Wife of first NASA filmmaker celebrates life and contribution

Byron Morgan was a pioneer of the final frontier, but instead of going into space himself, he made history bringing the out of this world into televisions across the nation.

Morgan was a Naval aviator in WWII, serving in active duty in Vietnam and Korea, but he was a creative and his true love was film.

“He went to work for a small government agency called the NACA, which was the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, which was formed in 1915,” said his wife, Dell Morgan. She celebrates her husband’s memory every day with her work as a docent at Palm Springs Air Museum.

NACA became NASA in 1958, and Morgan was the first to capture the operations on camera in more than 200 films, many winning international recognition.

While Morgan’s films were used to request funding from Congress, some went to teach science to children in school. Dell Morgan said that is probably one of the more important contributions her husband made, inspiring many of today’s adults with a view of outer space and the work being done to get there.

But it was not always an easy task to film the secrets of NASA.

“Byron asked to put a camera on [the wing of the rocket], and it was turned down, so he put the suggestion in the suggestion box,” said Morgan. That suggestion may have been the catalyst to bring the world the first video of man on the moon.

Morgan is responsible for films like US Project Mercury about the selection and training of the first seven astronauts.

“When it was presented to the head of NASA, he said, ‘Byron, you’ve created a Cadillac, and we wanted a Chevrolet,'” said Morgan.

Morgan also made The Serendipity Machine, Rise of the Soviet Navy, Skylab Demonstrations, and a series of five Future Path shows for television. You can see more of Morgan’s films on NASA’s website.

Despite all Morgan’s work in documenting the start of United States space exploration, his wife said his family was the source of his pride.