NASA has been cataloguing, filming and archiving its missions ever since Apollo 11, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the moon.
Nearly 60 years removed from Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind,” Artemis II — NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby in over half a century — showcased how far the agency’s ability to visually document space travel has progressed since Apollo 11. One LSU graduate student played a significant role in documenting Artemis II’s journey.
Film and video librarian for NASA John Hughes is currently pursuing a dual degree in library and information science and archival studies at LSU’s Pinkie Gordon Lane Graduate School. When asked why he chose to study at LSU, Hughes said he wanted to attend a school in the South to reinvest money into the same economy that invested in him.
“I believe there are good things happening in the South,” he said. “There are so many people who need to be reminded that they have the opportunity to do any number of things.”
As a librarian, Hughes and his team were responsible for archiving the information they received from the Artemis II crew as it traveled around the moon.
“While Artemis is on its 10-day mission, we receive thousands of photos and videos every day,” Hughes said. “All of that imagery eventually makes its way to the moving and still imagery repositories where myself and others go through all of it, making sure that each clip and photo is accurately cataloged.”
When asked why archiving space flight is so important, Hughes said that his team’s work helps to form the visual basis for future scientific discoveries.
“You can only learn from your past experiences if you have them,” he explained. “You can’t learn from anything you threw away.”
Because Artemis II was the first mission to go around the far side of the moon, NASA was able to discover craters and lunar features previously unexplored by scientists. Scientists in Houston can later analyze and research the photos but they are also available to the American public.
“[NASA] is not a business; we’re a government entity. And so these photos are paid for with taxpayer money,” Hughes said. “So we want to make sure to keep these images and videos publicly available because they belong to the public.”
Hughes also noted that NASA’s ability to accurately catalogue space travel has advanced considerably since the 1960s. Not only has NASA moved away from fragile, light-sensitive photography, it can also sort information much more quickly than its Cold War-era predecessors.
“We had four active downlinks from Orion at all times,” Hughes explained. “There was a spaceship on the other side of the moon, and we had a live feed inside of it actively getting backed up in real time at all times.”
Hughes does archival work because he aspires to be a good steward of the work of past generations. He said that in the early days of cinema, film would catch on fire, causing entire warehouses to erupt in flames and hundreds of movies to be lost. He said it was a shame that carelessness resulted in the destination of so much information.
“On the human side of it, I think we all like having something tangible that sort of reminds us that the past wasn’t all that different?” Hughes said.
Petroleum engineering freshman Blake Samson agreed that he’d rather deal with physical media over digital media. He said that avoiding it helps to safeguard against government censorship.
“Anti-archiving laws and lawsuits targeting archival sites, like for example the Wayback Machine, are absolutely disgusting,” Samson said. “I am appalled to see our government more obsessed with saving its arm from getting stabbed than saving the bodies of its people from getting torn apart.”
While Samson did not directly have experience with the Artemis II mission, he said it was important to archive the mission as evidence against dissenters who could potentially distort the mission or pretend it never happened.
Despite this, Hughes said that the overall support the Artemis II crew got from national observers boosted its members’ morale, despite the grueling, around-the-clock communication and monitoring.
“Seeing elementary school teachers put Artemis II stuff for their kids during school is like one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” Hughes said. “And to know I’m a very, very, very, very small part meant a lot. And I hope that people just keep up with us because we’re here and we’re putting out stuff all the time.”
