PERSPECTIVES ON EARLY XEFLICHT 

Alex Roland 

The NASA Histcry Seri 

Scientific and Technical lnfmtion 8ranch 1985 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Washington. DC 
NASA rmintains an intcrnd history pmgram for IWO pfkipd (1) Sponrorship af 

rrscuch in NASA-mlatcd history is onc way in whkh NASA responds to the provision of thc 

Nuid Acnwwtis and Spacc Act of 1918 chrt trquira NASA to "pidc for rhc 

pncticablc and rppropriatr dissemination nf int umarion conmning in vtiritics and rhc 

results thf." (2) Thoughtful uudy of NASA bstory can hclp agency muyrs accomplish 

the mioionr asi& to the ync).. Undcrsturdinb NASA's pra aids in ritdcmading in prcsmc situation and illuminam porwMc fururt dirrctiom. Tic opinions and conrlusiom scr fonh in 

this bookarcthorcdrhcauthocs; nodticddthc~ncrrmrilycndomsthorcopinio;aa 

mxlusionr. 

Libn.dCoclgeaGabtjngia~Iky 

Main cnq undcr titk: 

Aspoccfurwptopk. 

(NASA SP; 4401) 

"Essay . . . dc~ircrrd at a confmmcc on thc history ofspace nivity held at Yak Ukity on 

Fcbnrug 6 and 7, 1981"-l1~d. 

1. Anroclurtio-Hinory-Cayass. I. Rdud. Akx, 1944- 

~~788.1.~~ 1981 6s.4.09 a-979 

hr sak by thc Suprrintmdcnr uf bmncno, U.S. Gomnmmt Printing OKcc 

Washingtar, D.C. 20102 

PRECEDING PAGE BLANK NOT FILMED 

iv 
CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

P~gr 

vii 

SCIENCE. TECHNOLOGY, AND MANAGEMENT: 

THE FIRST 20 YEARS IN SPACE 

Spacc Sricncc and Exploration: A Historid Pecspcctivc 

J. A. Simpson ....................................... 3 

Satellita and Politics: Wcathcr. Communications, and Evth 

Resources 

Pamela Mack ........................................ 32 

Managcmcnt of Lacgc-Scale Technology 

Arnold S. Lsvinc ..................................... 39 

Commentary 

I. B. Hollcy. Jr. ...................................... 53 

LITERATURE AND THEMES IN SPACE HISTORY 

Thc Next Assignment: The State of the Litcraturc on Space 

Richard P. Hallion .................................... 61 

A Spacefaring People: Kcynote Address 

John Noble Wilford ................................... 68 

Commcnta~y 

Syivia Doughty Fries .................................. 73 

DOMESnC AND 1NTERNATIONAL RAMIFICATIONS OF SPACE 

ACTIVITY 

Opportunities for Policy Historians: Thc Evolution of the U. S. 

Civilian Spacc Program 

John Logsdon ........................................ 8 1 
Space-Age Europe, 1957- 1980 

Wdter A. McDougdl ................................. 

Space Activities in the Soviet Union, Japan, and the People's 

Republic of China 

Edward C. hell ...................................... 

Commentary 

Richard S. Kirkenddl ................................. 

THE RATIONALE FOR SPACE EXPLORATON 

The Idea of Space Exploration 

Bruce Mulish ........................................ 

A Humanist's View 

James A. Michcner .................................... 

Cornrnen tary 

Carroll W. Punel!,Jr. ................................. 

PARTICIPANTS' BIOGRAPHIES ............... 
The essays on the early years of spaceflight that follow were 

originally prese~ted at a conference on the history of space activity. 

held at Yale University on February 6 and 7. 1981. The conference 

grew out of 3 course 1 offered at Yale University in the fall of 1980 entitled "NASA and the Post-Sputnik Era." Jointly sponsored by 

Calhoun and Jonathan Edwards colleges in response to student interest, the course was quickly oversubscribed. Therefore, the fist purpose of this conference was to provide a larger forum in which Yale 

students could observe-and participate in-informed discussions 

about United States space activity to date. 

The conference attracted a far wider and more diverse audience 

than expected. Pcoplc from all over the country came to New Haven in 

a month when that city is not at its best, and panicipatcd actively in 

the conference and all activities related to it. 

These proceedings would no doubt be richer and more representative of the conference had it been possible to capture and transribe 

much of the discussions about the formal papers. Papa included here 

are basically in the same form as originally presented, with only minor 

editorial revision. James J. Gchrig, formerly of the st& of the House 

Committee on Science and Technology. made the last presentation of 

the final session on "The Rationale for Space Exploration," but his 

remarks were from notes and are not reproduced here. 

Participants brought to the conference a healthy mixture of 

perspectives from history. political science, journalism, politics, 

science, and literature. The commentators all were members of the 

NASA Historical Advisory Committee, which met at New Haven in 

conjunction with the conference. At the last moment, I.B. Holley, Jr., 

graciously replaced another committee member who could not attend. 

Many hands contributed to the success of the conference and the 

publication of these proceedings. Special thanks must go to the staff 

and students of Calhoun and Jonathar. Edwards collc ges for conceiving 

the course on which this co~fcrence was based and for convening the 

original idea into a broader undertaking. Both colieges, along with 

other rcsidrr.:A collega at Yale, also served as hosts to the participants, providing a warm and stimulating atmosphere amidst the 
rigors of winter in Ncn England. Paul hchenbach and Ann Ltnbeck 

were especially helpful and diligent. Monrt D. Wright. then Director 

of the NASA History Off~c, steered the plan through che bureaucracy 

with equanimity and slull. 

Alex Roland 

Durham. North Cvoiina 

1083 

SPACE SCIENCE AND EXPLORATION: 

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE' 

J.A. Simpson 

It is always hazardous to ekaiuate the historical significance of an 

era or a development-whether political or intellectual-when the 

observer is still contemporary with that era. However, when placed 

against the background of the most .significant advances by man 

throughout history, the space age has a secure position. It is the evaluation of the character and significance of the space age, as we shall cail 

it, that we are here to discuss. 

Macauley and Livingstone have noted that "many ingredients are 

necessary for the making of great history . . . knowledge of the facts, 

truth to record them faithfully, imagination to restore life to dead men 

and issues. . . . Thucydides had all three ingredients and their union 

makes him the greatest of historians." I cannot pretend to have these 

credentials but & a scientist whose main objectives have involved scientific experiments in space and who has shared in some of the space exploration, I can at least present my personal views and perspective. My 

task is to examine science and exploration in space, not the applications 

of space science technology. Clearly tcday the main focus is the U.S. 

program. But from a historical viewpoint, it is also important to look at 

the totality of man's efforts in space, in order to recognize the 

significance of individual achievements within the space era. In this 

period, six nations (France, Italy, Japan, China, Australia, and the 

United Kingdom), in addition to the USSR, the European Space 

Agency, and the United States, have successfully iaunched their own 

satellites (app. A). Many other nations have contributed essential experimzr;rs or spacecraft for these launchings. My talk here is neither a 

definitive history or a chronology of develclpments and achievements in 

space. It is a11 overview of the main points of this unique period. 

We are all aware of some of the most spect.;cular and important 

contributions to our knowledge of the physical world 2nd the universe 

around us, which have been made by reaching directly to the planets 

and thereby opening exploration of our solar system. Some of these 

achievements will be reviewed later. But how does this revolutionsry 

* This papcr was supported in part by NASA Grant NGL 14-001-OM and the Arthur H. Comptun Fund. 

3 

PRECEDING PAGE BLANK NOT FILMED 
step into space compare with other giant strides that have triggered 

enormous increases in our knowledge and long-term bendits for man? 

As historical examples we could cite the development of the steam 

engine and the rise of the industrial revolution, or the achievement of 

the sustained and controlled nuclear reaction. 

In my opinion, some important distinctions should be made 

among these advances by considering two (and there may be more) 

kinds of revolutionary developments. The revolutionary development 

uf the fint Rind is one in which a series of critical discoveries were 

preconditions for the start of the new era or new advance. A recent 

example is the nuclear age. One can trace the direct steps from James 

Chadwick's discovery of the neutron (1932) to the Hahn-Mcitner discovery of fission of uranium (1939). to the estabiishmznt of a sustained 

nuclear reaction (1942) and, thence, to applications of nuclear energy 

for both constructive or destructive ends. 

I would define a revolution of the second Rind as the confluence 

of many ideas and developments, each well known for extended 

periods of time, which finally come to perfection to trigger revolutionary developments. An example might be Watt's steam cnginc. His 

invention of the condenser, to save energy lost in the earlier Newcomen 

engine, was crucial to the rise of the industrial revolution and 

represented the revolution's principal technical driver. Concurrent 

with Watt (1736-1815), Joseph Black evolved the concept of latent 

heat. This period was followed by Sadi Carnot of France, who was 

motivated to understand the principles of energy conversion underlying the steam engine by the fact that England had the lead and France 

was behind in this technology. Even though his ideas were bawd on an 

erroneous assumption, he nevertheless laid the groundwork for the 

basic principles of energy conversion in thermodynamic systems. These 

examples are intended to show that there are qualitative differences 

between what 1 call revolutions of the first and second kind. The 

revolution of the jrst Rind is a sequential series of discoveries of 

physical phenomena in nature leading, for example, to a new form of 

accessible energy. A revolution of the secondhind has a broad base of 

many technical developments which, motivated by a need, are finallv 

integrated in a way that leads to further development and a new stage 

of activity for man. 

I believe the achievement of orbiting satellites and probes, as well 

as manned flight in space and to the Moon (app. B), was a revolution 

of the second Rind Why may we think so? Without recounting the 
detailed development of rwker power, we kr!ow tl~ere were two identifiable stages. The first was during World War I1 when suborbital curiers for destructive weapons were developed; and the second emerged 

in the 19505, sparked by the International Geophysical Year (1GY)-a 

program of scientific exploration and discovery concentrating on the 

Ezrth and its surrounding space by scientists in the period 1957-1959. 

The study of the Farth was not etiough. Earth was a part of a larger 

system involving the space around us that linked phendmena on ~&h 

to the dynamics of the Sun. Consequently, there was a strong conxnsus among many scientists in the early 1950s that we must go into space 

with our instrumentation in order to understarld the dynamics of the 

Earth's upper atmosphere, its magnetic field, and related issues. Of 

course, as recounted in stories throughout the past two centuries. there 

was always the dream and expectation of someday entering space. But 

the basis for the strong technological buildup ws the need of the scientists, as well as the d&elopment of rocket power for national defense. 

By that time both the United States and the USSR each had the 

capabilities to launch satellites. Thus, it was on!y a matter of time until 

the first satellite, Spstnik, was launched successfully by the USSR as 

part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) program in science. 

The success of the USSR ctffort did not appear to depend on the latest 

sophisticated technologies. indeed, while the invention of the transistor in the United Statcs led to the rapid development of electronic 

technology (which was to become essential for the pursuit of science 

and exploration in space, and for much of the leadership of U.S. 

science in space), the Soviet achievement was mainly based on utilizing 

what was commonly available-what we would call everyday technutogy of that period. (I can p,orsonally verify this since I was invited in 

1958 to visit the laboratories where the instrurrentation had been built 

for Sputnik and where I could examine firsthand the backup instruments for a Sputnik-type spacecr-k.) Clearlv, in addition to its importance as a political factor, the need to etlter space was driven by 

scientific necessity. 

But what are some of the major achievements in space sciences 

and exploration that could only have come about from activity in 

space? Before direct entry, the only matter accessible for detailed 

analysis was mainly from meteorites cairying s-iiples of the early solar 

system material, wd from cosmic rays whicll are the high-energy nuclei 

of' atoms producec by the nuclear processes associated with the birth 

and death of stars in the galaxy. 
Let us compare our knowledge of specific questions before and 

after cntry into sp. cc: 

&fore, dircct ec7ty into ,pace. major questions wcre open on the 

nature of thc medium bewecn the Sun and thc Earth. Was thc intcrplanctiuy mcdium. as somc bciicvcd, virtually a vacuum and 

static with only occasional interruptions by streams or bursts of puticla from thc Sun? Or was the medium a dilute gas, pcrhaps 

neutral or perhaps parrly ionized? It had kn deduced &at 

rmgnctic ficlds wcfc in intcrplvlttary space. Wcm thcx field- contintiously present and. if so, how wcrc thcy distributed thr:>ugh 

space? 

Aficr. it was pmvcd that thcrc was a ccntinuous flow of ionized gas 

from the Sun, what we today call thc solar wind, rushing outward 

pvr the orbit of Earth to thc outer bouncarics of the solar system. 

This was one of thc altcmativcs deduced by U.S. cxpcrimcnts and 

thcorie. prior to 1957, latcr followed by direct mcvurcmcnts by thc 

USSR and confirmed by U.S. spacc rxperimcnts. Thc plasma drags a 

magnctic ficld, rcprcxntcd by lina of forcc. outward from thc Sun, 

but since the Sun rotate within an apptoximatcly 25-day pcriod, 

the ficld lincs appear in thc form of Archimedcs spirals whosc 

pitch dcpcnds upon rhc local spccd of thc solar wind isct fig. I). 

Before, it was assumed that the Earth's magnctic field mcndcd into 

spacc. supporting an equatorial current whosc changing 

chuactcristics wcrc the sourcc of magnetic storms on hh. including auroral displays. Thc only high-cnergy particles accclcratcd 

by natural phcnomcna known wcrc thc cosmic nys. solar flare particlcs, and auroral particla. 

Afer, it was found that the Earth's ficld supported accclcnted 

charged particla and trapped thcm to form thc radiation kits 

dixovcrcd by James Van Allen and confirmed by the USSR. 

Before, the gcncral view of the Earth's magnttic ficld extending into 

space was dominated by an analogy with an internal sourcc such as a 

bar magnet (fig. 2). thc so-called dipole ficld. 

Afier, thc Earth's magnc:ic ficld was xcn as a ddormablc 

magnctosphcrc confined by the solar plasma with the solar wind 

prcss%g against the ficld on the sunward sidc and dragging the ficld 

lincs out lxhind to form a iargc magnetotail (fig. 3). 

Before, the generation of rnagnctic ficlds in planets was a controvcrsial subject, and it still is. Thc radio crnission from Jupitcr dctcctcd 

from Earth in the 1950s could be cxplaincd in tcrms of a radiation 
bclt around Jupitcr two or three times thc "sizc" of thc planct. but 

rhcrc was no knowlcdgc canccming thc magnetic ficlds .rf other 

phca. 

Aficr. Jupiter was found to posses a giant ficld. full of hightncrgy 

particla. cxtcnding bcpnd thc solid planet in radius to at least 100 

planctaq mdii (fig. 4). From thc Pioneer cncountcr in 1979 and 

Voyager in 1980. Saturn also was found ro have a giant magnctic 

ficld with characteristics intcrmcdhte between Jupiter and Earth. 

Mercury was a surprise, bcing found to havc a kgnctic field and 

cncrgizcd paniclcs whcrc nonc wcrc cxpcctcd. Mars is still somewhat 

an cnigma with a trivially small field and no cvidcncc of pmlilc accclcration. (Thc rclativc sizcs of thc magnctosphcm of thc plancts is 

shown in fig. 5.) 

&$ore. the contending vicws rcgvding the origin of thc Moon cxtendcd from assuming that it evolvcd from thc accretion of cold 

material to assuming that it underwent a hcating and mixing cycle 

similar to that on Emh. 

'4fer. the first instruments c*n thc Moon to dctcrrninc thc lunar 

chemical composition acre on thc U.S. Su~cyor -1sing alpha-pmicic 

scattering tcchniqucs. Thc composition showcd that thc Moon had 

undcrgonc hcating and differentiation (fig. 6) and that thc lunar 

rock was like basalt on Euth. Man's arrival on the Moon was a major 

technical achicvcmcnr of thc 20th ccntuw and samplcs wcrc brought 

back which through thc radioactive isotopes cstablishcd thc agc of 

thc Moon to be about 4 billion years. 

Before. planetology bascd on Earth obscrvaticns and theory icd to 

conflicting vicws on Mars. its seasons. and surfacc featurcs imptiant 

for deciding on the prexncc of prehistoric watcr or cmtcring by 

mctcoritcs, etc. 

After. the surface fcaturcs revealed much of thc early history of Mars 

and rcduced greatly thc ?robability that some form of lifc would bc 

found on Man unless it was prchistoric. Thc Mars missions 

stimulated ncw chcrnistrics. and th; dynamics of Mars's atmosphcrcs 

and polar caps made it possible to understand t!~ xvons on Mars. 

The Mars missions stimulated rcncwcd expcrimcntal interest in 

defining biophysical definitions of lifc and lifc forna and how to tcst 

for them. 

Before. Mcrcury appcarcd only as a fuzzy tennis ball in the highatpowered telescopes. 

Afier, Mcrcury's surface is heavily cratcrcd, showing that in the carly 
PAGE 

8 

Figurc 1. Idtalized diruiburlon of nupccic fidd lints of forct 31 intcrplvmq spatt rmr tht cquatd pLnt of thr sdir q~m. Magnctk feu 

Lints ut d out fmn the Sun by the rind. Spinl-like nn#nuc 

rauln from the Sun's rotation. which has a period of - 27 days. Concmtntions of f~ld lines footed in solar nk ccntm ut regions which weep put 

hh cach - 27 days to prodm pmagncrk dorurbulcrs. (h: 1 AU is 1 

Asmnomial Unit. which is thc mean dirnncc bcrwccn Sun d Euth.) 

phvcs of thc dcvclopmcnt of thc solar q-stcm mcttorita wcrc abundanc in thc inncr portion of thc solar systcm, opening a wholc new 

ficld for pian~tologins. 

&fore, the moo^ of the outer DIVK~ wccc assumed to dl havc the 

samc ofiin, although thcrc wcrc various rnodcls proposed for thc 

atigins of thcx moons. 

Afkr, the Jupitcr cncountcn wcrc thc firu to ftvd that thc moons 

of a plum may be drutidly different from each othcr. as arc 

Callisto or lo. For Saturn thc wnc divcmity exists. For cxamplc. 

comparc ritan versus Mimu. 

&fon, Jupiter's atmosphcrc was an cnigma of color bands with four 

or fivc spots. 

A,h, wc ham a startling vicw of a turbulent atmosphcrc whox 

dynamics arc only beginning to bc undmrood and which is leading 
P= m 

v SrrPc<r. T~~MCXOGY. AND MANAGD~EM 9 

ro invcnigitioos &at dl dtiunizc our hmkdgeofplanmq 

umospherrs,iadudingourom~- 

&,fCwc,tht~spccmunllscdfor?nroromiulob6arrtioascst&fnmrthcndiod~t~thtfuultra~. &. rbcthtufffulspccrrum+ucntmton,d~u~* 

mthmughtothcx-faycmiaion~~~and~tothtgamilrrnys~nuclarpm&wsinourgahxy.Spvrapainxat~and 

obacrntioa~ phgcd an impomant. and many times cnrchl. rde m 

dKirpidldvurcrsi11~pmd~~ofthc19nkht0 

the 1980s. Tby provided much aideme in support of the cooccpt 

of ncum stars and. hta. sllrr of csra high density-so darn 

that their gravitational f& prevented light tiwn amping. the soalkdbMrh&.~lu&smbktomouEddt~. 
-----\ 1 

\ -- 

RAW 

--- 

SHEET 

\ 

MUfRAL SHEET 

Fire 3. Thc current conccpr of gmspacc @own here in a noon-midnight 

meridian ph e) inbdvcs a very cmpkr qrttm. and vet cvcn rht 

sophisticated piaurc is limited by the htt that it has bccn synthesized from a 

xries of indcpmdent mcwrcmcntr coikctcd at different times and pka 

ow thc p m, dcrrdcs. 

