Glen Swanson

Glen E. Swanson is a historian of space exploration and former Chief Historian of
NASA's Johnson Space Center, where he led the digitization of the Apollo mission transcripts
and served as a consultant to astronauts, authors, and filmmakers.

A Fellow of The Explorers Club, Swanson is the author of Inspired Enterprise: How NASA, the Smithsonian, and the Aerospace Community Helped Launch Star Trek (Schiffer, 2025) as well as numerous essays on NASA history and the culture of spaceflight.

His research sheds light on how the Golden Record emerged from NASA's post-Apollo environment, an era of budgetary restriction and necessary innovation, and how the Voyagers' journey reshaped humanity's sense of itself.