The NASA History Division sponsors internships for undergraduate and graduate students year-round. Our internships are quite substantive and are opportunities for students to learn and contribute significantly. Currently, we are looking for interns for summer 2009. The deadline for applications is February 25, 2009.

Currently, we unfortunately are unable to pay interns directly. However, we encourage students to apply for stipends or other funding through the national network of state space grant consortia, their home educational institutions, or other corporate or nonprofit sources. Students will need to exercise initiative to find out about the different application criteria, procedures, and deadlines from these various organizations. In any event, interested students should follow the NASA History Division's application procedures and deadlines, as outlined on this page.

During the school year, interns are generally unpaid. When possible during the school year, we like to host interns who are able to work full-time under established Washington semester intern programs. In any case, we prefer that students work at least 20 hours per week to "learn the ropes" and become productive quickly. We try to work closely with a student's college or university to arrange for academic credit when possible.

The NASA History Division is part of the Office of External Relations at NASA Headquarters. We are a small (seven-person) but very active team. We maintain archival materials to answer research questions from NASA personnel, journalists, scholars, students at all levels, and other interested parties from around the world. Outside parties often come to our office to do research on-site. We also edit and publish several books and monographs each year. In addition, we post and maintain a large number of World Wide Web sites on NASA history.

In terms of the qualifications of the prospective intern, we primarily want an enthusiastic person who is a quick learner. Detailed prior knowledge of the aeronautics and space fields is not necessary, but a keen interest and some basic familiarity with these topics is needed. Since we deal with the historical aspects of science and technology policy, strong research, writing, and editing skills are key. Thus, social science majors who are interested in natural science might be best, although we would be glad to talk to any interested student. In addition, we would like to have someone who is facile with computers, especially html formatting.

We prefer to hire students who are U.S. citizens. Students physically report to work in the NASA Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., which is easily accessible by public transportation.

We are flexible in terms of setting up specific projects for the prospective intern. Some typical projects include handling a wide variety of information requests, editing historical manuscripts, doing research and writing biographical sketches, updating as well as creating a variety of Web pages, photo identification and captioning, and archival arrangement, description, and preservation tasks.

Please distribute this information to all interested students. Overall, we believe that the right student would find the substance of our work very interesting and fulfilling, and it would be a mutually beneficial experience.

For more information about what the NASA History Division does, please see our Thinking About NASA History site.

To apply, please send a resume, writing sample (a recent research paper from a history or other social science class is fine), and the name and contact information of at least two personal references (one academic and one work) to Steve Garber, stephen.j.garber@nasa.gov, 202-358-2866 fax. Include a cover letter indicating when you would like to start and finish your internship, what days of the week and hours you would be available to work, and when you are available for an in-person or telephone interview. Also, please indicate whether you expect to receive funding from your state Space Grant Consortium or another source.

Thank you very much for your interest.

Steven J. Dick, NASA Chief Historian
Steve Garber, NASA History Web Curator
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For further information email mailto:histinfo@hq.nasa.gov