Thc most rcccnt sarcllitc for x-rays is thc Einstein Obxn-ator).., orpanding thc regions of univcrx acccssiblc to us by cxplomtion in the 

light of thc x-rays. These and othcr obscnations arc probiding thc 

quantimtivc knowlcdgc with which it will bccomc possible to dccidc 

whcthcr thc univcnc is cloxd (and will evcntuallv contract to a 

singularity). or whcthcr the univcrsc is datincd to cxpand forcvcr. 

Even our Sun. vicwcd in thc light of x-rays, rcvclls rotaily ncw 

aspects of the cncrgctic proccats occurring on thc surfacc of thc 

Sun-many of which havc a profound impact on conditions on hh. 

Furrhcrrnorc, our view of Earth's atmospheric dynamics is decidedly 

rnodificd by what has been lcarnrd from othcr pimcts. On the othcr 

hand. it is dwap diff~uit. and somctirna impssiblc, io decide 

whethcr or whcn new cssentid knowledge on a specific subjcct would 

havc bcen acquircd cvcn if spacc vchicla did not cxht. This is particularly twe in some arcas of astrophysics wherc the continuing 
dWO1IYAL PAGE 1s 

=-QUAUrY 

%!EKE, '~~CHNOLOGY. AND MANAGEMENT 11 

development of b-Jloons, high-dtitudc aircnft. and ground-bad insuumcna arc fihg in new uty of the clcctromagnetic spcctnun. An 

crceknt cxampk is ground-based observations of intcnteh 

mokcuks. 

kt where do I stop with thtx cxunpla? Much has bcm 

ncgltcfcd and I must apologize for this slrctchy ovcrvicw. 

Thcrc arc three ocher nowi, but qualitative. aspects of the mtry 

into thc splcc age which belong in our historial pcrspcctivc. 

First. teamwork and govcmmcnt support havc combined to yiekl 

new approlcha to cxpcrirncna and crplomtions that arc in somc ways 

qualitatively diffcftnt frM thc past &om of a "loncr" mtrcpmr 

scning out for qlontion. It is mw neccavy to havc "progmmmcd 

hcrocs." Only a few can cvry out thc cxpcrimcna; only a fca- personally can cntcr space, and this rcas on compctitivc ptoccsscs occurring in advance of the event for the xlmion of nicntists. engineers. or 

Figure 4. Crors-section sketch of Jupiter and its giant magnetosphere illustrating the fact dlscovcfcd by Pioneer 10 ad Aoneer I I that the rotating 

magnctosphcrt is an enonnous magnetoplum? "machine." 
astronauts and their ideas. For thc scientist this often rncvls a commitment of a decade or more to obtain approval for a mission and to cmy 

out an cxpcrimcnt . Second, there has bccn and continua to bc an eunordinvy colhbomtion among nations for common objcctivcs in space. As cxampla 

I cou!d cite t;x ApobSoyuz or thc European Spacc Agmy 

(ESA)--National Aeronautics and Spre Administration (NASA) International Solar Polar Mission intended to carry spacecraft over thc 

poles of the solar system in thc late 19805-mai's'fim excursion far 

away from the solar quatorial plane (fq. 7). 

Perhaps thc mast signifit cooperation. however, is the don to 

arablish worlciwidc trcatics for space. An outstanding legacy of the 

IGY was the Antarctic Tmcy for thc scientific cxplonrion of the continent. Hopefully, a kgary of our entry into space will bc decfive 

Figurc 5. The mlativc size of thc magncrosphcrcs of the plvlctr is illustrated in 

cros-smkm by lssuming that rwh plvKt lmtd at rhc cmm of tht &awing 

has tht same radius. 

%TUFF( 

30 

EARnr \ 

MERCURY --.-- 

f+, fPLAN€fARY RADII) 

- 








Appcndh B. (Continued) 

Spacecnft Launch Date Cnw Flight Time HlghliLhtt 

Gemini 4 June 3, 196) James A. McDivitt 97 h 56 min maneuven in orbit. 21 .min extr~vchic~~lar 

Edwd H. White, I1 activity (White). 

Gemini 5 Aug. 21, 1965 L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. 190 h 55 min Longest.duration manned flight to date. 

CharIe~ Conrad, Jr. 

Gemini 7 Dcc. 4, 1965 Frank Borman 350 h 35 min Longert.duntian manned flight to datc. 

Jmes A. Lovell, Jr. 

Gemini 64 Dcc. 15, 1965 Walter M, Schirra, Jr. 25 h 51 min Rendezvous within 30 cm of Gemini 7. 

Thomas P. StPfford 

Gemini 8 Mu. 16, 1966 Neil A. Armstrong 10 h 41 min Pint docking of 2 orbiting spacecnft 

David R. Scott (Gemini 8 with Agena target rocket). 

Gemini 9-A June 3, 1966 Thomas P. Stofford 72 h 2 1 min Extravehicular activity; rendezvous. -4 

I 

Gemini 10 July 18. 1966 John W. Young 70 h 47 min Fint dual rendezvcw (Gemini 10 with 

Michael Collins Agtna 10, then Agena 8). 

Gemini 11 Scpt . 12, 1CN6 Charles Conrad, Jr. 71 h 17 min Pint initial-orbit docking; fat tethered 

B 

r 

Richard F. Gordon, Jr. flight; highest Earth-orbit altitude (1,372 g 

h), 

Gemini 12 Nov.11,1966 JmesA.Lovell,Jr. 94 h 35 min Lon~est extravehicular activity to date (Aldrin, 

Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. 5 h 37 min), 

Soyuz 1 Apr. 23, 1967 Vladimir Ma Komarov 26 hr 37 min Cosmonaut killed in mntry accident. 

Apollo 7 Oct. 11, 1968 Walter M. Scl~irra, Jr. 260 h 9 min First US, 3-man minion, 

1 

Dorm F. Ekle 

R. Walter Cunningham 

E 
Appendix 8. (Continued) 

-- 

Spacecraft bunch 

- 

Date Crew Flifit Tlme Hlfilightr - 

Soyuz 3 Oct. 26, 1968 Georgiy kregovoy 

Apollo 8 Dcc. 21, 1968 Frank &rman 

James A. Lovell, Jr. 

V:';lliarn A. Anders 

Soyuz 4 Jan, 14, 1969 Vladimir Shatzlov 

Soyuz 5 Jan. 15, I969 Boris Volynov 

Alckrcy Yeliseyev 

Yevgeniy Khrunov 

Apollo 9 Mar. 3, I969 James A. MrDivitt 

David R. Scott 

Ruucll L, Schwc~ckart 

Apollo 10 May 18, 1960 Thomas P. Stafford 

John W. Youn~ 

Eugene A. Ccrnan 

Apollo 11 July 16, I969 Neil A, Armstron~ 

Michael Col!ins 

Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. 

04 h 51 rnin Maneuvered near unmanned Soyuz 2. 

147 h 1 rnin First manned orbit(s) of Moon; first manned 

departure from Earth's sphere of influence; 

hil~hest speed ever attailled in manned 

flilht. 

71 h 23 rnin hyuz 4 and 5 docked and transferred 2 

72 h 56 min cosmonauts from hyuz 5 to hyuu 4. > 

IC 

241 h 1 rnin Surct~fullv simulated in Earth orbit operation 

of lunar mdule to landin8 and rake-off 

from lunar s~~rface and rejoining with 

command mdule. 

192 h 3 rnin Succcrrfully demonstrated complete sysrem 

I 

including lunar module descent to 14,300 

m from the lunar surface. 

K 

195 h 1) rnin Rnt manned landin8 on lurrar surface and 

safe return to brth, First return of rotk 

and roil sampler to Eanh, and manned 

Appendix B. (Continued) H 

- 

P. 

Sprcecnft Lunch Date Crew Fli&t Time Hifilwtr - 

Aleky Yelixyev 

Nikolai Rukavishnikov 

Soyuz 11 June 6. 1971 Gcorgiy Tirnofrcyevich 570 h 22 min 

Dobrovolskiy 

Vladislav Nikolayevich 

Vol kov 

Viktor lvanovich 

Patsayev 

Apollo 15 July 26, 1971 David R. Scott 295 h 12 min 

Alfred M. Worden 

James Benrn Irwin 

Apollo 16 Apr.l6,1972 JohnW.Young 265 h 31 min 

Charles M. Duke, Jr. 

Thomas K, Mattingly, 11 

Aplh 17 Dec. 7, I972 Eugene A. Grnan 301 h 52 min 

Harrison H. Schmitt 

Ronald E. Evans 

Skylab 2 May 25, 1773 Charles Conrad, Jr. 627 h 50 min 

Joseph P. Kerwin 

board space station launched Ap, 19, 

Crew recovered Apr, 24, 1971, 

Ducked with Sdlyut 1 and Soyuz 11 crew 

occupied space station for 22 days. Crm 

perished during final phase of Soyut I1 

capsule recovery on June 30. 1971. * 

%' 

Fourth manned lunar landing and lint Aplk 8 

"J" series miuiun whirh carry the Lunrr 

Roving Vehicle. Worden's in-flight EVA of 

38 rnin 12 s was performed during return 

trip. 

6 

Fifth manned lunar landinp, with Lunar Roving Vehicle. 

Sixth and final Apollo manned lunar landing, 

again with roving vehicle. 

Docked with Skylab 1 for 28 days. Repaired 

dama~ed station. 
Appendix B. (Continued) 

Spacecraft bunch Date Crew Flight Time Highllghtr 

Soyuz 13 

hyuz 14 

Soyuz 15 

%yuz 16 

Soyuz 17 

Anomaly 

July 28, 1973 

Sept. 37. 1973 

Nov. 16. 1973 

Dec. 18, 1973 

July 3, 1974 

Aug. 26, 1974 

Dcc. 2. 1974 

Jan. 10, 1975 

Apr. 5, 1975 

Paul J. Weitz 

Alan L. Bean 

Jack R. Lousma 

Owen K. Garriott 

Vviliy Lu.arcv 

Oleu Makuov 

Gerald P. Cur 

Edwud G. Gibson 

William R. Po~ue 

Petr Wimuk 

Valentin Zrbcdev 

Pave1 Popovich 

Yurjy Artyukhin 

Gennadiy Swdanov 

Lev Demin 

Anatoliy Filipchenko 

Nikolai Rukavishrtikov 

Alekxy Gubarev 

Gcorgiy Grechko 

Vviley Luarev 

Oleg Makarov 

1427 h 0 rnin 

47 h 16 rnin 

2017 It 16 rnin 

188 h 55 rnin 

377 h 30 rnin 

48 h 12 min 

142 h 24 rnin 

70!) h 20 rnin 

20 rnin 

Docked with Skylab 1 for over 59 days. w 

Checkout of improved Soyuz. !d 

Docked with Skylab I in long-duration 

mi5:ion; last of Skylab program. 

8 

E 

Astrophysical, biological, and Earth resources 

8 

4 

experiments. 

Docked with Salyut 3 and Soyuz 14 crew 

r 

0 

occupied space station for over 14 days. K 

Rendezvoused but did not dock with Salyut 3. 5 

L 

Tot of ASTP confifluration. k !? 

1 

Dwked with Salyut 4 and occupied station 

during a 29.day flight. 

Soyuz stpges failed to separate; crew recovered 

afr:r abort. 

Appendix B. (Continued) 

Sprcemft hunch Date 

Soyuz 28 Mar. 2, 1978 

Soyuz 29 June 19, 1978 

Soyuz 30 June 27, 1978 

Soyuz 31 Aug. 26, 1978 

Soyuz 32 Feb. 25, 1973 

%YUZ 33 Apt. 10. 1979 

Soyuz 34 June 6, 1979 

Soyuz 35 Apr. 9, 1980 

- 

Crew Fli#t Tlme Highlights 

Alcklrey A. Gubarev 

Vladimir Remek 

Vladimir V. Kovalenok 

Aleksandr S. Ivnnchenkot 

Petr 1. Klimuk 

Miroslvw Hermuzrcwski 

Valeriy F. Bykovskiy 

Sigmund Jaehn 

Vladimir A. Lyakhov 

Valeriy V. Ryumin 

Nikolay N. Rukavishnikov 

Georgi 1, lvanov 

(unmanned at launch) 

Lconid 1. Popov 

Valeriy V. Ryumin 

I90 h 17 min Docked with Salyut 6. Remek was first Czech 

cosmonaut to orbit. 

1,911 h 23 min Docked with Salyut 6. Crew returned in 

Soyuz 31; crew duration 3,350 h 48 min. 

190 h 4 min Docked with Salyut 6. Hermvzewski was first , 

Polish cosmonaut to orbit. 

1,628 h 14 min Docked with Salyut 6. Crew returned in 

1 

2 

Soyuz 29; crew duration I88 h 49 min. 9 

Jaehn wu first German Democratic 

Republic cosmonaur to orbit. i 4 

2,596 h 24 min Docked with Salyut 6. Crew returned in 

Soyuz 34; % crew duration 4200 h 36 min, or a 

175 days. r 

47 h 1 min Failed to achieve docking with SaIyut 6 h 

station. Ivanov was first Bulgarian + 

cosmonaut to orbit. 

1,770 h 17 min Docked with Salyut 6, later served as ferry for 

Soyuz 32 crew whik Soyua 32 returned 

unmanned. 

1,321 h 29 min Docked with Salyut ti, Crew returned in 

Soyuz 37; crew duration 4,436 h 12 min. 
Appendix B. (Continued) 

-- - - - - - - - 

Spacecraft Launch Date Crew Flifi t The HiJllights 

Soyuz 36 May 26, 1980 Valeriy N. Kubmv 

Ekrtalm Farkas 

Soyuz 1'-2 Junc 1, 1980 Yuriy V. Malyshev 

Vladimir V. AkKt~ov 

Soyuz 37 July 23, 1980 Viktor V. Gorbatko 

Pham Tuan 

Soyuz 38 Scpt. 18, 1980 Yuriy V. Romanenko 

Arnaldo Tamayo Mendcz 

Soyuz T-3 Nov. 27. 1980 Leonid D. Kizim 

Oleg G. Makuov 

Gennadiy M. Strekalov 

1,580 h 54 min Docked with Salyut 6. Crcw returned in 

Soyuz 35; crew duration 188 h 46 min. 

Fukas wu fmt Hungarian to orbit. 

94 h 21 min Docked with Salpt 6. First manned flight of 

new generation ferry. 

1,911 h 17 min Docked with Salyut 6. Crew returned in > 

Soyuz 36; crew duration 188 h 42 min. 

Pham was first Vietnamese to orbit. 

188 h 43 min Docked with Salpt 6. Tamayo was first 

Cuban to orbit. k z 

307 h 8 min Docked with Salyut 6. First 3-man flight in o 

Soviet program since 1971. B a 
Appmdix C. The United Nations Mooa Treaty 

Thc Moon Tmty has been under discusion since late 1971 when the 

Gcnenl AsscmMy adopted resolution 2779, in which it took note of a draft tmty 

submiacd by the USSR and rcqucstcd the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of 

Outer Spacc (COPUOS) and its kgd Subcommitter (LSC) to consider the qucstion of the elaboration of a dnft international tmty concerning thc Moon on a 

priority basis. 

Thc dmft Moon Tmty is bved to a cmiderabk extent on thc 1367 Outcr 

Spacc Tmty. Indeed. the discussion in the Outer Space Committee confmcd 

the understanding that thc Moon Trcaty in no way derogates from or limits the 

provisions of the 1967 Outer Space Tmty. 

The draft Moon Trcaty llso is, in its own right, a meaningful advance in thc 

codification of international law dding with outer space. containing obligations 

of both immediate and long-term application to such mttcrs as the safeguarding 

of human lifc on celestial bodies, the promotion of scientific investigation and 

the cxchangc of information rclativc to and derived from activities on cclcstial 

bodics, and thc cnhanccmcnt of opportunities and conditions for evaluation. 

rexvch, and exploitation of the natural resources of cclatial bodia. 

The General Assembly, by consensus, opened the trcaty for signature on 

December 5. 1979. 

This appendix prcxnts the text of thc draft tmty in the left column on each 

pagc; in the right column, opposite the appropriate sections of the tat, are some 

comments by the Department of State on the attitude of thc United States 

regarding particular provisions. 

Tmty Text 

A& lI 

A11 mivittcs on rhc moon. includtng irs 

rxpbmrioc!mdur.shallbcamtdourin 

ac~ucclma wnh intcmatlonnl law, in particth thr Chvrtr of thc Unned Nattons. 

and takmg into account the Ckdvntion on Rin d!y la af In-d Law cmcemkg 

Rdntiarr d Gapcntl~ vnong 

Srrramacordanccwith rhcUlvtuofthc 

rJdNatiaa,rdoprcdbytk~4~- 

rmbly on 24 c)cuh 1970. m thr m- oi 

maintaining mmnatiod, pace and ncuriry 

ard pmm~tln~ urmnauorral co-opawon 

and mud un-. and wnh duc to dx c01mpmdmg mtmm of all M Scat5 Panix. 

A& III 

1. Thcvnstnll kdbydlSutcs 

hk CXbVCkV fa -6. 

2. Any thkr or wr of fore or any 

0th han~k act on .rhc moon rs prohibited. 

h rs Lilvwnc pmh~bnrd to rra the moon in 

order to commit any such act or to mpgc in 

any yrth thmr m relation to rhc mh. thc moon. spamnft . thc pcnnnn-l of spacecrafi a manmade obym. 

3. .kites Panics hall not plncr in orbit 

around or other m+oq .n or around tht moon objms curying nuclear wupons or any 0th kinds of nrapons of mzs dmruct~onorplaccot~suchvnpc.mmorintk 

moon. 4. The ~iablrshmcnt of miiicq bua. 

dhtions rd fonifkst'i. tht raring of 

any type of weapons utd thc conduct of 

militw manueuvrcs on thc mwn shall Sr 

W&. Tk un of military pmunnel for 

rkntau research or for any orhcr peaceful 

purpo~cs shall nor bc prohibircd. Tht. ux of 

any qurpmrnt or facility ncc- for 

orplontton and wr of thc moon shall ah nor bc prohibited. 

Ad IV 

1. P-cxpbmtionanduaoftkmm 

shall bc talc provine ofdl mankind and hall 

br mid out for rhc bendit and m rhc in- cncsn of JI countries. inrspcctivc of their 

dcgrec of economic or rcicntifii developmmt. Duc regard &dl bc pd to thc inDIcJt of praent ard futm gemr~tions PS 

well u to thc nccd to promorc h&cr scan- dPrds of living condittons of economtc and 

sad pgrm and dcvriopmnt in asordlll~c wnh thc Chvtcf of the LJnned Natiom. 

Artidc Ill cunmm a smmmcn, of thc 

prirpk that rhc aksuPl bodies Pnd rhsr 

din around them and w rhnn uc only lo 

bc used f.x pclirfui-LC.. nomagpYvc-purpa95. 

Pangraph 2 of hick II1 spcllr out m som dcntl m d tk ucnccs to k 

drawn from Anik 11. paragraph 

2's purpau s to makc cku rbar n IS forbrddcnforapnv~othcMwnTrratyrocnffy 

in an! rirrnr or ux of force on tlr moon or 

in 0th crrcumm set fonh m pmpph 

2 if such ~CKS wodd cons ti ti^^^ a v~OtYtim of 

t'r y 's rnmnatlonal oblgatiom m qard 

rhrcar or ux of force. 
SATELUTES AND POmCS: 

WFATHER, COMMUNICATIONS, AND EARTH RESOURCES 

Since its founding in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has concentratai its effort in developing practical 

uscs for spaceflight, or space applications, in three programs: weather, 

communications, and Earth resources satcllites. Weather satcllites and 

communications satellites have been tested and improved so that they 

have now reached the stage of routine or cpcrationd use, but Earth 

resources satellites are still cxperimcnd. 

