History Center Adds Collection of Pittsburgh Astronaut Jay Apt

Jay Apt standing at a distance from the shuttle on the evening before the Apollo 11 launch, July 15, 1969. Gift of Jay Apt, Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives, Heinz History Center.

The Senator John Heinz History Center – the Smithsonian’s home in Pittsburgh – recently added a collection artifacts, photos, documents, and other archival information to its Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives that explores the life of Pittsburgh astronaut Jerome “Jay” Apt.

Fittingly, the collection is available for public research beginning this week, which will mark the 53rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Apt witnessed the launch of the Apollo 11 mission on July 16, 1969, at Cape Canaveral, photographing the monumental event for Modern Rocketry magazine, a publication he helped found at Harvard University. Apt’s press pass and photos of the Apollo 11 launch are included in the collection.

A Pittsburgh native and 1967 graduate of Shady Side Academy, Apt would later join NASA in 1980, working for its Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena and as a flight controller at Johnson Space Center before his selection as an astronaut candidate.

After years of training, Apt flew on four space missions and log more than 847 hours in space.

The History Center collection traces Apt’s lifelong journey, including his childhood in Pittsburgh, career at NASA, his best-selling book, “Orbit,” and as director of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History from 1997-2000. Other materials include personal journals written during his solo trips to Alaska and overseas to Greenland. The collection is an intimate look at what it takes to secure one of the most exclusive jobs in the world.

Artifacts from the collection are now viewable online, along with the Historic Pittsburgh finding aid, and a new entry on the Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania.

Visitors to the History Center can also learn more about Western Pennsylvania’s contributions to the Apollo 11 mission as part of the “Destination Moon” section inside the long-term exhibition, Pittsburgh: A Tradition of Innovation.