Need Access to NASA Research? Start with our Aerospace and Engineering Research Guide
Yesterday’s launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission has millions of people looking skyward this week. The four astronauts will journey closer to the moon than anyone has in over half a century to gather information critical to planning future missions to the lunar surface and Mars.
The mission launch is a bright spot for space-science research, especially in the wake of the closure of NASA’s library at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland earlier this year. The library’s closure ended access to a long‑standing collection of books, journals, and mission archives that are not fully digitized or readily available elsewhere.
Goddard Space Flight Center was considered to be the “hub of innovation and scholarship for the agency for decades,” and its absence will affect more than just the center itself: researchers who relied on in‑person materials and gathering at a collaborative space may now face delays in accessing comparable research content, and the broader scientific community loses a key resource for preserving decades of space‑science knowledge.
For the public and future innovators, it also removes a tangible link to NASA’s history, making it harder to support education, research and cultural understanding tied to past and ongoing missions.
At UC Davis, engineering students and researchers can find information about NASA through our Aerospace Engineering research guide. Curated by our librarians, the guide is packed with access to NASA’s research, including technical reports, peer-reviewed publications and databases.