With applications satellites, NASA had to solve an extra problem 

not present in most other space projects: thcsc satellites were developed 

<?r users outside of NASA. W. Henry Lunbright, among others, has 

pointed out that conflict often ark when the agency developing a new 

technology is not responsible to the agency that will actually use it. The 

history of the three applications satellite programs shows different kinds 

of problems that can arise from this situation depending on the relative 

power of the various players, .:ie divergence of their interests, and uses to 

which the satcliites can be put. 

For weather satellites, problems between NASA and the user agency 

arose only when the program was nearly mJy to make the transition to an 

operational system. This was true not because of effective cooperation 

with the user, the Weather Bureau, but because of lack of coordination. 

Weather satellites use a television-type camera LO take pictures of 

cloud cover and then radio the pictures to Earth. Two types of weather 

satellites are now uxd: low alt~tudc satellites, which rapidly orbit the 

Earth taking pictures of various arcas, and geosynchronous satcllites, 

which orbit at such an altitude that they always remain over the same 

point of the Earth's surface and therefore provide continuous monitoring 

of the weather on one half of the globe. Communication technology has 

beer, improved so that the satellites now continuously broadcast the 

tclcvision pictures they take. These pictures can be received and used by 

anyone with an inexpensive antenna and printer. The first weather 

satcllita proved immediately useful for tracking hurricanes and other 

large-scde features difficult to observe as a whole from the ground. The 

benefits to routine weather forecasting irave been limited, howc~er, by 

the lack of a model of the aunosphcre exact enough to provide coknpletely 

accurate predictions even from plentiful data. 

Research on the possibility of using satellites to monitor weather started 
as a military project. Thc project was tnosferrcd to NASA in 1959, under 

Rcsidm; Eiscnhowcr's commitment to put as much of the space program 

as poss~ble in civilian hands. The Weather Busu had littk voice in 

NASA's program; NASA fonncd an interagency advisory committee, but 

it had link influence. When the fist weatha satcIlite. Tiros. was 

hunch& in !%O. NASA vkcd the Weather Bumu to dytt the data. 

MettoroIogim find the data very ustful. md within a fm days the 

Wcathcr Burcau started making doud-cover maps from nttllitc dam and 

distribuuly thm~ to mcteofologisrs to aid in ma& mtinc fomas. 

NASA planncd to follow the crperimental Tiros project with a mom 

sophisticad series of proro-opmrd s;lrcllita & Nimbus. lhc 

Wcathcr Bureau. however, found the Tlros data satdktory and was 

suspicious of the plans far Nimbus bnrusc it was very cxpcns~vc and 

might not be ready btforc the last Tiros satellite rnchcd the end cf its 

us&l Me. The Wathcr bu didnot wvlt to commit ioclf to an apensive satellite pmgnm which, once operational. would be paid for cntirely frm the Bureau's small budget. On Srptcm'bcr 27, 1%3. the 

Wcather Burcau officially notificd NASA thzt it was withdrawing fmm 

& Nimbus programs and the existing intcmgcncy agrermcnt, and propwcd an interim opcmtiond satellite based on Tiros and a ncw agreement 

making NASA and the W&r Bumu equal partners. The Wcathcr 

Bumu, a wcak agcncy without much support from its parent institution. 

the Department of Commerce, could afford to m&c such a move only 

because it had found a backer. The Depuunen: of .f offered to 

cooperate with the Wcathcr Bumu and provide the necessary expcnise 

with space hardwarc if NASA rcfustd to mm the Wcathcr Bumu's 

terms. Mnsc was jcalous of NASA for taking ova projms from the 

military spm prognm and was concerned about thc possibility of a gap 

bccwecn *he Tiros and Nimbus prognms that would leave the military 

without storm-warning information it hdy depended on. Faccd with 

losing the whole program, NASA ncgotiatcd a new agtcsment with the 

Wcathct Bureau for a Tim operational synem. 

in this case the political conflict grcw out of the divcrg~~xe of interests 

of the rcxvch agency and the user agency. NASA wanted to develop a 

second generation of satellites employing the mast sophisticated 

technology, while the Weather Bumu wanted to usc the simpler, less expensive system already in hand and not yet firlly utilized. The Weather 

Bureau wanted one sort of .s;ltellitc and NASA wanted another, but instead of compromising, NASA simply ignored the Wcathcr Bureau. This 

namnlly resulted in trouble when the time came for the Weather Bureau 

to start planning to tzlrt over the system from NASA. The location of the 
march function in the opcnting agency, the Weather Bumu, would 

havc slowed down the adnncc d new technology, but perhaps learning 

to use the old tcchnolagy better would havc bem (and wu) morc productive. Rcscarch groups tend towards indcpcndmce, whether they are 

separate or located in opmting agcncics, and mcuchcts can mly sct 

that morc sophisticated technology is not ndy more useful. 

In the case of communicatbns satcllita, the probkm of tmnsitior: 

from an cxpaimcntal to an opcratiod system was compounded by conflict ovcr who would bc the optional user. Thc communications induscry saw the possibility of large profits. and the Congress had to dd 

with tricky philosophical issues of public versus private control. 

Communications ntcllitts relay radio waves carrying tekphonc. 

television. and data signals from one point on Earth to another. NASA 

tested thm varieties. Passive satcllitcr. Wrc Echo, simply provide a rcflcccivc surfacc for radio waves to bounce off. Echo is just a ghnt mylar 

bailoon. Active satellites. which come in two types. mcivc the signal from 

the ground, ampllfy it. and retransmit it to its destination. Low altitude 

rtivc satellites. like Relay and Tclscar. move rapidly relative to the surface 

of the hh. This means that the antcnna on the ground must bc pointed 

to follow the satcllitc and a numbcr of satellites am needed so that one is 

always available above the horizon. Geosynchronous active satellites. like 

Syncom, am placed in such an orbit that they remain always over the same 

point on the Earth's surface. This mo;c distant orbit requires morc powerful tmnsmittca md more sensitive receivers on the satellite and the 

ground, but the advantages of the fixed position arc more important. 

Almost all of the many operational rommun~cations satellites currently in 

use arc of this typc. 

NASA started out with a 1i:nited role in communications satellite 

research-first only passive =aitllitcs, then only low-Jtiiudc 

satellites-because cia division of responsibilities with the Dcpment of 

Dcfenx. Unlike other applications programs, however, this typc of 

satcllite was ckdy going to be profitable to private industry, which 

therefore xt the pace. American Tclc~hone and Telegraph (AT&T) and, 

on a smaller sc-ale, other companies spent their own funds on comlnunications satellite resevch in hopes of getting lucrative contracts hter, or. in 

the case of AT&T, in hop of gaining a monopoly. AT&T developed its 

own low-altitude, actlve, experimental satellite, Tclstar, and requested 

that NASA launch it. This would have put AT&T in a strong position to 

launch the fast communication satellite system as a private vcnture. 

Bccaux of concerns about monopoly, diplomacy, and giving away 

the fruits of government research, private industry did not get the free 
rein it wanted. NASA insisted that a govcmmcnt-funded and 

govcmmcntconuolkd cxpcrimentll communications satellire, to be 

developed under a contract awarded by compctitivc biding (to Hughes 

Aircnft Co. ), be planned fm. NASA cnvisioncd chat her its qmimcnul program. Relay. an opcntiocul communications satellite system would 

bc owned by private indusay. NASA launched AT&l's satellite in Juiy 

1%2 after awarding the contract for Relay . but bcforc its launch. Meanwhile. the Congfesr fought over dctnils of the institutional arrangements 

for the optional system. Thc Department of Sutc was con& over a 

private company controlling the U.S. shvc of an international communications system; tibeds did not want to uc govcmmmt mh 

givcn away foi private profit: conxrvltivcs wanted the govcmment out of 

a function that private industry could handk; and communications and 

wrospacc firms wanted as much of the control and p;ofits as possible. The 

cnd result wu COMSAT. a private mmpany with some board mcmbcn 

appointed by the. President, carefully defined federal juridktions. and 

broad ownership by communications and aerospace firms and the gcncd 

public. 

This political fight slowed thc development of the technology and 

altered its chmctcr. During thc political controversy, NASA pmccdcd 

with rtsclrch on a geosynchronous communications satellite. too advanced for the private companies to risk on their own. The tcsn of this 

satcllitc. Syncnrns I and 11. Iwnchcd in February md July 1963, provcd 

very succcaful. kr the fat operatiand communications satellite sptcm. 

COMSAT chose to develop nut the system of low altitude sarellitcs that 

AT&T and the other communications ctrmpanicj had planned on. but 

rather a much less expensive systcm of geosynchronous satellites. In this 

cuc, unlike that of metcorologkd satellites, the uxrs mcrc grateful -for 

the advanced technology that NASA had developed dcspitc their initill 

lack of interest. 

The transition from an expe:imcntal to an opcraticnd systcm of 

communications mcllita was disrupted by disagretmcnts more ovcr 

political philosophy than ovcr technology. Thc tcchnclogy was Iffected, 

however. when the politkal aqpmcnts provided extra time during which 

a new technology provcd to bc superior. AT&T had wanted to gain control ovcr the systcm by king the fm to develop the technology. The 

company failed to get economic control or contracts for its technology as a 

whole, but tbc &on no doubt srrengthened its position in Cornsat and 

the component market. 

For Emh resources satellites, NASA had to deal with a wide variety of 

uxn, laving the goais of the program uncertain. Without a deu ida of 
who wintld usc the nteIlite for what. choiccs of t-mre 

controd. 

Earth rcswrres ntck proride wide-&, rcpctitivc picnua of the 

surfoccofthtE;rrthfortksur~r]rudmOnit~drt#wcts.nKfirst 

LPrrdrcrt satellite was hunchd in 1972; tk sccond ad third ur still functioning and arry two sensors: a kind of tekvision camera and a sunncr 

that provides more pmk cdor data. Thc satellite radios thc data to 

Eurh, whac it is printed on photographic fh or analyzed by a computer. Even at rhc pr&cnt cou# resolution of 63 to 100 mas. the 

nttllitc ndios dorm 15 million bits of data pcr second. Proctssing. storing. and orurting infinmation from this flood ofdam have prod to be 

the mst difficult tcchdogdcholkngeafthcprojm. Tbcdamk 

bccnuscd~Uy.?tkwonancxpmimmtaisak.todctcctLvgc 

f- associated with oil and minds. to measure thc utu 

planted in diflltrcnt aops (to hclp prcdirt huvtso). to monitor watcr 

distribution and snow cover to predict flooding, and to make maps of 

land use. Uscn include fcdcral. nre. and bd government agencies and 

private firms. 

The icdd agcncics wcm thc only uxrs with a vok in the development of the fm satellite. NASA set up a pro- in 1964 to hatigate 

thc use of space vehick to study Earth rcsourcts and tdcrrcd moncy to 

thc departments of the Interior and AgncuIturc to consider what use they 

could make of the data. 'lhc Dcpvtmcnt of thc Intcriof dcvcbpcd so 

much enthusiasm for thc idea that when NASA moved slowly in mating 

plans for an cxpcrirr.cntd satellite. Intcrior pushed the project along by 

announcing its own satellite program. An indcpcndcnt satcllite project 

was vetoed by the Prrsidcni bccaux experimental satellites werc NASA's 

domain, but NASA spccdcd up its project. The Department cf 

Agriculture propad a difcerat sensor from that daircd by Interior. 

Each agency pushed for a small. simpk satellite with the xnsor that 

would make the satellite most uxful to die agency. NASA conprc?miscd 

by flyijng both senson and choosing spectral ban& uxful for the widcst 

possibk mgc of applications. Some uxrs have complained that thcsc 

spcctrai bands make the data difftcult to use bccwx the) arc not optimal 

for any application. Comprorni;cs werc also made in the choice of orbit 

and NASA settled for two #nsoa instead of the more ehb~mte cxperiment it had originally propad. 

To further complicate the situatim. NASA SIM realized that some 

of the greatat benefits from hdwt would come from irnprovcd resource 

management on thc state and 14 level. NASA had dcvclopcd the 

satellite without consulting thcx uxn. and it proved diffiialt to persuade 
rhcm to usc thc new information. NASA set up a tcchndoCZy tnnsfer program for -, which muted mt just publicizing infcrnauion but has 

graddy dcvdopcd joint projms that ut c&ccnt in convincing stktrs to 

USC Lwkitdata. 'Iht states have been rehrtvlt to participate kausc of 

dinrust of sophiskated mhodogy. vhich NASA as m agency scam to 

symbolize. and bCC?USt they did nor waot to make m invatmcnt -ti1 

tht~fognmhadsmkdintoafioaiopmtiolrulh.Beaunof~iack 

of immediate bcnefii and wick use lficr the 1972 hunch of the ftrn 

sarcllitt. the Offk of Mlnyacnt and &Idget has oppod the uansition Ofhmhtfnwn an crpaimmul projm into an opcntiod program. T!x commitment ro m opcntimd pragnm. to bc mulyd by thc 

Nud Ocd and Atmosphcm Administration. was made only in 

htc 1979. 

In the case of Lardrot. NASA sucrcafully phyd thc uscrs off aginst 

mh other so that nont had coaml. but thc rr=ult was a projcct with a 

shortage of gods d support. Thc uxn NASA was most intcrcstd in. 

stltc and locd pvcmmcnts, had nor &cd for the projcct or shapcd the 

system into something uxful to thcm. kame of this and thcir lack of 

cechnoiogical sophklc?tion. rhq had lit& intcmt in adopting the ncncechniqucs NASA had dcvelopcd. Perhaps with morc involvement of tht 

users in tk dcsrgn and mow undcntudmng of th- dfiisim of ncw 

techniques. thc projcct would have bought morc benefits by now. In my 

ax, the politics of balancing the demanding agency uscn and the concept of future state and local wn forced NASA to ch- the most 

ncutd technology-useful to mryonc but id4 for no use. NASA provided different techno& than individd users wanted in order to makc 

me satellite xrvc the whok range of uscn. The cornbinxion satellite is 

not compktcly s;rtisfmory. but thc Offkc of Management md hdga 

would probably not have approved more than onc satellire. 

NASA has found the process of dcvekqing satellite programs for other 

agencies hught with controversy. The space agency has. probably 

unavoidably. Mcd &a its own inttrcsa in expanding its fcxvch pro 

gnm and punucd advancing technology without much sensitivity to thc 

n& of thc cvcntual usm. The probkm n a tricky ow. howcvcr. 

bccausc NASA can chm with some didity that rhc uscn, beaus chq 

uc riot technologically sophisticated, do not rcalizc the potential bcdm 

of ncw tcchnology Thc thm cvts of appii~rions ntcllitcr shim the uscn 

as scmctima grateful and sometima not for thc technology dtvcbpcd 

despite thcir wishes. The answer. 1 believe, Ik not in a htct baiancr 

bcrwttn the wn' demands and NASA's ideu. but in tllcmg tht trcwbk 

to cducatc the users to puticipatc in the klopmcnt of the technology. 
ld*tnfonm:unarrclrhamrrlimccrma~Rrhud~~r~drsnn 

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M\dtr~~~ndrommucuutrcmsnrrllnaabacdmasthm~hnadunF Gdhmr TkPahas~ 

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MANAGEMENT OF LUGE-SCALE TECHNOLOGY 

Thc history of thc United Statcs spacc program in the lc%Os has thc 

appeal of something conccivcd with magnificent simplicity and carried 

out on thc grand scale. &tween 1961 and 1970, the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration (NASA) launched several dozen unmanned 

spacccraft, rcvolutionizing con~munications and metcorological 

technologits, on thc onc hand, and clcctronics and sohare dcvelopmcnt 

(HI the other. But in the public mind. NASA was most closely associated 

with thc manncd spaceflight programs-Project Mercury (1958-1963). 

which rmed thc ability of onc man :o function up to xvcnl hours in 

Earth orbit: Gemini (1962-I%), in which two mcn in onc spacecraft 

wcrc wigncd a varicry of rasks. incluaing rcndczvous and docking in 

hth orbit with a targct vehicle and moving around outside thc spacecraft 

itself, and Apollo (1961-1972). whcrcin thrcc-man crews wcre xct on 

progrcssivcly morc ambitious missions. culminating in the lunar landing 

of July 1969. Mcrcly to sketch the civilian spacc program thus is to indicate the magnitude of NASA wignmcnts and thc scope of its succ~. 

Onc must take seriously the contention of Jamcs E. Wcbb, NASA Administrator from 1961 to 1968, that the succcss of NASA was a success in 

organizing "large-scale cndcavors," i.c., that the samc system of 

management that made the lunar landings possible may also have bccn 

thcir mosi important byproduct. 

In this paper. I am going to try to answer th: following qucstion: 

What can thc study of NASA, as an organization. tach us? Using 

Webb's concept of thc large-scale cndcavor as a starting point, I will concentrate on NASA as a going concern; in other words, as an organization 

that, instituted for specific purposes, strove to maintain itsclf, to opctatc 

within thc terms of its establishment , and to compete with other agencies 

for the limited resources madc available by Congrcss and the White 

Houw. Put dfiercntly, thema running through this paper will be: (1) 

how a high-technology agency was run in a dccadc marked by rapid cxpansion of funds and manpower in thc first half and almost as rapid contraction in the second: and (2) how NASA combincc~ centralized planning 

and control with dccentralizcd project cxecution. in turn, cach of thew 

themes raiscs subsidiary questions: What criteria r!id the agency use in 

choosing its contractors and, in thc absence of markcr conditions, how did 

it supervise thcm to gct the hvdwarc and services for which it contracted? 

How did NASA rnainta~n its indepcndcncc vis-i-vis the Dcpartnient of 
Defense (DoD). the one federal agency with which NASA had to come to 

terms? 

The concept of the luge-scale cndeavor is useful but, at the same 

tirnc, difficult to pin down. In his Spuce Age Management, drafted in his 

last months at NASA and published shortly after hc raigned as administrator. Webb discussed the chmctcrisrirs of the large-scale 

endeavor. Typically, the cndeavor rcsults from a new and urgent need or a 

new opponunity created by social, political, tcchnologic~l, or military 

changes in the environment. Most oftcn. it rquira "doing something for 

the fim tirnc and [has] a high dcgrcc of unccnainty as to prccix results." 

and it will have second- and third-order conxqucnca, oftcn unintended. 

bcyond the main objective. Finally, such endeavors "do not generally rcquire new organizational and administrative forms, but the more cffcctivc 

utilization of existing forms." * Webb's description can, of course. apply 

to many cndeavon beside the space program; the attempt to build and 

operate a national rail passenger network, to develop a strategic 

petrolcum rcscrvc, to build the Alaska pipeline. or to conduct the War on 

Poverty-all share many of the features Webb enumerata. But the spacc 

program and the projects comprising it had certain advantages in 2 taining its goals. stemming from thc nature of its mission, which most of the 

endeavors namcd above lacked. 

Fast, the NASA goals could bc stated in prccisc. operational tcrrns. 

The agency would dcscribc a god within the broader mission: put a commurlications satellitc in synchronous Earth orbit; or. develop an unmanned cpaiecraft to soft-land on the Mcm and a vchiclc with a liquidhydrogen uppcr stagc to launch it. Such precision may be contrasted with 

those federal agcncia charged with improving the quality of education. 

fighting alcoholism and drug abux, or finding permanent jobs for the 

hard-core uncmploycd. As Charla Lindblom and David Cohcn have 

noted, "Government agcncia are again and again assigned . . . raponsibilitics bcyond any penon's or organization's known competence. They 

do not typ~caliy resist these assignments because they are funded and 

maintained for then efforts, not for their rcsults.'' 3 

Second, NASA in the early 1360s had an organizational flexibility 

-anmatched by any agency of compamblc size. In this period NASA had 

no formal agency-wide long-range plan; no general advisory committee of 

outside scientists. such as those mablished for the A:omic Energy Commission and the Depvunent of Ddcnx; no inspector-general, chief 

nientis~. or chid engineer; no centralized range structure for tracking. 

