President, American Astronautical Society (AAS), 1990 - 2014

Series — Box: 62

Identifier: MSA 81, Series 14

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The Mark K. Craig papers document Purdue alumnus (BSAE 1971) Mark Craig's almost fifty year career in space exploration. Craig contributed to the Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, Space Shuttle, Space Station, Mars Rover Sample Return, and Lunar-Mars Exploration programs in positions progressing from co-op intern to NASA Assistant Administrator. The papers also reflect Craig’s work on space policy and NASA strategic planning.

The collection notably includes materials related to the day-to-day engineering work early in Craig's career as he witnessed and contributed to the development of the United States Space Shuttle as the youngest member of Max Faget's 1969 Space Shuttle concept development "skunk works" and subsequently worked on the engineering of the shuttle's solid rocket booster (SRB)staging system. During his early career he also provided support for the Apollo-Soyuz Working Group 3, invented the "Hypercube" technique to acquire and access eight-dimensional aerodynamic data, and led math modeling and Zero-G aircraft tests for Return-To-Launch-Sites shuttle aborts. The papers follow Craig’s career to reflect his mid-career project management roles in initiatives such as the development of the Space Station where Craig served as lead engineer for the Space Station Task Force Concept Development Group (CDG) (1983 - 1987), lead engineer for the Space Station "Skunk Works," and served as an engineering manager for the Space Station Program Systems Engineering and Integration. The papers also document Craig's work as manager for NASA's Lunar-Mars exploration initiative (1988), his administrative work on the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) which included serving as principal SEI liaison with the White House National Space Council and drafting the initial Space Council SEI policy. Administrative and policy-focused work is reflected in the papers of his late career positions at NASA. The collection includes material documenting Craig's work as NASA strategic plan architect (1993 - 1995), creator of the Strategic Enterprise concept and the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Enterprise and its strategy.

In summary, the collection holds key working papers that focus on the technical, programmatic, strategy, space policy, and public engagement aspects of key NASA human space flight and Mars initiatives 1969 - 2005. Types of materials include: artifacts, awards, books, certificates, charts, correspondence, designs, DVD-Video discs, films, graphs, market research, memorabilia, memoranda, negatives, notebooks, notes, opinion polls, papers, photographs, posters, presentations, publications, reference materials, reports, slides, spreadsheets, textbooks, and VHS tapes.

Craig provided much of the descriptive content of the material, and this was retained and included in the finding aid.

Dates

1990 - 2014

Language of Materials

From the Collection: Collection material is primarily in English. Russian is also present.

Acess Information

Collection is open for research.

Extent

From the Collection: 36.027 Cubic Feet (Eighty-six letter-size full-width manuscript boxes, eleven letter-size half-width manuscript boxes, two cubic foot boxes, and five flat boxes. Some oversized items are in flat file folders. )