1971 and again from 1974-1978.

IBM 704 Computer Operations People on the photo are: Woman in the front with her back to the camera is Jean Ruddle Migneault. She provided the names for the rest of the staff in the photo. Kathy Christian Young, Mary Talmage Kaylor, Willie Terrell Ruffin (computer operator not mathematician), Joyce Alston Clemens, Lou Mayo Ladson, Rachel Richardson Mayo, Sadie Livingston Boyer , Joann Shipp Buschman worked in hangar in West Area, Shelva Blevins Stroud (programmer in data reduction), Jackie Kilby, Rita Englebert, Harriet Seals Winestein, Lillian Boney, Jane Thompson Kemper, Helen Thompson ( math aide) Jane and Helen were daughters of Floyd Thompson, center director.

Russian Scientists from the Commission of Interplanetary Travel of the Soviet Academy of Science November 21,1959 Left to right: Front row: Yury S. Galkin, Anatoly A. Blagonravov, and Prof. Leonid I. Sedov (Chair of the Commission for Interplanetary Travel)-Soviet Academy of Science, Leninski Gory, Moscow, Russia Dr. H.J. E. Reid and Floyd L. Thompson Langley Research Center. Second row: Boris Kit Translator, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Eugene C. Draley and Laurence K. Loftin, Jr. -Langley Research Center Arnold W. Frutkin and Harold R. Lawrence NASA Headquarters. Back row: T.Melvin Butler-Langley Research Center John W. Townsend Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA, Washington D.C., and George M. Low NASA Headquarters.