.lata acquisition, and mission control; no central p!anning st& attached 

to the Office of the Administrator. Thex functions wer: handled in 
other. much more deccndized ways. Moreover, the absence of a plan or 

general advisory committee mcd the agency from becoming aptivc to 

policies which might cease to be relevant. To maintain this flexibility and 

to adapt the agency to change, there were frequent reorganizations, 

notably in 1%1. 1963, 1965. and 1%7. But they were not ends in 

themselves. They were designed less to xt certain things right-for instance, to improve cornrnunicatlons between decision-makers and their 

supporting st&, or to free the field centers from unneeded supcrvision-than to turn the agency from one set of programs to those of quite a 

different sort. For NASA was vulnerable. It had to stake a claim to territory of its own, rather than becoming (as its predcccssor, the Nationd 

Advisory Committee for Aeionautia, had been) a supporting arm of the 

military services, or a supervisory agency with a small in-house stdT and 

cc?ntractor-opcrateci facilities. like the Atomic Energy Commission. 

Finally, NASA in the 1960s was an agency with a single mission-to 

land a man on the Moon and return him szfcly before the end of the 

d~cadc-but with numerous subordinate gods. The Nat~onal 

Aeronautics and Space -4ct enacted by Congress in July 1958 wds permissive rather than mandatory, so far as ends were concerned. It was a 

shopping list as much as an enabling act, freeing NASA to pursue those 

pr~qpms that were at once technically possible, politically feasible, and 

challenging enough to enlist the support of key technical personnel. So 

that the agency might keep abreast of technical developments, NASA officials thought i, nccesjary to devtlop capabilities in basic research or in 

propulsion that were independent of any specific mission or use. This 

policy lessened the danger, noted in a 1966 Senate report, that "there 

may be a pcnalty attached to the 'approved mission' policy for advanced 

development. Premature obsolescence is one hazard. Commitment of 

resources before the full cost-benefit is another. The narrowing of component and subsystem engineering is a third." 

But the conditions I have listed do not explain NASA's success in 

managing large-scale technology. Precise goals and organizational flexibility help to set the rulcs of the game; they dcfinc, as it were, a policy 

space in which NASA could manage its programs. To show how NASA 

managers worked within that policy space, I want to discuss three areas: 

the problems faced and met in setting up a headquarters organization; 

selecting contractors who could operate in the peculiar environment of 

very large research and development (R&D) programs; and the means by 

which NASA kept the military at arm's length, while receiving the support necessary to Izunch and track Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. These 

areas, it seerns to me, can tell I great deal about the success of NASA's ap- 
proach to getting ~ts R&D work done. In the find section of this paper, I 

will mention some of the lessons learned and the extent to which NASA 

can serve as a precedent for other luge-scale endeavors. 

Headquarters-Center Relations 

Established by Congress in the aftermath of Sputnik I 2nd 2, NASA 

quickly grew by accretion, the incorporation of older installations, and the 

creation of new capabilities into an agency with 36,000 civil service 

employees and 3 budget of $5.5 billior~ by 1765-1766. Indeed, by 1962, 

NASA had taken on most of the features It possesses today. It was headed 

by an Administrator supported by a Dcputy and an Associate Administrator; together, thew officials comprised the agency's top management. Under them were bureaus with agency-wide functional responsibilities for procurement, budget preparation, personnel. public dfairs, 

and legislative affairs. Additionally, there were four program offices, each 

headed by an Associate Administrator and responsible for NASA's 

substantive programs. From 1763, these offices were: Space Science and 

Applications; Manned Space Flight, which was responsible for Mercury, 

Gemini. Apollo, and the follow-on to Apollo that became Skylab; Advanced Research and Technoiogy, which managed NASA's aeronautical 

research, as well as the supporting research for the other program office:; 

and the Ofice of Tracking and Data Acquisition. All of the field centers 

reported directly :o the program officer. Thus the 14arshall Space Flight 

Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the Kennedy Space Centcr at Cape 

Canaveral, and the Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston all reported to 

the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight. The older research 

centers which predated NASA reported to the Ofice for Advanced 

Research and Technology, while the Goddard Space Flight Cent :r in the 

Mxyland suburbs of Washington reported :o the Office of Space Science 

and Applications. There was one other installation that was unique. This 

was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which wzs 

operated by the California Institute of Technology under contract to 

NASA. JPL was (and still is) responsible for managing NASA's deep space 

and interplanetary probes and, consequently, teported to the Office of 

Space Science and Applia 2.tions. 

Clearly, a summary of names and reporting responsibilities tells very 

little ahut relations between headquarters and the field centers. The tensign between headquarters and the centers was built into NASA. Headquarters, itself almost a kind of rival installation, had certain key functions: to prepare and defend the agency budget, to allocate funds for 
R&D and the construction of facilities, and to serve as a cenuzl control 

point. Beyond this, hre were problems which senior management could 

hope to resolve only after years of trial and error. One of these wls 

whether the ccntrrs sl~ould repon directly to the agency's general 

manager-the Associate Administrator-or to the heads of the program 

offices. The first approach was the logical solution when the centers were 

involved in a variety of projects; the second. when each center hdd a 

carefully defined task distinct from the other centers. Another problem 

was how centers reporting to one office could work with thw reporting to 

another. A third was the probltm of project assignment: wheher to give 

the entire project to one center, split it between the cwten and designate 

one as "lead," or put the entire project managemem ream in headquarters. A fourth proble..~ was how to convert the older rcsearchoriented institutions into managers of large development contracts. And 

all of these problems were compounded by the difficulties faced by headquarters and the centers in communicating with each other. The greater 

the pressures of time, the faster the rate of significant change in the environment; the more interrelated the various programs, the more d~fficult 

and necessary adequate communications would be. 

Yet, by the end of 1963, al! of these problems had brcn provisionallv 

solved. NASA's top officials stressed that project management was the 

field installations' respor~sibiiity and that, within certain limitations imposed by Congress, directors and project managers could move some 

funds from one budgct category to another. For all flight projects except 

Apollo. there was co be one lead center, regardless of how many installations actually participated. The tools for getting the job done would be 

grouped in related fashion. Th~is the Office of Applications, which used 

the same launch "chicles and centers as Space Sciences, merged with it in 

1963. Each center was to have the capacity to manage large development 

contracts, and, if necessary, assign projects for which new skills wo~ld 

have to be recruited; the skills to integrate the subsystems of a project 

parcelled out amcng two or three different centers; and the ability to draw 

on the resources of other centers illstead of duplicating them needlessly. 

Concurrent with the change by which the centers reported directly to the 

program offices, NASA instituted two other refolms which greatly improved opentions. It unified all launch operations at Cape Canaveral, 

where previously each center had had its own launch team; and it 

established intensive monthly status reviews, at which Associate Administrator Robert Seamans would sit down with the heads of the program ofices to review planned versus actual allocations, at the centers and 

at contractor plants: planned versus actual expenditures; miiestones in 
program and procurement schedules; and advanced studies prior td their 

completion. Thex recurring meetings enabled top oficik to use avcrlapping sources of information, give all points of view an airing, and 

eliminate thc middleman in channeling information upward. 

NASA Procurement Strategies 

Next to the ordering of headquarters-center relations and inseparable from it, the most important dtilsion made by NASA officials 

was to rely on private industry rather than in-house staff to implement its 

R&D programs. Contractors were involved at every stage of R&D a.rd for 

every purpose, from the preparation of advanced studies to systems 

engineering, manufasure of hardware, checkout of flight equipment, 

operation of tracking stations, etc. From the outset NASA chow to follow 

the Air Force 2nd the Atomic Energy 'bmmission ia contracting out; in 

particuiar, the Air Force and its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) 

programs were the only programs since the Manhattan Project comparable 

to the NASA mission. Both ICBM and Apollo had in common 

technological complexity, tight time schedules, unusual reliability requirements, a general absence of quantity, and little follow-on production. Although some 20,000 frrms were working on Apollo in the 

mid-1'/60s, a 1969 study showed that NASA had bought only 20 Mtrcury, 13 Gemini, and 38 Apollo spacecraft i~~cluding test models and 

spacecraft modified for changed mission objectives. NASA usually had to 

contract for products whose main features could not be precisely defined 

in advance, so that there was no clear-cut basis on which the bidder could 

make realistic cost estimates. For R&D program: of this son. NASA 

waived formal advertising in favor of negotiations with selected bidders. 

Viewed in this light, the rationale for an in-house technical staff was 

to enable NASA to retain those fiinctions that, it has been said, no 

government agency has the right to contract ou:, functions cnurneratrd 

by a former Director of the Bureau of the Budget as "the decisions on 

what work is to be done, what objectives are to be set for the work, what 

time period and what costs are to be associated with the work, what the 

results expected arc to be . . . the evaluation and the responsibiiities for 

knowing whether the work has gone as it was supposed to go, and if it has 

not, what went wrong, and how it can be corrected on subsequent occasions." This, in fact, was NASA's position: that thc rapid bui!dup of 

the Gemini and Apollo programs precluded reliance on government 

employees alone; that it was agency policy not to dcvelop in-house 

capabikies already available in the private sector; that NASA employees 

were needed for technical direction rather than for hardware fabrication or 
SCIENCE. TECHNOLOGY, AND MANAGEMENT 4 5 

routine chores; that NASA had developed safeguards for policing its contractors; that it was better to let the up-and-down swings in manpower 

take place in the contractor, rather than the civil service, w,xk force; and 

finally, that the practice of using support-service contractors had been 

fully disclosed to Congress and the Bureau of the Budget. VASA was 

prepared to go even further. When Cocgress and the White Hocse began 

to cut NASA's budget from 1?67 on, NASA laid off its own empl~yees at 

several centers before dismissing contract workers. Morc remarkable still. 

NAS-i's position has been sustained ir: the federal courts and would seem 

to have government-wide application. 

In the short run, NASA's use of negotiated competition for large 

R&D contracts must be judged a success. It ~nnbled NASA to assemble 

manpower-some 420,000 contract and government employees in 

1966-and disperse it gradually as the manned space program phased 

down. It tapped capabilities already available, and saved NASA from 

hdving to drveiop those sanc capabilities from scratch. Since the largest 

prime contracts- those for the Apollo spacecraft or the Saturn rocket, for 

example-required thousands of subcontractors, NASA's R&D moriics 

were spread over much of the United States, so enlarging the agency's 

clientel,-. But the system had serious weaknesses. Despite the introduction 

of incentive provisions and the negotiation of contracts for successive 

phases of the RBiD process-phased project planning--NASA was 

unable, dcspite the most strenuous efforts, to police its contractors The 

idea behind incentives was to reward the cantractor for staying w~thin cos; 

and an schedulc and to penaliz: it for falling short. But while incentives 

might reduce they could not eliminate the iecfinical uncertainties dogging 

most R&C programs. A contract designed to cover everythl,.g from the 

eariy development phases to small-quantity production was not flexible 

enough far the kind of prDgram where the end iten1 changed 7ver the life 

of the program. The contradiction between fmed targets and changing 

programs was not easy to recor~cile. Moreover, the sheer size of these programs made it exceedingly difficiilt to find out what was going on in the 

field. NASA did not even pretend to review work belo,: the first tier of 

subcontractors. NASA's inability or unwilling~less to force its contractors 

to make major design changes led to the January 1967 fire which killed 

three prtr~nsiits and caused the Apollo program to slip IS months. 

An\ dw in NASA's procurement system was that competition 

for major contracts dwindled in the 1960s. There is rewn to believe that 

NASA rhox competitively more frequently in the late 1950s and early 

1960s than it did later. It may be that by 1965 there were fewer new 
systems on which to hid. or that thc high cost of cntry locked out prospcctivc competitors. It was not only crtpcnsivc to get into thc space busincss 

but cvcn morc cxpensivc to stay in; th~s Grumman. NASA's numhr two 

prime contractor during the latcr 19605, virtually withdrew from space 

systems her completing its work on the lunar module and the Orbiting 

Astronomical Observatories, both of which wcrc plagucd with overruns 

and trchnical dificuftics. And as aerospace firms mcrgcd or wcrc bought 

up by compctltors. NASA found itself locked into an industry structurc 

for which it was partly rcsponsiblc. 

Finally. cvcn in thc 1960s NASA dici not havc a11 the in-ho~x skilis 

it would havc nccdcd to prov:.!c its contractors with completc tcci~nical 

dlrcction. NASA had to call in Eking to intcgratc rhc Apollo spacecraft 

with the Saturn V launch vchiclc; General Electric, to check out flight 

equipsent at Capc Canavcral; AT&T. to m up r wholly-owncd subsidiary to do systcr~s cnginccring and long-range planning for NASA. It 

must bc strcsxd that NASA+. in the Apllo program, ps~cd a far 

,rcatcr dcpth of cxpcricncc and talent than thc Air Forcc's laboratoria or 

the Special Projects Oficc that devclopcd the Navy's Polaris. NASA pcrsonncl determined the cond~tions undcr which contracticg would bc 

necessary. anticipated problcms before the contractor. reviewed thc contractor's work. and terminated thc contract. But thcrc wcrc areas whcre 

NF.SA cnginccrs did not havc thc same dcgrcc of compctcncc as thcu 

contractors. and where NASA had little cl~oicc but to accept the contractor's analysis. This was thc case when NASA had morc than 35,000 

rmployccs. In thc era of the Space Shuttlc, NASA, with pcrhaps 40 pcrcent fcwcr cmpioyccs, probably has less real control, less ability to change 

thc scope of work, than it had 15 ycln ago. 

Thc final arca I would likc to discuss is NAS.4.s relations with the 

Department of Ddensc. Units such as the Dcfcnsc Supply Agency. which 

administered many NASA contracts, thc Army Corps of Enginccn. which 

mulaged NASA's largcst construction projccts. and thc .4ir Forcc, which 

dctailcd officers to xrvc as program managcn and directors of ccntcr 

operating divisions-all of thcsc provided csscntial support to the agency. 

This was in addition to thc cariy. oncc-only transfers of launch vch;clcs 

likc Saturn, spacecraft likc Tiros, contractor-operated facilities likc the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory, 2nd thc ttdrnical skills of Wcrnhcr von Bmun's 

tcm of cnginccn. Simply to list cxarnples, howcvcr, gives only thc barest 
hint of thc significance, for NASA. of thc totality of such support. Thc 

csstncc of thc NASA-DoD relationship had far morc to do with mutual 

nccd than with philosophical argument: conccrning thc cxincncc or thc 

dcsirabiliry of c~c spacc program or rwo. The Space Act itself could only 

outlinc thc xopc of interagency relations in :tic most gcrcd way. Thc act 

dcclarcd that. wEilc aeronautical and spacc programs would bt managed 

by a tivtlian agcncy. "activitlcs pcculiar to or primarily wociatcd with thc 

dcvclopmcnt of weapons systcrns . . . or thc dcfcnx of thc Unitcd 

Statcs" would rcmain DoD's rcspon~ihility; and it cnioincd NASA to 

makc avai1ab:c "to agcncics directly conccrncd w~th national 

dcfcnsc . . . discovcrics that hzvc military vduc or significancc." It is 

wcll, thcn. ta set u'dc prcconccptions. "Civilian" 2nd "military" wrrc 

not thc umc as "pcarcfu!" and "non-pccful". duplication d programs could bc "warranted" or "unwarranted": wh~lc much of thc 

strugglc over the military uscs of spacc ws as much btrwccn clcmcnrs 

within DoD as ktwccn DoD and NASA. 

Thc princi#s underlying thc U.S. spacc program rcsultcd less from 

anything enunciated in thc Spacc :,ct than from Prcsidmt Kcnncdy's 

dccision in May 1961 to sign thc lunar-landlng program to NASA. But 

this dccision was prcccdrd by carlicr moves by NASA and DoD officials 

aid by Congrcs to prcvcnr an Air Forcc takcovcr. Thrcc of thcx mova 

wcrc paiticululy irnprtant: thc qrccmenrs ratificd by Wcbb and civilian 

Defcnsc ar?d Air Forcc officials whlch laid (he ground for funhcr cmpcration: thc March 1961 ordcr of Sccretq of Dcfcnx Robcrt McNamara 

which, by wigning most DoD spacc programs to ihc Air Forcc. thcrcby 

gilvc rnc Sccrctary tighter control ovcr dl military spacc operations: and 

thc p~cssurc cxcncd by the Houx Cornmittce on Scicncc and 

A3tronautirs. which authorized NASA's budgct, to givc NASA the lion's 

&arc of .aanncd spacc programs. With thc backing of thc Prcsidcnt and 

much of Congress and thc acqllicxcncc of McNmua, NASA. on thc onc 

hand, nakcc: out its position as an indcpendcnt agcncy whilc. on :he 

othcr. waging a quict behind-thc-xcna battlc wtth DoD o maintain 

that idcpendcncc. Beginning as *r: agcncy hcavily dcpcndcnt on DoD 

suppc, NASA succccdcd in frcclng itsc!f from oven DoD control by 

1963. Whcthcr ~t was thc managcmcnt of Gcnini. the mmagcmcnt of 

what bciamc the Kcnncdy Spacc Ccntcr, or thc cxstcr.cr of colocatcd 

NASA and DoD tracking stations. rhc pattern was thc samc. NASA 

would cooperate wi:h DoD. but never to thc point of giving away its 

authority 10 mcct its nccds. NASA wcrtcd is right to modify military 

launch vchirlcs to scsc as boosters. ict contrarrs to firms alrcady hcavily 

involved in dcfcnsc work. and conduc:cd advanced studies on manncd 
spacc stations at the same time that DoD was tying to dcveko its own 

Manned Orbiting Laboratory. 

During NASA's fm three ycus, k Air Force xnt to considcrabk 

kngths to bccomt the dominant partner in the national spacc program. 

Even some years late the dircctor of NASA's OfEzc cf Dcfcnx Affiirs 

could observe that "the Air Forcc is inclined to look upon NASA as a 

competitor rather than a ovtncr LI the ficld of spacc." By 1963, however. 

the Air Force ndcd NASA almost as much as NASA needed the Air 

Force. NASA was doing important rcsxch in the life sciences and propulsion. and its centers had test facilities that the xrvim needed badly. 

The framework within which the two agcncla had to coexist had to licommodate many arrangements: whether it was a program musgcd by 

one agcncy with thc othcr snaring in the planning of experiments; a joint 

program; a program started by one agency and tnnsfer;cd to the other; a 

joint program mtly funded by one agency; or programs whox succea 

dcpcndcd on the functiofiing of xpamte. coopcrating systems. The 

preconditions for coopcmclon were that DoD accept NASA's definition of 

a coordinated program as one where conrurrcncc was "not rcquircd as a 

F;-- -condition to funhcr action" and that both agencicj should ccntMLizc 

the organization of their spacc and launch vehidc prognms to make 

cooperation pcssiblc. Bctwccn 1960 and 1963, th~e conditions were met. 

The Lessons bed 

Thc conciusion I wish to draw from thex casts is that NASA's 

rcm~kablc s;lcccss in managing R&D dcpcndcd on the ability of the 

agency's top officials to enunciate gods, :o shape the agency from within. 

to dclcgatc to thc program offica and centers the a~ithority to get the job 

done. and to kccp DOT) at mi's length. Once NASA began to lac the 

support of the White How and Congress-rogghly from 1367-the difficulty of running the age~cy bcrame much greater and NASA began to 

rcxmblc any othcr laigc government organization which rcdoubla its cffort as it forgets its aim. The same combination d organizatioad and 

po!itical elements which made for succers in thc first half of rhc 1360s 

could not say the reduction and cancellatiom extcndirhg from 1%: 

dmost to the present. 

