Jay Barbree was an American correspondent for NBC News, focusing on space travel. He was the only journalist to have covered every non-commercial human space mission in the United States, beginning with the first American in space, Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 in 1961, continuing through to the last mission of the Space Shuttle, Atlantis's STS-135 mission in July 2011. He was present for all 135 Space Shuttle launches, and every crewed launch for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo eras. In all, he witnessed 166 human space launches.
Barbree in 2000, as Master of Ceremonies at the 50th anniversary of rocket launches from Cape Canaveral
Vanguard TV-3 exploded within seconds of launch on December 6, 1957.
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations report to the president of NBC News, Rebecca Blumenstein. The NBCUniversal News Group also comprises MSNBC, the network's 24-hour general news channel, business and consumer news channels CNBC and CNBC World, the Spanish language Noticias Telemundo and United Kingdom–based Sky News.
1959–1972 logo
NBC News had close to 700 correspondents and cameramen in 1961 who were stationed throughout the world. Film was received in the United States by plane or by the jointly operated NBC-BBC transatlantic film cable.
David Brinkley, one of the network's first anchors
NBC Nightly News Set in 2008
