Donald D. Viele Lunar Orbiter Collection

The Donald Viele Lunar Orbiter Collection contains two hundred and sixty-nine (269) photographs and numerous documents primarily relating to the construction, launch, and mission of the five Lunar Orbiters. Some of the materials relate to the Viking Program and the Minuteman Missile launch, but the bulk of the collection relates to the Lunar Orbiter. The collection spans from 1950-2016.

Series I, Lunar Orbiter, features photographs transmitted to Earth from the Lunar Orbiter, technical documents about the Orbiter’s construction, the NASA request for proposals for the Agena Class Lunar Orbiter Project, and a DVD featuring the 2016 reunion of the crew who worked on the program. Photographs are primarily in black-and-white and include images of the moon taken by the Lunar Orbiter, as well as images of the build and equipment used. These photographs range in size from 4x6" to 21x41". Posters are also included in the series. These posters primarily feature enlarged moon scenes. They also include promotions for the Lunar Orbiter Missions and project history information.

Series II, Viking Satellite, contains the official Landing System and Project Integration technical proposal.

Series III, Minuteman Missile, includes meeting documents and photographs of the instrumentation used in developing the missiles.

Series IV, General, includes items relating to Viele's career at Boeing that could not be attributed to one specific program. This includes a record produced by National Geographic magazine titled “Sounds of the Space Age,” employment forms for Viele, and a set of illustrations featuring Air Force planes. The bulk of the series consists of research files and publications organized chronologically, featuring articles originally published in National Geographic, as well as symposium papers by academic institutions such as the American Geophysical Union and the Langley Research Center, and technical reports by NASA, Boeing, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the American Astronautical Society. This also includes Donald Viele's articles for Scientific American.

Digitized Materials: A selection of materials from Series I (Lunar Orbiter), Series III (Minutman), and Series IV (General) have been digitized from this collection.

Please note that materials on TMOF: Digital Collections are presented as historical objects and are unaltered and uncensored. See our Disclaimers and Policies page for more information.