Mattm 

Ir. 1961, NASA was still a laxly-structured agcncy whox field 

centers worked in relative isolation from each other and from headquarters. The lunar-landing mkion demanded much greater coordinatioo-and hr the time being, grater centralization-than had betn the 
asc. One of the most important aspects of the Apollo program was the 

speed with which the crucial administrative and program decisions were 

made and the major prime conm awarded. Except for the decision to 

gcz to dl-up testing (the tescing of dl the mapr Apollo components 

together), rhc principal Apollo prognm dccisiom were made between 

August 1% 1 and the end of July 1%2. Had they been stretched out over 

a 6ngcr period. it sterns unlikely that they -Id have mcivcd the support that they did. A comparison bctwten the establishment of the Manned Spvecnft Gnter (MSC) and the Elmronics Research Center (ERC) 

LI Grrbridgc, Massachuxtts. will bring this out. NASA announced thc 

selection of Houston as the site of thc former after a brief survty. Yet the 

creation of thc ccntcr generated powerful polltical support; the site itxif 

was well I-tea in relation to Hirntsvillc and the Gpc; and the msoris 

given for establishing a new center wtre justified in relation to the pollo 

~nisicn. In contra, almost r:o years elapsed bcrwccn the decision to 

es~abtish :he ERC and its fmd cstablishmcct. There au no such conscrms as cxLst4 in rhc c?x o; MSC; NASA could not convinic Congress 

or thc public that a capability in electronics rcscarch was as vital to the 

agency as one to develop the ApoIb spaceaaft. Thc poifit is that thc 

agency's top offiials made thc irr,ponant decisions while there was time 

IG do w. The i%1 reorganization had to bc reversed two years latcr, but it 

gave NASA managemcnr the opportunity to brig thc ccntcn undcr 

tighter control than before. 

Amtbcr clement in thc success of :he NASA organizition was flexibiiity: ficxib11;r); for thc Adrninic:rator to appoint to exceprcd pitions, 

to award major R&D contract. witho-~t compctitivc bidding, to reprogram 

funds withic appropriation accounts and to tiansfer bcrwccn them. to 

devise and ndniinktcr a custom-tailored entrance examination. ctc. 

Exmples sulk as thcx reprcxnt fkxibility within thc system, not a 

depmure fro= it; dep~~urcs from the norm wcrc allowcd by Congress. 

thc Bureau of the Budget. and the Civil Service Commission. This flexibility allowed fol that '%fret play of thc joints" without which institutional rigor mcrtis srs in. Thc ~lx of excepted positions, for example, 

served not only to promote cm~loyecs from within, but also :o bring in 

new blood and to expose NASA .to oi~tside influences. similar:^, withoat 

thc authority to negotiate major contracts, it is unlikely that thc lunv 

landing would havc occurrcd on schcdulc. Indccd, this authority was 

probably morc important than thc introduction of inccntlve provisions 

from 1%i on. Incentives were difficult to adrninistcr: they required a 
grcat dd of manpcwcr and paperwork. Ac criteria for incentive 

payments wcre hard to pul down. and there was a co~tradiction inherent 

in fuing tvgrts for changing prognms. NASA management might well 

have awarded devtiopmmt contmcts u;:hout adhg ir~ccntive pruvisions. 

But it is hard to imagine Gemini, Apllc. or tht orbiting observataries 

bccomi~g opemtlond had the agency been bound by compctirivc bidding nr other rula that would have onstmined its ability to choox its 

scwccs. The flexibility available to NASA d~~ocnded on ccnpressiond 

wilhgncrss to tolrnte practices that the Icgislaturc might have dkbwed 

clsca~hcrc. nnd when that toleration ceased, NASA fcii victim to red tap 

and the biucaucmtic tendency to review everything at irrvr twice. By 

1%9. for instance, it took an average of 420 days to process a conuact involving a procurement ?Ianzn. j months for headquarters to re-iicw the 

plan, urC 47 days far headquarten to approve a negotiated contrzt. 

NASA managcment saw its responsibilities in poiitical tcrrns. The 

agency's top offxi& took it upon thcmxivcs to just@ NASA where it 

ma:tcrcd most-to the Bureau of the Budget, - whose fwd authorities sci 

the terms of the annual budgct rcqucst, and to Congrcss, which had to 

authorize the cn:ire space program annually. What Harvcy Sapolsky has 

said abou: Paluis surely applies hcrc: "Compctitcrs had to be ~ .- 

eliminated; reviewing agcrncies had co be outrnancuvcrcd; 

congrcssmcn. . . , r.cwspapcrmcn 2nd acadcrnicim had to be co-opted. 

Politics is 2 systcrrric rccpirrr,?ect. What distinguishes programs in 

government is not that Fame play politics and others do not, but, rather. 

that somc ar: hc:tcr P.: it th3.n oorhcrs." Thus the history of NASA from 

its enablishm~nt :o :he mid-1961% ran bc charted in terms of NASA's 

ability to design is o-n prcgrams. procure its hardware, and =upport its 

spwe:rlit withut oven Interfcrcncc from the military. The tmnsfer af the 

Jet Propu!;ion La'wratory and the von braun tam to NASA, the 1961 

coopcistive agrecmcnt5 on the dcvclopmcnt of launch vehicles, Prcsidcnt - 

iicnncdy's decision to assign thc lunar mission to a civilian agcncy, and 

the 1963 agreement by which DoD acknowledged NASA as lead agency 

in Gmini, 111 represent stages by which NASA assexed its de:ermirlation 

to run the agcncy as its officials saw fit. Not that interagency rclaticns can 

bc easily categorized. 'VC'hiie most relations can be xcn to fall into the 

categories of support. coordina:ion. and rivalry, there were somc that did 

.mt fit nearly into aq category. There were others, like Gemini, that 

tcndea to bcc~rnc more like joint programs over rime; while a program 

like the Mamcd Orbiting Laboratory was, in some ways, competitive with 
ApoUo, although the former cctied heavily on NASA technology and 

pucd wppon. Ncvercheltss, without a strong assertion of independence. NASA would have become what the services anticipated on 

the cvc of the Space Ac-a rexuch agcncy supporting military projtm. 

The political strategies of NASA mznagcrncnt were fc-wfold: to 

maintain NASA's independent status as :n age.~cy doing R&D; to curb 

ol~sidc inteafcrencc by advisory and cmrdinatin~ groups; to seek the approval of Co.!gres in actions that the agency was abut to rake; and ts 

hit NASA's support for other agenc;cs. the krter tc conccnmtc its 

rcsourca on Gcaini and Apollo. NASA's ielviorrs with L)oD arc an 

exvnple of the first type of strategy; ics ccnflicts with ttc Space Science 

%xd of the National Academy of Scicnccs is an empk cf the second; 

whik KASA's pccit~on on thc supcrsor.~ tmnsprr-to maimin an 

csscntizil~- supporting role to the Fcderal Aviation Administrqtion-rb4ccied thc desire cf Webb and Deputy Administrator Hugh 

Dryden not to strain NASA resources to thc limit. Additionally, Wcbt 

disman-lcd :hc office that prepred the NASA iong-rangc pian. precisely 

to a-:aid premature commitment to something beyond Apllo. 

As mentioned before. &A?A was rcmarkab!~ dccrctrdized fur so 

!xgc An agency. Ferhaps it ~yould be more accurate to say that programs 

wch as .4p>l:o or the orbititrg obscrvatoii~s codd not have kn managed 

without thc deicgatior. of authority to the cente~s and the Jct Propu!sion 

Laboratory-authority t~ nrgotiste contracts up to a specified amount, ro 

transfer funds txtwcsn programs, to start new research tasks without sccking specific aurhorizarion. to shift manpower frm one division to 

another. The strategy of scnicr management wz to give the ccntcrs what 

the) needed to get the job done, but not 59 much that their work would 

its relevance to thr agentj's mission. During the 1960s. tt. 

"restarch" 2nd "dcvelopmcti:" centers trr,ded io become more like each 

other; centers reporting to o-ie program ofice Lcgar. to work fir others; 

while thox centers with a mixturr of projects weatherd the budgct cuts 

at the end of the decade better than thosc with one or twc large deve!opment progrrms that were phasing down. One of the most important byproducts oi Apollo w;s the pressure it placed on tlpe c!der center? to get 

into developmen: work. It was not so much a matter of pressulc from 

headqtarters as pressure from within the centers thcmsches that bro~ght 

about this change. One wonders if the older centers had much choice; 

had they remained research centers and nothing else, they would vcry 
kly have dwindled into insignificaccc. The centers had. so to speak, to 

latch on to the coattails of Apollo. 

By 1969, most of the centex, particularly Marshall, were in the early 

phase of a "withdrawal process" brought on by cuts in manpower and 

funds. The preblem of new roles and miss~ons could be alleviated by thc 

centers, but only in part. NASA officials conceded in principle that a icssthan-best laboratory might k closcd: if it had served its initid purpose; if 

there was no IEclihood that a new role for the laboratory could be found; 

if the closing down of the laboratory would not leave a significant gap in 

the national capability to do R&D work. But most of thc centcn werc 

adaptable and nearly all had gone through at last one reorganization in 

the late 1950s or early 1%. moving from aeronautics to launch-veh~le 

devciopment, ~r from development work on guided missilcs to lunar and 

plmctq probes, as wkh the Jc: Prcpulsion Laboratory. By 1969. another 

cycle or rec,rganization was under way, as facilities that wcre no longer 

needed closed down, others werc modified to accommodate new programs. while new fac~lities like thc Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Houston 

became acc~mplished facts. Yct the morc subtlc changes in a ccntcr's mission could only occur very gradually. And here, it xcms, the failure of 

headquarters to drdt a coherent long-range plan left the centers at a 

serious disad~aatage. The advanced studies and task farcc repns of 

1964-1969 wcre no subct~tute far a NASA-wide ptn. There wcre too 

many planning groups, with little cwrdinat~on between them; a lack of 

interest among the centcn: and the atificial forcing of the planniiig process by the creation of President Nixon's Space Task Group early in 1369. 

Still. top management m~ght have done more tc bring the process to 

some v~sible :esult inside the agency. In particular. not enough was done 

to re1a:e substantive programs to any institutional framework. 

In sum, NASA thrived during the early i960s bccausc of four 

elements within, or conferred upon, :he organization: adminatrative 

flexibi!ity; the ability of senior management to play the political game on 

the Hill, at the White House, and before the public at large; the delcgation of program manzgemcnt to the field; and the timeliness with which 

the important dccis~ofis werc made. But the sznc elements wcre not 

enough to enable N.4SA to wea:her the severest rest to which any large 

mission-oriented agency car, be put: namely, how to react to the completion of the original rnlssion. It remains to be wen whether the Space 

Shllttle will be a truly raciica! departure for the U.S. spiice program or an 

example of an R&D program pushed throrlgh development long after 

evidence accumulated that thc mission was not a.l attractive one. 
I. )ma E Pcbb. Spat Age -cnurrt.Tht Luge-Sc& Appmmch. McKmscy Fwn&t& 

krurc Smcs. Graduate ScM of Busin-. Glumbaa Univtrssy (New Yo&: MrCnw-Hill. 

!-969). cspccplly pp. 50-65. 

2 Fcbb. Space Agc kgtwunf. p. 61 

3 Chuks E. Lndblom and Davd K. Cohen. Lhbk KnouGdge: Sord kuact JIld Sxd 

Pdkm Sdnng (New Haven: Yde University h. 1979). p. 86. 

4. L1.S. Scnatc. Gnunrrrcc on Aeronautical and Sprc Sc~nccs. Pohq PLarmg for Arnrrarhwl 

Peremh and &vclopma~. 89th C.css. 2nd Session (May 19. 1966). p. 8. 

I. Testimony of Davd E. kU. Diror. Burnt1 of the Budgtt. U.5 Houn of Rcprcuntaciva. 

Comnurrcc on Gwtmmcnt Optbas Subcommittee on Milrtary Optials. SJJI~~S hfopmen: amd.Uaqenunr. 87th Congress, 2nd hsh (June 21. 1062). p 4. 

6. Huvcy Slpdrk). Tbr Ph Syrum Lkrefo~f (Cambndgc- Harvard Univrrwry Prcn. 1972). 

p 24. 

COMMENTARY 

I.B. Hoiley, Jr. 

As a rural Ncw Englander brought up on the prudential ethic, "eat 

it up, wcar it out, make it do, do without." I uxd to bc shocked when I 

rcad about the profligate banking practices of thcJacksonian era. I was inclined to look down my nosc at an administration that permitted the irresponsible issue of ill-sccurcd bank notcs. Then some years ago 1 rcad an 

essay by Joseph A. Schumpctcr which put the problcm in a whole new 

pcrspcctivc. Inflationary emissions of papcr in that capital-starved cra 

were not simpiy a matter af policy, Schumpctcr pointed out; they wcre a 

necessity. In thc 1830s. govcrnmcnt, at all echelons, iacked the ncccssary 

tools the hurcaucra:ic apparatus, to imp and cnforcc regulatory controls-cvcn if it had ken decided, as a mattcr of policy, that such controls 

wcrc nccesary . 

As it says in the cigarette advcnixments. "Wc'vc come a long way, 

baby." For those of you in thc audience who arc under 30. it may not be 

so evident how far we'vc come in the way of perfecting governmental apparatus just sincc rhr bcginning of the spacc agc. And I date this from the 

launching of V-2 rockets by thc Nazis in World War 11. In a scnx. the 

first 20 years in space is a talc of advancing bureaucratic competence, and 

each of the paps prexnted hcrr offers testimony on that thcmc. 

In my commentary on the intcrating papers wc have just heard, i 

shall takc them in rcversc ordcr, beginning with Arnold Lrvinc's. 
Mr. kvine draws our attention to NASA Administrator Jim Webb's 

comment that perhaps the most important byproduct of the whole space 

endeavor can be found in great leaps forward in the management skills 

and administrative procedures devised to organize and operate such 

"large-scale endeavors" as thox required to put men on the Moon. 

Let me tell you a story to illustrate just how far we've come in 

perfecting the apparatus of government and business management. 

Which is to say, how far we've come in our ability to cope with complcx 

scientific and technological problem. As you all know. during World 

War I1 one of the major weapons of our Air Force was the B-17-the Boeing four-engine hcavy bomber, the Flying Fortress. Obviously it was of 

the utmost importance to increase the production of thcx bombers. Boeing brought in other manufacturers and eventually more than 12,000 

B-17s were produced. It was an epic achievement. 

But turning out bombers is not just a matter of simple repetition. 

stamping out more and more copies of the me thing. To keep ahead of 

the enemy, it was necessary to introduce a continuous stream of design 

changes or modifications. When we tried to introduce design changes on 

the asxmbly line. it slowed up and even stopped production. This would 

never do. So we set up modification centers, some here in the United 

States, some in the combat theaters. There, tc;uns of workmen patched 

on modifications as best they could, an additional gun here, an improved 

escape hatch there. All of thesc "quick fm" solutions gavc us aircraft that 

were better able to survive in combat, hut they also gavc us a chaotic mess 

of nonstandard airplanes. The world was soon populated with maverick 

aircrdt. scarcely two alike. The sparc parts problem became a nightmare. 

Gradually, however. administrative procedures were devised so that 

the wholc disorderly. not :andud mas was brought under controi. 

Modifications wcrc injected directly on the assembly line by an orderly 

system of block numbers so that similar aircraft could be assigned to the 

same units, effectively simplifying the sparc parts problem. Toward the 

end of the war, the BDV Committee (for Boeing. Douglas. and 

Lockheed's Vcga, the three firms turning out Flying Fortrws) was functioning so smoothly thot components fabricated in one plant could be accurately and readily mated to units on the assembly line in another plant. 

The public may glow with pride at the thousands upon thousands of 

combat aircraft turned out, but how many of us give more than passing 

thought to the impressive managerial and bureaucratic advances which 

have made possible each new stride forward on the technological front. 

Arnold Lcvine does well to highlight this aspect of the NASA story, for 
SCIENCE. TECHNOLOGY. ANDMANAGEMENT 55 

the impressive improvements in the art of guiding and controlling "largescale endeavors" arc light-years ahcad of our performance during World 

War 11. 

I'm only sorry Mr. Lcvinc did not have time to get down into more 

detail in his paper to illustrate some of the administrative triumphs of 

which I speak. Let me mention one or two cxunplcs. 

One of the most impressive aspects of NASA management is the way 

in which the leaders of the organization managed to elicit cnth~xiuric 

coopemtion from competing industrial firms. Despite strong proprietary 

interms and a ncccssuy profit-making orientation on the part of the 

major contractors, NASA induced them to exchange technical information almost as freely as if they were scholarly members of a scientific society. If you haven't worked in the rough-and-tumble, cut-throat, compctit~vc atmosphere of the industrial world, you may not appreciate fully 

the magnitude of this achievement. For those of you just entering the 

spacc field, let me assure you there arc exciting vistas here for further 

investigation. 

Now let me touch briefly upon yet another managerial innovation. 

In the unforgiving rdm of spacc, extreme reliability is essential. 

(Remember astronaut Pete Conrad's famous quip on his dismay at recdling how his vehicle was produced by the lowest bidder!) Manuficturers 

must be held rigidly to the utmost standards of quality, right out to the 

leading edge in the state of the art. At the same time. NASA muct cxcrcizc a continual pressure to hold down costs. How arc we going to rccoccilc the inevitable tcnsion between these polarities? At one end wc are 

driving the manufacturer on to better and better quality; at the other we 

arc needling him to hold down costs. To resolve this tcnsion, NASA officia!s have had to devix a contractual instrument which would encourage 

and reward improvements while at the same time providing ccorlomic incentives for cost cutting. 

We make heroes of astronauts--and rightly so-but how much 

public adulation is there for the NASA contracting officers who hammered out the clauses which made it possible for contractors to improve 

quality, to hold down costs, and still can enough to remain viable as a 

bus~ness firm? And in case you think the patticipating manufacturers all 

waxed rich on government contracts, think again. C mair Division of 

General Dynamics Copmation spent a million dollars on its initial 

feasibility study or. the Apollo Moon flight project-four times as much 

as the government u1timate:y paid the firm for :he job. And this was 

substantially true for thc other participating firms. Martin Marietta 

Aerospace spent three million dollars and kept 300 people on design 
studies for six months. and then Martin wasn't even in on the final production oidet! 

While it's easy to be excited by the irapressive triumphs of 

NASA-managerial as well as tcchnologicll-I don't want to give the irnpression that NASA had nothing but successes. Mr. Levine gives us a 

number of fleeting rrferences to the headaches. I want to single out just 

one for comment. 

He praises the merits of decentralization, remarking on the absence 

of a central planning st&, and the like. Then he goes on to suggest that 

one of the assets in the early 1960s was the absence of an advisory committee, an absence which "rescued the agency from becoming captive to 

policies which might seem to be relevant." 

What is he trying to say? This comment appears to bc a siap at the 

whole concept of advisory committea. Do advisory con~mittees tend to 

stultify the organizations thcy advise and saddle thcm with irrelevant 

policies? As one who headed such an advisory committee for 10 years. I 

am perhaps unduly sensitive. But my cxpericncc points all in the opposite 

direction. The advice proffered is much more likely to be ignored or citcumvented. After all, advisory committees only advix, thcy don't direct. 

The power of decision still rests with the duly constituted agcncy head. 

One suspects that Mr. Levinc turned triat phrase with one eye on the 

President's Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC). But while I might 

agree with Mr. Levine in taking a somewhat jaundiced view of PSAC's advice on the Apollo project, I seriously doubt that one episode justifies the 

implied generalization which scems to condemn advisory committees out 

of hand. 

