Lunar e-Library

Tracy McMahan, a Technical Writer with Qualis, wrote an article for the July 27th NASA Marshall Star about the Lunar e-Library, a new database which Qualis helped develop. Her article, “Lunar e-Library puts space history to work”, focuses on how the Lunar e-Library can aid NASA research. The Lunar e-Library, which was developed by NASA’s Space Environments and Effects Program, based at the Marshall Center, and Marshall’s Engineering Directorate’s Materials and Processes Laboratory, is a literature collection that includes 1100 documents/abstracts including Apollo mission and science reports. Other articles on the project have appeared on web sites, such as CollectSpace.com.

Charlotte Shea and Casey Watkins also contributed substantially to the development of the Lunar e-Library database for which Tracy received a PRIDE Award. Tracy has worked on two other projects focused on space history: a history of early Spacelab missions and science results and the MSFC’s 25th anniversary history.

Before working for the aerospace industry, Tracy was a newspaper reporter and wrote stories about the first Space Shuttle flights . “When I was 11-years-old, I remember watching Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. I remember thinking that if people could travel to the Moon, it meant they had the ability to go anywhere and do anything. It inspired me to take an interest in science and technology and to want to write about science,” said Tracy.