Many of the records created by federal agencies are stored by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at facilities in the Washington, DC area and in several major cities throughout the country. For purposes of administrative control, the records of each agency are assigned to a unique "record group" and NASA's are in Record Group 255. Some of the records of agencies, generally less than 3%, have enough research value that they are transferred to NARA's legal custody and are saved permanently. (see NARA's regional home page).

Almost 120,000 cubic feet of NACA and NASA records are being stored in eight NARA facilities (see Neat Stuff About the Right Stuff). This includes more than 5,000 cubic feet of historical material that is in NARA's legal custody and is open to the public (see the RG255 guide). For information regarding NARA's holdings for specific NASA field centers please see the following.

Other On-line Archival Collection Descriptions

• NARA Archival Research Catalog
• NARA link to the Presidential Libraries
• John Glenn Archives at Ohio State University
• Saturn V Project, 1940-1976 documents at the University of Alabama, Huntsville

  NASA Administrators' Papers Stored in Other Locations

• Robert Channing Seamans, Jr. Papers, 1969-1973 at the Air Force Historical Research Agency
• The Hugh L. Dryden Papers at Johns Hopkins University
• James Fletcher's Papers at the University of Utah
• RPI Archives inventory of the George M. Low Papers
• Thomas O. Paine Papers at the Library of Congress
• James Webb's Papers at the Truman Library

Steven J. Dick, NASA Chief Historian
Steve Garber, NASA History Web Curator
Site design by NASA HQ Printing & Design
For further information email histinfo@hq.nasa.gov