Now I want to turn to Pamela Mack's interesting paper. Short as it is, 

it gives us an excellent glimpse into the kinds of problems which beset a 

great scientific and technological agency such as NASA. Here we have 

several examples of an organization that is performing a a nearly 

miraculous level out on the cutting edge of space science, yet xems to be 

stubbing its toes and falling on its face whet] it is confronted with some 

rather typical human and political problems. 

Pam Mack offers us a classic illustration of this kind of behavior with 

her account of the conflicting aims of the Weathcr Bureau and NASA. 

The Weathcr Bureau with limited funds, wanted a reliable, fully tested, 

and reasonably priced Tiros wcather satellite. On the other hand, NASA, 

with its entirely understandable zeal to push back scientific and 

technological horizons, kept pushing for Nimbus, a far more advanced 

weather satellite. Not only was Nimbus immensely more expensive, it wls 

untried and offered no assurance that it would be available when needed. 
Ckuly, for dl its technologicaI uiumphs. NASA had a lot to lean about 

the political dimensions of its job. 

There is a nice bit of irony in this situation. Way back in the early 

days of rocket rexardi, wen More NASA was established, some of the 

scientists who later played leading roles in NASA found the shoe on the 

other foot. Their funds were sharply limited so they favored the rela.tively 

smd and inexpensive Aerobec sounding rocket. With it they could 

stretch their funds, getting many launchings and motc tests from a 

limited number of doliars. The military authorities, on the other hand, 

favored the big, expensive, but far more capacious Viking, a tacket which 

was designed as a follow-on to the captured V-2 German rockets being 

fmd at White Sands for research purpoxs. 

Mentioni1.g the V-2 German rocket leads me to some comments 

about space science. The fm point I want to make is that we find it too 

easy to read history as a success story. When we see NASA and its accomplishments today-an immense organization, with a staff of 

thousands of highly talented specialistr, and budgets of billions-it is easy 

to forget that only a few short years ago we weren't even thinking about 

space. I remember some years ago General Charles Bolte, a distinguished 

&vision commander in Worid War 11, made a great impression on me 

when hc said, "Don't study the last battle when you won the war: that's 

too easy Srudy the first battle when you were taken by surprise and you 

had to fall back. . . ." Applying that military analogy to space science, 

I'd like to suggest that perhaps the most fruitful point for study is back ir. 

that period before we even recognized the need for a space program. I'd 

like LO tell you a story to illustrate my point. 

I wa$ out at Wright Fieid, thr old Materiel Command. then called 

the Ail Technical Service Command, towards the end of World War 11. 

Not long after V-E Day the officers of the command assembled to hear a 

report on German research and deve1oprner.t. Among other rhirigs the 

speaker told us about uncovering German plans for establishing stations 

in space from which to bomb the United Stares. The idea seemed so farfetched, so impossible, that a roar of laughter swept through the hail. But 

our imagination wasn't ranging far enough! The important task is to conceptualize the challenge rlearly. This rhe Germans did. Then we picked 

up the ball and ran with it. Would we have launched a space program if 

they hadn't pointed the way? Clearly our debt to them is great. (Speaking 

of our debt to the Germans, that reminds me of' a story which made the 

rounds in the early days of the space &on. It seems that a Russian 

spacecraft would repeatedly encounter a U.S. craft in orbit. Each time the 

Soviet pilot would greet the American in Russian and the latter would 
reply in English. Finally, one of them blurted out, "Why don't we cut 

out this nonsense and speak German?") 

That brings me to the second observation I want to make about space 

science. You'll never understand the scientist's motives if you look to the 

program justifications they present to Congress and the like when xeking 

budgetary support. Those arc good reasons but not the red reasons. What 

drives the scientists on is sheer zest for the game. It's fun. It's exciting, 

and it's immensely satisfying. 

Let me conclude these remarks by an observation that relates to all 

three of the papers. As you have heard, the space age requires an endless 

array of talents: scientists with creative vision; clever engineers who can 

cope with intractable problems; imaginative contract negotiators who can 

reconcile quality and cost; innovative managers who can escape the stultifying constraints of civil service, and so on down through a long list of 

specialized skills. But above all we need generalists, gifted individuals 

who can rise above their own specialties :o become the commanders, the 

directors, the administrators of "large-scale endeavors." Mv unanswered 

question to jou-the audience-is this: How are we going .. find these 

gifted generalists? How can we best develop them? What coll~oination of 

education, training, 2nd experience will most readily produce this kind of 

talent-with the least social waste? 
UTERAM AND 

NSRlCE- 
THE STATE OF THE LrIERAlURE ON SPACE 

It is both an honor and a pk to havc bttn invited to addms 

this cdercnce on the history of space activity. My topic concerns thc state 

d !innturc on space. It is both a survey of what I bek to be the most 

wonhwhik sources for information on the space agc to date. as well as a 

commentuj on the vcas of interest that havc attracted the attention of 

commcwators and hiszoriuls. Findiy. 1 attempt to posit some notions d 

what wc should do in thc field cf acrospacr historiography over the coming fm years. Whik not vast. mpectablc Iitcnrurc on the history d space 

activity is dmdy lvgc enough to warrant our rcvicw. For this rcuon. 

symposiums such as this can xrvc a most w&l function in enabling us to 

take stock periodically of what has been done. 

To date. the litcnr~rc on the spa progmn has broken dorvn into 

works treating major topics. such as thtortticll underpinnings and 

biographies; survey histories; studies in comparative hisrory; the kgd and 

plitid aspects of spaceflight; the postwar period through the impact of 

Sjutmih; comparative and detailed cuminations of tht American-Soviet 

spacc rivalry: the implications of spacc for dcfcnx: the heroic cia of 

Amcrican space exploration: social commmtaria on the spacc progrmn; 

memoirs of spacc explorers; and, lm but not least. the dreams of 

futurists. Thc mr!s discussed in this paper constitute what I bclicvc to bc 

he morc significant works in these fields; it is a very personal intcrprctation. and ccitainly open for comment and suggestions by othcn. 

The cxploration d space is a 2Oth-centu1-y happening made possible 

by the dcvclopmcnt of lugc rxkct boostcrs capabic of placing various 

kinds of payloads into spacc. The dcvclopmcnt of this technolog involvcd c~mplcx intcrrclationships betwccn technologists. the scientific 

commt:nity. federal and military research organizations, the national 

defense cstablishmcnt, and thox ih~gcd with rcsponsibiiity for iorcign 

and domestic policy. It is not a uniquciy Amcrican story, though the 

opcnnes,c of the American space program has aided thox historians, socia! 

xizntists, and practitioficn of science and technology who havc chosen to 

examine various facets of spacc utilization and cxploration. 

The thrce major picncers of the modern spacc age were Konstantin 

Tsiolicovskii, Hcrmann Oberth. and Robert H. Goddud. Tsiolkovskii's 

writings and notes havc bccn pubiishcd in Russian and tnnslatcd a5 the 

Cor((ected Work of A'. E. TsiolRovshy in thrce voluma, edited by 

Anatoliy A. Blagonravov (NASA, 1965). Obcnh's Wege zur RaumrchifPRECSDING PAGE BLANK NOT FILMED 
f& and Die Ratclz ru ckrlr Phnc~=n have ken anshttd uld 

published by NASA as well. as Wqs to Spaccfight (1972) and Rockets 

irtn PIm~trpr $&re (!%5). Ihe amr ria^ Robtrc GodM is :!it siabjcc; 

of an excellent biography by Milton khman. Th Hig/J Mun (Funr, 

Saus. 1963). that concentrates on Godhd's triak and tribulations, as 

well as his ocasbdy myszial and #cfctivc nature. Goddud's own 

repom, notes. and papers have been pubiishcd in thm rolumes. Tbe 

Pcrpm of Robert H. Go&d(McGmw-Hill. 1970). cdid by Est!!r C. 

Goddard (his widow) and G. Edward Pcndray. 

Thc history of rockmy itself is a broad topic. and thc literature is vut 

and mixed in quality. A good in&& to thc technology is Eugene 

M. -mmc's The History 01- RwLt tech&^ Emz~s on Resmh, 

Dcirehpmrut, and Ut.&ty (Wayne Sate Univcniq Prca. 1%4), a series 

of csap by practitioners. camomk. and hinoriarn on various topics 

ranging ifom cu!v satcllitc proposals to rakct airplanes and the origins of 

space tckmetry. hcc Mulish has undcrtakcn an ambitious cornpamtivc 

audg of thc growth of thc nilrd and the emergence of the pace program in The Zaihad aud the 5- &gram: A.+ ExpIbrztion h 

Hirton2d Adgg (MIT Pms. 1%5). with essays by such mcd 

authorities as Alfred Chandlcr, Robcn 1Fogcl. Thomas Parkc Hugha, and 

Iro Marx. in an cff~rt to study thc impact of both the railroad and the 

spacc program upon American society. 

The crpIoration of spacc is not. of coursc, purcly a mttcr of xicncc 

and technology. Thm arc ?Iso important quaions concerning the rights 

of nations and thc cond~ict of intcmauond ;Iffaits, as thc mcnt crash of a 

Soviet satcllitc in Canada. the wcll-publicized reentry of Skylab, and conem over spacc broadcast~ng and rcmtc-sensing satellites dl indicate. A 

useful inirod~~ction to joint efforts in exploration and utilization of spacc 

is Arnold W. Frutkin's btemutiond Cooberation in Space (Prcnticc-Hall. 

1965). which cxamina thc various intcrnationid considcrzticns that can 

influcncc the conduct of technology and xicncc. Georgc S. Robinson's 

L8mn.g in Outer Space (Public Affain Press. 1975) furnishes the pcrspcctivc of a lawyer on thc legal aspects of spaceflight. 

Gcncrally, thc history o; spaceflight can be arranged to reflect four 

major periods: the early ycvs of large rockctry, beginning in thc 1930s. 

but with special emphasis on German efforts and thc immediate postwai 

ycm; Sputnd and its Iftcrmuh. with the cmcrgcnce of a "spacc race," 

and the fint utilization of spacc; the "heroic era" of manned spaceflight, 

to thc landing of Apollo 11 on thc Moon; and thc post-Apllo years. The 

single bcst source book on rocket dwciopmcnt in Nazi Germany and thc 

subsequent influcncc of Wcrnhcr von Braun's "Pttnemunde team" 
upon American rocketry is Frcdcrick I. Ordway 111 and Mitchell R. 

Shupc. The Rwht Team (Thomts Y. Crowcll Publi;hcn, 1979). which 

is baud on copious documentary research supported by cxtensivc oral 

history inrcrvicws. A~I indigccous and highly successful Amcrian effort 

to build an ~pper ztmosphcric soundkg rockct is gnccfully and winily 

mated by Milton K'. !hen in The V&ng Rocket Sroty (Harper. 1955). 

written by a Viking project cnginccr in thc :&yon days prim to Spntnib. 

Ihc firs; American satcllitc effort, thc Vanguard project. is thoroughly ammcd by Constance Mdaughlin Gtccn and Milton Lomask in 

Vcmgucrrd: A Histoty (Smithsonizn Institution Prcss. 197 1). including the 

shancring cffm that Spatnd had upon thc prognm and its subxqucnt 

execution. Thc mrbulcncc of thc immcdiatc post-Spatnib em is 3pturr.d 

by a memoir of Prcsidcnt Dwight D. Eixnhowcr's, "Missiic Czar." 

James R. Kill&. Jr . . in Sputnd. Scienthts. adhie*hower: A Memoir o f 

the Fmt Specijl AssUtunt to tbe Pres&nt for Scknce and Technoiogy 

(Mn- Prcss. 1977). which casts light on Washington's spacc pclitics 

milieu. 

During thz troubled days of thc early spacc mcc. a vuicty of individuals attcmptcd to study thc Soviet spacc program from afar. Much of 

thc cnn:cmporu); litcmturc is quitc fanciful. but subsequent works havc 

succeeded in gcne;a!lY portraying rhc origins, goals. and condilct of rhc 

Snvlet space program with ac~lrracy. A popular and wcll-written accoun; 

ti?s, ii the best journalistic aork is Nirhoi?~ Daniloffs Tie Kremlin and 

:A. (.;)imo.c i Knopf. 197i ). Char!a S. Zhddor! of the Library of Congress 

tixi i\-r~::t exten;ivciy on thr Soviet sp;.cc program, producing thc most 

authoritative and insightfu! works. apccially his I;crieu~ of the Soviet 

.Spa-c Progrdm with Comparative Unzted Stutts Data tMK~raw-Hill, 

1368). C?nzt*d St~te~ und Societ Rzvdr)' in Spcce: Who zi Ahead. and 

How Do the contenden Comp~e? (Libruy 9f Cangrcs, 1969). mZ 

Lrnited States ad Soriet Progress in S+~cre: Szimmuy Data through 1971 

and a hmmd Look (Library of Collgrcss, 19721. 

Not a11 obscrvcn wcrc rrstrictcd to studying from afar. One of thc 

major dcvclopmcnts of the <pace agc has been thc cmcrgcncc of rcconn%ncc satcllitcs using sophisticated clectro-oprica! sensors to furnish 

strategic inrclligcncc. Philip J. Kiw, a technical journalist, has wlittcn 

pcrccptivcly and authoritatively of both Soviet and American "spy 

satcilita" in his Secret Sentries in Spare (Random Houx, 1971). including thc ways in which such crfr influcncc the conduct of foreign rclatiorrs, and tl!c basic rcchnological questions invo:lrcd in their deign and 

trnploymcnt, as wcll as thc gcncral history of intclligcncc gathering from 

splcc. Thc transfer of this tcchnology to scicntlfic cxp'oration is 
highlighted by Mcrton E. Davics and Bruce C. hJunay in The C'iew-fion 

Space: Pbotographzi h~for.xtion of the Fhnets (Columbis Univcnity 

Ra, 197 1). a fascinating nistorical, technological, and scientific study. 

The "heroic cn" of American manned spaceflight has bee11 admirably trcatcd by a series of N.4SA-sponsored histories that are 

remarkably free of the boosrcrism that so oftcn Aicts official accounts. 

These studis arc projcct-oricntcd. tracing the dcvclopmcnt of a specific 

program, but they also exarniclc a number of othcr facto~ inclcding 

social, political. and cconomic martcrs. They should xrvc as a model for 

all govcrnnent historians. Thc Arr'crican manned space progru11 inwlved 

the Mcrcur)., Gemini. and Apollo programs. as well u the post-Apollo 

Skylab and Apollo-Sovur Tcst Projcct (the lattcr a joint U.S.-USSR mission). The following can di bc recommended without rcscrvation, md 

conjtitutc juzt a sampling of the studies that the NASA History Office has 

sponsored: Lovd S. Swznson, Jr., James M. G;imwood, and Chaclcs C. 

Aicxa dcr, Thb &u! 9cun: A Histo7 of Pmjeit dllercurq. (h'hSA, 

1966); Barton C. Hacker and james M. Grimwood. On the Sho~~~'akn of 

Tans: A Hirrci~ ofPt0;ect Gzminz (NASA, 19::); R. Cargill Hall, Lunar 

Impact: A Hljtor;. ofPr?fect Rat~ger (NASA. i9:7) (Ranger was an unmanned iunv exploration spacecraft): Courtney G. Erooks. James M. 

Grimwd, and Loyd S. Swenwn. Jr.. ChanotJfor .4poff~: .4 Hidory of 

MannedLunm SpocecrJfi (NASA, 1979); Edward C. Ezefl and Linda N. 

hell, The Partnerd+: A Histo3 sf the zpof/o-Soyuz rest Peect 

(NASA, 1938). John Logsdon's The Derlrxbn to (;c to the Moon connirutcs not only an insightful and important reference on the plitical environmcnr surrounding thc decision to ondcnake Apollo. but a major 

pioncering study in analyzing the soci~l, political. and economic ii~~pacic-ts 

upon mid-ZCnh4enrury technology. A good reference and introdur-tior. 

to the Apollo program and its social. political. :echnolog:cal, 2nd scientific significance is Richard Hallion and Tom D. Crouch's Apoffo: Ten 

Years Since Tranquility Lkse (National Air and Space MuseumiSmithsonian Institution Prcss, 1979), a serics of essays 5y authorities in various 

fields ranging from space art to lunv gcology. Henry S. F. Cooper has 

written an excellent account of the near-loss of Apoiio 13 in 13: The Flghr 

Th Faded (Did Press, 1973). Planetary gcoiogist Farouk El-Saz has 

cxmincd chc xicntific harvest available riom space sensing in Astron~ut 

Obsenrations fiom the Apolfo-Soyuz Mzssion (National Air and Space 

Muscum/Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977). One of the most 

imaginative aspects of the Apollo program was NASA's art project 

whereby leading artists were invited to record their impressions of the 

whole space effort. Two noted artisn who were administrators of this pro- 
LITERANRE AND THEMES IN SPACE HISTORY 6 5 

gram, H. Lester Cookc and Jama Dm. have coflccted the rcflcctivr and 

oftcn stimulating results of this project in Eyeu*&ess to Space: Pain:ings 

arid Drawings Reked to the Apoh MIsrtbn to the Muon (Abrams. 

1971). 

Norman Mailer has written of what Apllo meant t~ :iim and the 

"Aquarius C;encration" in his Ofa Fire off the hk~ (Little. Brown. 

1969). Tom Wolfc, in his oftcn zany and insighthl The K%bt Stufl(Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979). has r.;*mlncd ~i~e world ot ~hc ten pilot u~d 

astronaut, and the occasional tensions between the two. The best pmicipant account of lnznned spaceflight-and one of rhe fincst aviation 

mcmoirs written to date-is Michael Collins's humorous, thoughtful. and 

lively Cmying the Fire: An Astmngut i Jor{mqs (Farrar Straus Giroux, 

1974). a recollection of the Gemini ad Apollo programs. and a host of 

other things, by the formcr ccmnand module pilot of Ap& 11. 

The future of spactfligbt is opcn to a wide range of spczuhtion, parricularly as the United States cmtemplatrs relatively routine Ezrth-orbital 

operations witn the NASA Space Shuttle transportation system. What 

will he the nature cf space expioration and utilization in the decades 

ahead! One glimpse is that of physicist Gerard K. O'Ncili's The High 

hntier: Hu.mzn Colonies tn S?ace (William Morrow, 1977). O'Neill cnvisions gigantic, high -technology. cost -effect ivc space colonics orbiting 

the Earth and bringing almost unima,niaable 'benefits to human -witty. a 

vicw sharply debated by tcchnoiogkts arid .social scientists alike. Ncvcrthelcss, it is useful for the historian to kc aware of such works, and to 

recognizc that the space practitioner today may well bc regarded as a 

prophet tomorrow. 

This represents but a tricf sampling of the relevant literature 

available on the space program. It is, however, ;ndicativc of the topics 

that have interested historians and obscnrcrs through th: years. 

One's first reaction to all this must bc how little research h~s actually 

beer. done in a serious, sckolarlg vein on the space program. For example. 

our best sources on the Apollo program hzvc been a series of histories and 

works generated by the federal govt.rnncnt itself. lo the hisrcrian, cvcr 

alert to the pitfalls of "official" history, it is rcfrcshing, thcr., to note that 

these are remarkably frank wor'irs. and as historians ye ~hould 208 oar 

hats to their authors and the ageacics responsible, particularly the NASA 

History Office. 

A second reaction might be how little hs bce.1 written even in a 

popular vein. 1!niike aeronautics. which has been cxha~stivcly examined 

by scholars and buffs alike. the spzce program has noi produced the same 
number of popular pieces or rcsprxtablc organizations claiming to duurnent its history. Thus. many of the basic sccondq sources :hat a 

histo:ian normally consults bcforc embarking on a detailed mcu -h investigation arc missing. It must bc added. howcvcr. that somc might well 

scc this as a blcssing. Onc problcm faced ty historians d aeronautics is 

h.: very bulk of the secondary materid, and thc facr that rns~~h of it is 

buff litcraturc of doubtful vdue that oftcn acts to hinder and sidttrack 

thc historian trying to minc it for a few ruc nuggets. 

