eMail to Dennis Wingo Project Manager 11/14/08. A day after the News release of 11/13/08

Dennis,
Well I made it back to my home in Arizona after a 17 hour, two day drive. During that time I had a chance to think about things and a question popped up that I wonder if you would mind answering. However, in order to make my question clear I will need to provide some background.

Back in about 1988 Nancy and I began working on the Lunar Orbiter data recovery project. This came about because Nancy heard about the discovery of the only remaining set of Lunar Orbiter data tapes and mentioned it to me. I thought it would be a great project to digitize this date set and make it available to the public in general. This set me on a task of finding all documentation concerning Lunar Orbiter and what kind of recorder created the tapes. I contacted in excess of 165 people and companies and researched hundreds of technical documents in an effort to understand the data, data format and hardware needed to read the tapes. I located the first three drives which were at Egland AFB, complete with the documentation that you now have. In addition, I wrote documents for support of a possible book about this project by Kevin Kelley, wrote to Dr. Krupp of the Griffith Observatory fr support, wrote several proposals for proof of concept via Mike Malin and developed the VSB de-compressor hardware for the drives. The vast majority of this was done at my own expense.

When it became apparent that the drives might be taken from us, we moved them to a storage place that a friend of mine had and there they sat for the next 6 or 7 years. After my friend could no longer provide the storage place, we moved them to Nancy's "garage", at my expense. There they sat until you found out about them.

Nancy's roll in all of this was basically administrative. She lent credibility to the project and was a liaison to JPL, Caltech and NASA. This is what allowed me access to the tapes in the first place. She had virtually no roll in technical issues, but she did help to write the proposals to NASA which were rejected for various reasons. In any event, I always considered her involvement to be equal to mine and mine to hers, as we were partners in this venture as I did not, and do not "keep score". When you came on the scene Nancy wanted to divest herself of everything having to do with the drives and concentrate on her veterinarian business as she stated in an email to me. However I still maintained that she was a half owner in the drives and should share in whatever happened.

My involvement with this project was based on the desire to see the culmination of a great deal of work on a really interesting project and via that project, contribute a little to science and perhaps get a little credit for my work.

On 10/23/08 you emailed me and said:

We are having a press conference on the 13th of November to show the world our first image. I would like to get Nancy and you your recognition for your efforts on the project. NASA has offered to fly Nancy up here and while I can't promise you the same, we would like to have you here to be recognized for all the work that you did to keep this project alive and save the drives for posterity.

I agreed to come up as this seemed to the culmination of all the work that Nancy and I have done over those many years.

You had indicated that you might not be able to pay me for the trip (implying that money was tight), and I agreed that I would travel at my own expense. And so I traveled from my home for two days, 740 miles to Ames to receive the promised recognition. On November 14, 2008 I arrived on site at 10:00 AM as you requested. As time passed, I noticed that Nancy was introduced to various people, then there was an interview for television. I assumed that I might have a spot later, but it didn't happen nor did the introductions Time passes and Nancy was introduced to more dignitaries. I wasn't. Next we go to the auditorium where Nancy had two separate round table discussions. I wasn't invited to join. At the end of the last discussion I was invited to stand from my seat in the audience for maybe five whole seconds of recognition.

While talking to Nancy after the event I found that her round trip flight and living expenses were paid for, while I had to pay about $450.00 for myself. My lodging was to be reserved at the Ames Lodge, but it wasn't. I was lucky to get a room for one night, for which I paid. I was later also surprised to find that you had invited Nancy to stay another day to "just BS and stuff", an event that I was obviously not invited to.

During my 17 hour, 2 day return trip to my home I had time to think, as I had said. As you knew of the extent of my involvement in this project, I could not come up with a reason why I was not treated in an equal manner as Nancy. I hold nothing against Nancy as she worked hard on this project and I always considered her a partner. But I ask you, why was I given so little recognition when I contributed as much or more?

Just curious.

~ Mark Nelson ~

On the 24th of November, Dennis replied with this:

Dennis Ray Wingo wrote:
> Mark
>
> I wanted to think about this for a few days before responding.
>
> When we were starting this I was more than willing to have you come up and spend weeks at a time like I have to work with me to bring the drives back to life like last time. However, when you told me that you had not done that much on the drives themselves before but had done the demodulator, I went out and found someone with 40 years worth of experience on quadraplex drives to lead that part of the effort. That was a good decision.