Clcarly therc is a serious need for good biographical studies of thc 

principal pionccn-mcn such as von Braun. Waltcr Hohmann, and 

Korolyov. Thcre is. for cxanplc. only one dcccnt Coddard biography 

(that. of Ixhman). and it is. of coursc, now mt of priat. Wc do not yct 

understand the workings of the rockct comnlunitv and rockeiccrs; 

biographies and autobiographic and memoirs woilid go a grcat distanc: 

in rcmoving this dcfkicncy. Fortunately, thcrc is some cridcncc of a 

changc taking placc. Thc historial xssioris of thc Amcrican Institute of 

Aeronautics and Astronautics, thc American Astronautical ,Sxiety, and. 

cspccidly, the international Acadcmy of Astro.~wtia havc gencrattd over 

thc last I(! ycars an increasing nunher of cxccllent memoir papers and 

biographical article on such indiviclrlds as ksgcne hngcr and G~ido von 

Pirquct. This is producing somc useful raw data. together wrth insight 

into the coriipuativc dcvrhprrtcnt of asttonautics in various nations. 

One historian whose work mcrits special attention is Frank Winter of 

the National Air and 323~~uscum,~~miti)sonian Institrltion. Winter 

has gcncratcd a nuaber of arciclcs over the !at twa decades documenting 

thc nrly history of rockctq from antiquity to the cnd of thc 19th century. 

unearthing many littlc-known, yct influential pioneers, and broadening 

our knowlc4gc ot morc popular ona such as William Congreve and 

William ;?;rlc Currcntlv hc is cornpicring a study of thc culy rockct 

mieta in the 1920s and 193Gs and their subxqucnr contribution to thc 

groxh ot wronauttcs technohgy. This study. when complete, should go 

far in incrcmng ow ucdcntanding of how thc pre-Sccand World Wu 

"rocket cornm;lnity" flourished, in much the same fzhion that Tom D. 

Crouch's wcrk on carly American aviation brought new light to bear on 

:ha wc!l-travelled, if littic undcrstood. pcrlod in aerncautical history. 

Survcy histories arc nccdcd or, both thc 5vict 2nd 4mcrican spacc 

programs. Information on thc former, of ccursa. fi less easy to con~c by 

than that of the Iat:cr, though, thanks to the %or!: of V.N. SokolsXii of 

the Soviet Acadcmy of gicnces. a surprising mount of research has betn 

undertaken and is now nvailablc to thc Wcst. A good survey of European 

rockctry necds to bc done. Some popular accounts havc, of course, bccn 
written on &ese topics. Whzt is needed is the scholar': touch-thorough 

rexuch, precise and insightful writing, and the abil~ty to concenttatc on 

the forest of aerospace development as oppoxd to the tms of indilldual 

rockets, missiies, and spacer&. 

One of the problems in the history of science and technology has 

been rhe demand that the historian and writer bc familiv with the 

science andlor techrlology of the subjm they arc diwmsing. ?his is 

espccidly true in the history of the space program. Mere economic 

analysis, which has worked passingly well in, for example, the history of 

air umsponation, is insufficient here. What is needed is familiarity with 

the craft of spaceflight; otherwise, many of the actions of the space ad- 

.ministraton and engineers are incompnhcnsiblc at worn and confusing 

and misleading at best. When, for example, historians examine the 

ballistic versus lifting rccnty qumion that confronted America's spacc 

planners in the 19505 and 19605, they will have to undcntaad at !em 

some of the mechanics of reentry from space and the problems that confront advocates of thex respective systems. Yet, without rcsolu~ion of this 

qumion, the wholc structure of Amcrica's space program in the 1% 

would have been vastly different. There are a variety of questions that 

awvt d~c histcrian who boldly plunges into the mass of official (and 

usually technical) documentation awaiting our attention: the space program's impact on modem industrial 2nd govcmmcntal management 

techniques; ttlc relationship betwccn the civilian and military space cfforts; the role of innovation 2nd invention in spacc tcchnology; the impact of the space program on our domestic life and in international affairs; the relationship between aerospace technology and technolog as a 

whole; the ethics of rackctry as weaponry: the philosophical implications 

of our flight from the Earth. 'Ihesc are but a few. As wc move firmly 

towards the third decade of spaceflight, let us note that the history and 

literature of the space program can be likencd to a rocket just after ignition. The clarity of our perceptions may be still obscured by the steamy 

blast of contemporary events, but the launch is go, and che promix and 

challenge of our task remain to be fulfilled. 
A SPACEFARING PEOPLE: 

KEYNOTE ADDRESS 

John Noble Wilford 

In less than a quarter of a century-one generation-we have 

become a sp;rccfaring people and our accomplishments rank among the 

most incredible in the history of human endeavor. We have set foot on 

another world. We have looked at our own world from afar, seen it whole, 

from a cosmic perspective. Our voices and images are carried around our 

world in an instant by relay aati~ns high overhead in space. Our robot 

craft have scouted all the p:mets known to the ancients and landed on the 

red plains of Mars. Soon we will have spaceplanes shuttling people and instruments-and, yes, perhaps weapons of space warfare-into orbit with 

astonishing regularity. 

It may seem x obvious that we are spacefaring pec, A to be 

beyond comment. but the import of it has yet to sink in. It may be the 

one thing for which our time will be remembered centuries from nor;. 

And yet so little intellectual effort has gone into understanding how and 

why spacefaring came about at this time. why it has evol~led the way it 

ha, and where it may be leading us as a nation and a civilization. This 

conference, on the history of space activit)., i trust will be-to borrow a 

phrase-one small step toward an appreciation of this phenomenon of 

our time. 

First, we must understand what was happening in the 1950s. for this 

dlctated the pace and direction of most subsequent space activities. 

Technology was advancing to the point where spaceflight was no longer a 

dream but an approaching reality. The rocketry of World War 11, 

pioneered by the Germans. was being fashioned into the first intercontinental missiles for delivering postwar hydrogen warheads. Communications, navigation and control systems. and electronic computers were 

becoming more sophisticated by the year. Our economy was strong and 

aggressive. We and our rival superpower. the Soviet Union, were in a 

competitive, expansionist mood. So it was not startling that in 1955 both 

the ~~nited States and the Soviet Union announced plans to launch small 

scientific Eanh-orbiting satellites as part of the 195--1958 International 

Geophysical Yea;. As everyone knows. the Soviets got their satellite up 

first-Sputnik I, on October 4. 1957-and the shock in this country and 

through much of :he world was profound. 

We had emerged from World War I1 as the preeminent economic 

and technological power and were given to condescending remarks about 

the backward Russians' inability to make even a decent ballpoint pen. 
LITERATLIE AND THEMES IN SPACE HISTORY 69 

With SputniR, however, we realized we had underrated Soviet technology 

and feared we had overrated our own. Nikita Khrushchev, more full of 

himself than ever, boasted Lhat Sputnik dcmcnsnted the superiority of 

communism over capita1i.m. and in the Cold War atmosphere of the 

1950s such a bold challenge had a riveting effect. - 

These, then, were th: circumstances at the beginning of the space 

age. They give us the first major theme in any study of space history: A 

converging of techndogzis mask space,rlight possibLe in the 1950s. arid 

the geopoiitics of the Cold War made a Soviet- Ameriuln rpace ruce adbrut 

inevitable. 

"Might-have-beens" make for interesting historical speculation. 

What if the United States had launched the first satcllitc? Wcrnher von 

Braun had the rocket and could have done it about a year before Sputffik, 

but was under orders from the Eisenhower administration not to-the 

first American satcliitc was supposed to bc a civilian operation, and von 

Braun was working for the Army zt that time. Ptesumably, an American 

first wodd not have startled the world as much as Sput~iR did, for 

American technological leadership was taken for granted. The impact of 

SputniR, when it followed, would have been much I-, another case of 

the Russians catching up. as with the atomic and hydrogen bombs. And if 

SputniR had thus seemed less threatening, would the United States have 

reacted with the kind of space program that it eventually mobilized? Ek 

thar as it may. the SplrtniR chailenge-and subsequent other "firsts" by 

the Russians-set in motion an American response that shaped an aggressive space program for the short haul, but eventually left it virtually 

directionless and bereft of clear political and public support. 

The American response, in outline, was this: The Eisenhower administration, under considerable public pressure, unleashed von Braun, 

whose team launched Euplorer I in January 1958. The main condition of 

the American program was that it be civilian, at Eisenhower's insistence, 

and toward this end the National Aeronaut~cs and Space Administration 

(NASA) was created later in 1958. Since the Russians gave every indication of planning manned flights in spare, the new NASA moved immediately and with little debate to initiate an American man-in-space 

program, Project Mercury. Many in the administration, including 

Eisenhower in particular, thought our response extravagant-but it was 

modest compared to what happened as soon as thc next administration 

came to power. 

fohn Kennedy waoted to get the country moving again, as he said, 

but the economy was sluggish, the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs had 

been a fiasco, and the Russians had jumped farther ahead in space with 
the launching into orbit of Yuri Gagarin in April 1361. Kennedy asked 

his advisers what we could do to leapfrog the Russ~ans in space, and 

following their advice he announced his decision to land a man on the 

Moon before the decade was out. This was the beginning of the Apollo 

program. And it was a typically American response. It was optimistic and 

expansive, America challenged by a forrign threat and a "ncw frontier," 

going forth to meet the challenge unburdened by serious doubt as to the 

ultimate success. Which brings me to the second major theme in space 

history: The initd driving foxe for a stmng American space pqram was 

not scientzfic, economic, or mmantic, but politid-the pursuit of nationdprestige andpower by a new means and in a new fintier. Thzi no 

hubt accelerated the akvelopment of spaceflight mpabdities and the at. 

tainment of high-visibdity goals, but it contnhted eventual4 to a senous 

mzd-llfe cnsis for the Amenc~n space efort. 

These were the initial challenges and responses that are the stuff of 

mega-history. I will gct to a third major theme later, for it pertains to the 

present and future. But first, some lesser themes emerge out of the early 

years of the space age, themes that should be explored by political scientists, historians of science, and others interested in how institutions and 

policies evolve. 

From the beginning, though it did not always seem so to the p~blic, 

we have had a plural space program. One program is open, highly visible, 

and civilian-controlled-the NASA program of manned flight, scientific 

and utilitarian (weather, communications, Earth survey) satellites, and 

the exploration of the solar system. Another program is military and 

mostly conducted in secrecy, the Pentagon space program of "spy" 

satellites and orbital vehicles for military communications and navigation. 

Though NASA used to get a heftier share, the Department of Defense 

now accounts for at least half of the annual space spending, with every indication that its share will grow even larger. 

Two other space programs are gaining. A majority of NASA's 

launchings in recent years have been for paying customers, the operators 

of domestic and international communications sateilites. Projections are 

for increasing commercial space traffic, conceived, developed, and 

operatcd outside NASA's domain. In addition, the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration has been authorized to develop its own 

space program, which will handle the operational weather and Earth 

survey satellites as well as some other "applications" satellites. This is 

consistent with the policy that NASA is restricted to research and 

development . 
Other conflicts have occurred because of a split between the manned 

and unmanned space programs. Or, as it is often expressed, between big, 

showy, expensive projects and the more modest efforts relying on instruments alone. President Eisenhower and his science advisers favored 

the latter, but the post-Sputnik momentum gave exuberant life to the 

former. As Tom Wolfe has pointed out, the astronauts were our modern 

Cold War equivalents of the medieval knights who stepped forward to 

engage in single-man combat with the enemy. 

A corollary of the manned-unmanned dichotomy is the uneasy coexistence between scientists and engineers in the NASA space program. 

At the start, the engineers were up front: they had to build the rockets, 

design the electr~nics, and develop all the other systems without which 

there would have been no spaceflight, manned or unmanned. Engineers 

thus assumed control of the program and generally pushed manned flight 

because it was the biggest engineering challenge. Scientists chafed at their 

secondarv role and also feared that the expense of manned spaceflight 

would diain money away from their own unmanned projects and from 

other nonspace research. 

Another theme of conflict running through the early space age involved nationalism versus internationalism. Thc initial thrust of our program was nationalistic to the core, but several times in the 1960s, as we 

were exerting every effort to beat the Russians with a Moon landing, 

Presidents Kennedy and Johnson made overtures (usually through United 

Nations speeches) to the Russians to engage in some cooperative space 

ventures. But as long as there was a Cold War spirit, and as long as the 

Russians felt they were ahead in spacc and we wanted to get ahead, hope 

of international cooperatior. went rlowhere. Only after our Apollo victory, 

and in the new spirit of Soviet-American dhtente, was it possible to proceed with the largely syn~bolic Soyuz-Apoffo flight of 1975. More realistic 

and productive cooperative ventures are underway now with the growing 

European sy ac: program. 

Now, I want to turn to what I believe is a third major theme of the 

history of space activity, which is: The ~%t Apolfo landing was, in one 

sense, a triumph that failed, not because the achie~enieat ulas anythzgg 

short of magtji4:ent but because of mzjdirected ex~~ctations and a 

aenerd misperception of its red meaning. The public was encouraged to 

view it only as the grand cfzmau of the space program, a geopo fiticaf horse 

race and extratewestnal entertainment-not as a dramatic mean3 to the 

greater end of developing cl far-ranging spacefanng capabdtty. This ied to 

the space pmgram 's post-Apoflo slump. 
This calls for a flashback to the 1960s and early 19705. While the 

Apollo program was unfolding, there was the continuing SovietAmerican rivalry, to be sure, but also the war on poverty, concern for the 

environment, the tumu!t of the civil tights movement, and the Vietnam 

war and the domestic turmoil it caused. We began to doubt old assumptiocs of the inevitab!e good of technology, to doubt the inevitability of 

progress, to doubt ours:!^::. This ws scncthing fuzdarnenta!!~ ne: to 

American society. The people who in 1961 said. "yessir, let's go to the 

Moon and beat the Russians" had become a different people by 1960. 

The old national innocence was lost, the old cockiness was gone. 

Ir, this context, it is not surprising that the Apollo Project came in for 

much criticism. although it retained strong support in Congress. The 

space race factor remained strong. Opinion polls conducted during the 

1963s are revealing. Public approval of the American space program 

generally jumped after a successful Russian effect; yet the approval rating 

was almost unaffected by American achievements. Further, when 

respondents were given a list of certain government activities and asked 

which should be the first to be cut out of the budget in the event of a 

financial crisis, the space program usually appeared on top. 

We had been conditioned to think of the space program in terms of 

the Cold War, which was beginn~ng to seem less crucial to what really 

counted. The media no doubt perpetuated this attitude, for editors 

generally viewed cvery story in those days in terms or' whether it meant we 

or the Russiam were ahead. But NASA also played the game, because 

that was the surest rocte to the Treazury. And there was that deadline, the 

end of the decade, that perpetuated the horse race aspects. If we made 

the deadline, that would be it. 

We did, as you know, and then support for the space program all 

but collapsed. There was the feeling: "We won the war, now bring the 

boys home." NASA came forward with all sorts of plans for landing men 

on Mars, building permanent space stations in orbit and on the Moon, 

and developing a versatile spaceplane. But no one wanted a big space program any more. And the other Moon landings Rere anticlimactic. 

We are building the spaceplane, the Shuttle, but nothing else. Even 

that was underfunded throughout the 1970s, which was a factor in * 

many delays and technical problems. Still, it offers the promlse of what 

the space program can be-and probably should have been all along. It is 

not being built simply to match the Russians; it is f~r superior to anything 

for which the Russians have shown any capability. It is being built to take 

advai,cage of space not only as an arena of geopolitics, which it still is, but 

also as a place for many other human activities on many fronts: scientfic 
LITERATURE AND THEMES IN SPACE HI^ 7 3 

research, exploration, adventure, commercial pursuits, industrialization, 

perhaps evea colonization. 

We are now at the point where, thanks to Apolfo, whatcver its 

provenance, we can contemplate a broad rationale for going into 

space-to explore and learn and expand the human potential, to provide 

~ii-r'icis ziid ~;rodi;c;: fo: hxzzr. ccn:urr.ptlcr., tr! defend crtrselvrs. 

So, while we consider and perhaps deplore some of the reasons we 

went into space in the beginning, it is well to remember that geopolitics 

was the impetus for the rivalry between England and Spain duri~g the age 

cf seafaring exploration. You know what that productd. So may it be for 

the age of spacefaring explorat~on. 

COMMENTARY 

Sylvia Doughty Fries 

Kichard Hallion and John Noble Wilford together have given us a 

fii~e introduction to the scope and substance of the literature that has 

been inspired by modern man's first journeys into one of the last knoa n 

frontiers-out er space. 

There is, as Hallion assures us, amplc material to begin with. We 

have the papers and biographical studies of some of t~le pioneers in spaceflight-Konstantin Tsiolkovskii, Hermann Oberth, and Robert Goddard. 

The international and legal ramifications of spscr exploration have also 

received preliminary attention. 

The National Aeronautics and Space Admlllistration (NASA) itseir' 

has been the source and sponsor oi some of this basic I~teraturc, or I 

should say some of the basic hist~ries of the space program. It gives those 

involved in the NASA History Program some satisfaction, I am certain, to 

be assured that NASA's own histories are notably reliable for their 

thoroughness and candor. Among the most useful publications of 

NASA's History Program may Ire the regularly cpdated Guide to 

Research in NASA History and the Bibliography of Space Book &and ArtiG/es.ffom Non-Aerospace Journals, which provide avenues through the 

forest of space-related materials. 

To the participants at ;he outer edge and to the speciai se~lsibilities 

of such contemporary observers as Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer has 

been left the task of evoking the personal and poetic dimensions of the 

long at~d solitary drift beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Tempted as we 
my bc to regard such works as The Right St?~fi-and Michael Cc~llins's 

C-tn(: tbz Firz as plcasan: divcnions which add color, as it wcic. to our 

anvv of spacc. thcsc private explorations may bc the kcy to what is most 

missing from cur cunrnt !itcraturc on spacc. 

Vctcnn obscrvcr John Noble 'Yilford has had mpic oppoltunity to 

rcflcct upon thc principal thcma that havc appcarcd to dominatc our 

plblic. as wcll as !!rcrary, coming to tcrms with thc manifold opportunitia prcxntcd by spaccflight. Hc is clcarly troublcd-and othcrs sharc 

his conccm-abmr thc narrowly geopolitical motivation f~r our initial 

vcntura Into space. Thc maturing of thox vcnturcs into 2 full-flcdgcd 

sp3cc program can bc charactcrizcd, according to Wilford, by thrcc 

"thcmc;." 

Onc of thcsc is thc plunlism of our spacc program-a program carric ! out not by onc agmq or institution, but shvcd by NASA. the 

Dcpanmcnt of Dcfcnx. thc National Oceanic and Atmospheric .Administration, and a number of othcr "uscr" groups-~ubl~c and 

private-thlt makc ux of NASA rcscarch and dcvclopmen:. Lne could 

pint as a-eli to thc pluralism that iharactcrizcs the actual conduct of :he 

spacc progtrin throilgh grants and contracts. and thc pluralism of goverr,- 

mcnt ovcrsight and planning for our spacc undertakings. 

A zcond thcmc is thc constant tension bcrwccn the advocates of 

manncd spaccflighr ~nd tnox of unr,lanncd spaccflight. Intimately 

rcl~tcd to this tension is that cxisting bctwccn thc xicctific cornmunit!- 

and thc cnginccting community. Expanding xicnt~fic knodcdge and 

achieving c~ginccring tr:umpl.s may not always bc compatible goais in a 

program that must compctc for incrcasinglp scarcc rcsourccs, and for cvcn 

varccr public attention. 

rhc third major thcmc is pcrhaps less s. :hcmc than what Wilford so 

aptly calk thc "triumph that failed. " This was. of courx. thc first Apollo 

Mmn landing in thc summcr of 1969. Onc nced not havc bccn r total 

cynic to bc struck by thc thcatcr of th absurd that placzd hth thc agony 

of Victnam and Rcil Armstrong's lithc lunar stcps on front pagc. ccntcr. 

Thc boldncss of tnc Moon landing, thc tcchnoiagical achicvcmcnts it 

rcprcxntcd. could not bc disputed. Br . lath in Southcast Asia and at 

Tranquility Basc, the assault of our mucrial rcsourccs on f~rcign terrain 

was cxcccded only by thc ucccrtainty of our purpox. Or. so it xcmcd to 

SOlaaC O~~XNC~S. 

Both Wilford and Hallion navc cxprcsscd some disappointment III 

titc intcllcc*ual cffon that has gonc into comprchcnding the ciqriificancc 

.~f thc fact that wc. and not only wc, havc become a spac-cfaring pcoplc. 

!o illlatratc, Dick Hallion has suggatcd somc questions and iopin in 
hERAru~e AND TMS IN SPACE H~RY 7) 

need of dcd and thoughtful treatment. including the following: 

Space program's impact on modem industrial and government 

T:ni;;mcnt techniques; 

:m,m of the spacc pragnm on out domesric life and on intcrnational affairs; 

Rehtionship of aerospace technology and technology as a whole; and 

Phibsophical implicauonS of our flight fro n Euth. 

Now thar Hallion's quarions all start with space technology as a givefl, 

steking to understand the space &om's impact and influence on various 

othcr kinds of activities. I would like to suggest that wc might also !tun a 

kw things by examining the space program as something thar not only 

shapes othcr things, but is itsctf shapcci by influences not nccusarily 

rcchn~;ogicd in nature. For cxunple: 

Tht U.S. space yrognm has not been-nor, pcrhap~. should it 

be-immune from p!iticd considmtions. How. thcn. has it kn 

shaped by thc politics of govcrnmcntally sponsored and funded 

spaceflight? What. in fact. arc thox plitics? Who arc thc important 

constitucncia, and what is their relative powcr? 

What ha< bccn the rclaiionship of NASA to the xicntific community? We arc awuc of tcrsions, but why do they exist? Onc could go 

to the core. perhaps, with a ciosc study of NASA's Commincc on 

thc Sclcaion of Experiments for Space Craft. Wc arc ofi to a good 

start with Hamcr Ncwcll's &yondthe Atmosphere: WJ Years of 

Spuce Scrknce (NASA. 1980). 

Thirdly. it would be insuuctivc to havc available a thorough 

analysis, or better yet, xvcrd andyscs, of the irflucncc of the instiruk~nd arrangements of our space progmm(s) on the narurc of 

thox programs thcmxlvcs. For cxmple, thc U.S. spacc pro,orun, as 

we have seen, is frzgmcntcd, or to put it morc pitivcly. 

"piumlistic." What effect has this fact had on the dcvciopmcnt of 

our space tcchnologics and their applicaticns? Or. NASA. has, 3s a 

mattcr of federal policy. ken largciy confincd to thc work of 

rcxarch and dcvciopmcnt, while thc business of appliut~ons has 

bcen left to othcr agcncics, p~tblic and private. Why? And has this 

separation of dcvel~pcr from user hampered or cnhanrcd the cvolutian of space technologies? 

Thcrc is a dosc rcl1ations:~ip bewetn the two concerns cxprcsscd by 

V'ilford and Pallion this cvcning, that is, betarecn the relative povcrty of 

,ur intcllccrual efforts to undcrs,and th: significance of spare ~avcl for us 

4 our civiliLarion; and the rclativc unccnainry of our ratiomala for a 
space program as a major, national undcnaking. Howcvcr. wc cannot 

conuivc effective rationale for spacc cxpioraticn. try though wc mighr. 

Effmivc ntiondcs sustiin policia and programs prcckly bccausc they 

arc not contrived. nty rcflm the gcnuinc nccds and aspint~ons of rd 

and important constitucncics. 

Thc burdcn of our spacc program is that it has had only a marginal 

udiencc, and margmd constitucncia. Of courx thcre are the acrospacc 

industria, and members of Congress from thc stata in wh~b tho% i~- 

dustria arc locatcd. kt rhc conccm for economic swvival in thosc industric and thosc sLata. howcvcr lcgitinrarc in itxif, cannot alol~c sustain a prolonged national comrnitmcnt to spacc crplontiotl. Thcrc arc 

othc: constitucncics-astrophysicists. ccrtain kinds of en~inccrs. and so 

on. not to mention thc occasional spacc warrior or vision--. But thcx 

const~tucncia arc scattered. and their combiced aspirations have not. 

thus far. coal~sccd into a coherent vision ccmparabic to high national 

nu;pox. 

What maka this burden-the thinness of our spare program's audience and cnnstit~cncics-so trout;:ssome is that it has very little to do 

xith spacc exploration itself. It is due. rather, to a deep strain in our 

culture. to our lo~c-hate relationship with modern technology. As a 

culture wc arc easily sold cin the proink of tcrhnoiog! as a tool Ibr social 

or poiiticzl purposes. At the same time we have a deep-seated. agrarian 

unease over tcchnoiogy, mirrored in Frankenstcinian or i-austian imager). 

and reflected irl our fear that a singlr agency-whether public o: 

private-might acquire the ability to dominate :he rest of cs w~th its 

technological powers. This fear is aided and abettcd by our long-standing 

ideological prcfere~ce for poliricai power that is dispersed. divided. and 

halanccd as the surest guarantee againsr tyranny. 

What this has meanr for our space progrsm and policies has bctr. thc 

"pluralism" which characterizes not only our space effort. bur dl federally sponsored science and technology. Pluralism has. no doubt. spared us 

from the evils it was intended to prevent: capture of the heavens by the 

military or by a s;nqle commercial bchem3th such as American Telephone 

and Telegraph. But it has also meant that there has beer1 no ceniral rallying point. no broadly inspired focus. around which a large. politically 

unificd and important constituency for space co~ld form. The spare age 

has come to maturity in the United States and. no iongcr a novel[!.. ir hac 

to compete for support with othzr r;ell-established public interests. it is 

past time to do some hard ihinking. 

Why does it matter whether or not American men and women continue to take that long. distant voyage. and %hat is their ulrimatc destina- 
rion? Or if. as somc wmld prdrr, we delegate our spa rnvels to fricndl!: 

(WC trust) robots, would we iox in human s?t;fmlon what wc might 

gun in economics and rcchnical proficiency? And if we grow anxious tc - 

dry over wq mechanical incursion into thc forms and rage of our 

wtsrcrn slopes. what might bc our final thoughts stodd wc artcmpt to 

dc.m thc nu-studded night into anochcr horizon of mines and 

haone? 

Ukimatcly wc musr comc to tm with much more than thc 

possibility of space m~cl in ad of itself. If Acre 3 a ml incompatibilic-zqd 1 ~spcct &ere is-berwcen the idcologrd Iipneno ad . . common scntimcnts that ,:nd us togeher. and thc insriturional and 

politlcd rcquircmcnts of a r:. , id space program. thcn wc must comc to 

tern with that incompatibiiln. 

For some of us thc 1 'OJJ~PT spacecraks' ~ccDT.~WS~I~CC of Saxm was 

nothing shon of awesomc. I &dl have dfi~cui~ grasping rhc fact of rhc 

txtraordinary intimacy. as the hcavers go. wid; which we were ablr to 

cdnc Sarurc's moons. its many ring. =d its atmospbcre with cLhc aid 

of those spkndid littie crd: a ttcy sail inquir~ngly rhrollg!! thc hundlcss 

&a. N.4E.4'5 plmete rak-sions constitutc a space jou-xy undertaken 

for a purpose of cnduring value. -+fid there are other. s~mil-I purw-m. 

kc a rcndarous with Hdic\-‘s Comct. by which the qacc program cosld 

trul! elerare our om-r. qe. an qe of so man! self-inflinrd waur.ds. ro orie 

of the mote memorable in the unforgiving hwory of manhnd. S.~ih 

would no; bc s space program as an cnd in ~tself. bur a venturt common 

to us all. drawing upon the best of our shad intellecrilal and splrircai. as 

well as material. rexjurccz 

OPPORTWWlIE,C FOR POLICY HE!!oRIANs:~ - 

l3E EVOLUTION OF THE U.S. CIMLIAN SPACE PROGRAM 

One the most attrlctive features to mc of the U.S. spxc program 

as a subjm for historical study is its rc:ativ=ly finite ndturc. While thc National Aeronautics ;urd Space Administratior.'s (NASA's) probes and 

tclcropcs may be looking outward towvd the perhaps lirnitlcss edges of 

thc universe, the orginbation itself has had a lifc span of hardly a quarter 

oi'a century and for dl of that time has been vcr~ self-conlcious about the 

historical charzctcr of most of its activitia. It is difficult in g~nir~l for 

historians to reconstruct how events occurrcd and. cvcn more. wh~ they 

occurrcd; I submit that, while stil! dX~cult, it is compuativclv easier to 

undcnakc such reconstructions for thc Unitcd States space program. at 

least in its unclvsificd upccts, than for dmost any other human enterprise of similar scope and h5torical magnitude. And tr, t3p it off, working 

on spacc history is one way for those of us without high technical competence to get ciosc to what is (to me at least) the grezt auvcnture of my 

lifetime. 

My interest, as a trained political scientist intcrcsted in whd? I call 

"policy histo?." is in andemandin$ why g.>vernrnen:s cndertake particular courses of action (which is how ! dcfinc policy) and Irt analyzing 

the institutions and p~ozcsses through which those courses of action arc 

carried out. I spend little timt on the equally iasclnzting history ot 

technologicd! developments per se. In what follows, I attcmp: w trace thc 

evolution of U.S. civilian spact policy and of the insrin~tional framcarori: 

through which that policy has bccn implcmented. Most of this policy 

history is uncharted rcrritory for the academic hatorian, althocgh ttz 

1957-1961 pcriod is more adeqcatcly described than thc two d:.:ddes 

si~ce then, and the groundwork for further acaivsis has bcen laid hy - 

Nl.S.4's continuing prcgram of commissioned an4 in-houx hisrories 

Government involvement with advanced science and technclogy has 

perhaps never been si ir~rensc as it has vecn ir, the spacr arcnz: there is 

much to record and to conternplat? in this involvenlcnt. Hopcfullp. the account which follows can provide some cluzs to areas for fertile historical 

analysic. 

Space Policy Principles: 1957- 1%2' 

There were, of course, space activities within the United States prior 

to the 19% launch of America's first satellite. hplorer 1. on January 3lst 

of tl~t year. The military scirvices, panicu:arly *he Air Force, had initiated 

8 1 

PUCEDINC PAGE BLAFLX NOT FIZ;W,D 
early s~tcllitc projms. The United States had agreed to launch a scientific 

satellite as part of the 1ntcma:ional Geophysical Year. and the Vanguard 

project had ken authorized by President Eisenhower to meet the commitrr.ent. Vanguard was a second-priority project, explicitly forbidden 

from interfering with the requuements of the nation's crash missile progruns, and did not achiwe a successful launch untii later in 1958. Even 

though it was carried out by the Office of Naval Research, it was 

predominantly a civilian program with limited scientific objeci;vcs. 

During the 1950s. others recognized the potentials of spacc. They included individuals wit!!in the various armed services, pvticularly the Air 

Fnrcc, because spacc activity xcmed a logical extension of its mission, and 

the Army, because iq the Wernhcr von Emun rocket team at the 

Rcdstone Arsenal in Alabama it possessed one of the leading groups of 

rocket engineers in the world aqd netdcd to find missions to keep that 

team at wo;k under Army direction. A few individuals within the civilian 

National ~dvisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) also were bcginning to see that the organization's future might well lie in expanding its 

activitie into spacc, although NACA leadershi? did not adopt this 

posture until after the initial Soviet sv-ellite launch. 

Indeed, it was the shock of the Soviet Sputrlih in late i957 that 

gdlvanized the U S. debate on space poiicy ecd programs. That debate 

extended irom the late 1057 pcriod well into the carly years of the Kenned) administration. The poliq debare was oftcn acrimonious, with a 

widc varlery of persp~ctives represented and with strongly held i~mirutional and personal pozitions. Tit ?rincipla which cmcrgcd fron, that 

debate and which are describe6 below were not solely. indeed not 

predominately, the result of so:ilc "rational" analysis of the appropriate 

basis for U.S. space policy; ;;kc most other public policies in the Unitcci 

States. they represented negotiated conipromiscs anlong conflictirrg interests. Hopefuliy. they also reflected some sense of the national interest 

in a new area of numan activity. 

A fundamental principle of U.S. spccc policy was that actz&s in 

spue could .5e f~y5et-i not only 5y scientifi payofi mdi~ry or intehgence applications, or potentid economi or socd bcnefis, but 

bypofitlccllobjecrives. That the fmt three of these motivations were legitimate rationales for U.S. space activity was establisneci early in the spacc 

policy debate. President Eis-~hower turned to his newly-established Prcsident's Science Advisory Committee for .ounsel on the appropriate U.S. 

reaction to Sputnd, and those scientists included individuals who saw 

space as an exciting new arena for discovery. They recommended a program which focused on xicnr.6~ . :an; the science advisers were also 
concerned that space science not divert money away from other fields of 

science, but rather be planned as a separate part of the overill national 

scientific effort. Since the beginning of the U.S. program, space science 

has competed, on cne hand, with other types of space activities-parricu!arly manned spaceflight-for funds within NASA and. on the other 

hand, with other areas of science for a share of the government science 

budget. 

The national security community was qulck to sense the potentla1 of 

space as a important arena for military and intelligence activities, not 

primarily in terms of active military operation: but rather in terms of using space technology to perform necessary militaiy support functions, 

such as communications, navigation, and weather forecasting. and 

sl~rveillance functions central to strategic intelligence. There was iitt!e 

question from the start that, when space offered a more effiiier~t or a 

unique way of achieving a military objective, the Department of Defense 

(DoD) would be authorized to sarty out military-oriented space projects. 

The debate in the early years arose about the limits of legitimate military 

objectives in space, since the most visionary among the military were suggesting "space planes," manned orbiting stations and lunar missions, 

strategic interplanetary forces, and other expensive and "far-out" projects 

as appropriatr military undertakings. 

The capability to operate in space was also recognized early on as 

having the potential to lead to applications with both social and economic 

benefits, and this poteqtial was seen a a legitimate justification for expioratory proprams to investigate various applications. In particular, the 

potentials of space tcchnoiogy for meteorolog~cal observation and for 

relaying ccmmunications were recognized as a-eas of early payoff. and 

rapid!y puraied . 

The most vigorous area of debate in the early )ears of the U.S. space 

program was over whether strategic political objectives stch as national 

prestige ought to be pursued through SF-.- activity. The Eisenhower administration explicitly rejected the idea of using large space technology 

projects to compete in syrr,:wlic, prestige-oriented accompliihrr,:nts with 

the Soviet Union; Eisenhower insisted on a policy of "calm r wsel . ..ism" 

with respect to the political uses of spac? technolugy. This plicy was 

rcvL.xd by President Kcnnedv in Flay 1961. with his commitment to a 

man landing on the Moon ' oeforc this decade is out." Ken~ledy was 

stlaightforwaid i his rationale far A~llo; as he said in the speech an- . . ilouncing hls dec!s:m, "no sing1 . space project in this perid will be more 

mciting, or more impressive to ma~.ri~-l " The rnemoiandum prepared 

by Kennedy's advisers which recommt ded the lunar Ian Yng . ssioc to 
him was even more explicit, arguing that "our attainments [in space] are 

a major element in the international competition between the Soviet 

system and our own. The non-military , non-commercial, non-scientific 

but 'civilian' projects such as lunar and planetary exploration are. in this 

sense, part of the battle along the fluid front of the cold war. "2 

A second principle of U.S. space policy, also established by President 

Kennedy, was that the United States shouldbe preeminent in dlareas of 

space activity, partiularly so in those areas involwing the demonstration of 

technological capabdity .) In addition to reirersing Eisenhower's policy of 

not undertaking space activities for political objectives. Kennedy also accepted the recommendation that the United States zim for across-theboard supremacy in the development of space capabilities. Apollo was 

just the capstone of this commitment to preeminence. At the same time 

as he approved the lunar mission, Kennedy also agreed to a general acceleration of the development of U.S. space technology in booster 

development, nuclear rocket propulsion, communication satellites, and 

meteorological satellites. The emphasis in this strategy was on technology 

development, rather than a program balanced among scientific exploration, socially useful applications, and major technology projects. 

A third guiding principle for U.S. space activities was that civi/irn 

a~d mditary space activities would be camid out in separate tnstitutiotral 

struczures. In the early stages of the debate on space policy, the military 

tried to build a case for a single national space program under military 

control; a similar claim reemerged, in muted form, in the early months of 

the Kennedy administration. However. both Congress and President 

Eisenhower quickly became convinced that there should be an explicit 

and clear separation between the civilian space activities of government 

and rhose aimed at military objectives. This conviction was reflected in the 

Eisenhower administration's proposal for organizing the national space 

program sent to Congress in 1958. and it was never seriously questioned 

during congressional debate. Nor was President Kenncdy receptive to the 

notion of integrating militzry and civilian space activities in a single 

agency, although such a suggestion was made as he assumed the presidency in 1961. As intelligence programs using spar technology 

developed, they were carried out xnder yet anothr~ institutional 

framewcrk, and as civilian space applications reached the operational 

stage, they were assigned to a missicn agency withir. the government or 

transferred to the private sector. Further NASA, as the civilian space 

agency, was l~rnited to research and development work dated to civilian 

applications of space technology; the R&D necessary for military 2nd intelligence missions was carried ost under the spansorship of those agen- 
cies, rsther than using NASA as a single R&D agency for all government 

space programs. Thus, from the start, the principle of pLial space programs rather than a single g..vernment program embodied in a single institutional structure was established. 

The decision to carry out the government's space activities in a plural 

institutional context implied the need for some form of effective coordination among separate programs and for come means of developing 

either mutually consistent space policies for each program or a single integrated national space policy. A primary concern was whether space 

policy development required a distinct high-level mechanism reflecting its 

status as a presidential issue, or whether policy coordination could be accomplished through the normal operations of the Executive Office. 

Various mechanisms for program coordination between defense and 

civilian space activities were established because of the recognition that, if 

there were to be no central space agency, some sich means were required 

to insure that there were no un-k-arranted duplications or overlaps in the 

various parts of the federal space effort. 

A fourth space policy piinciple was that NAS.4 wouldbe limitedto 

research and development activities only; IVASA would not operate space 

systems. * The notion that NASA was to be an R&D agency only was incorporated in its organic act, and whenever a question of whether NASA's 

mandate sho~ild be extended to include at least the early operation of a 

fully developed space applications system has been raised,-the decision 

has been that NASA was required to transfer to some other entity any 

technology which had reachrd the operational stage. 

A fifth principle of U.S. space pnlicy was that while the government 

would actively encourage private-sector uses of space technology, the 

government would do sponsur research in areils of potentid commercd 

app/ccatrons in space. both to accelerate the developmen/ oftho~e applications mJ to prevevt pnuilte monopolies based on spat technoiogy. 

This policy took several years to evolve. The forcing issue wa~ the desirc of 

American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T\ to invest its own corporate 

funds in the development of a communications satellite, if only the 

government would agree to launch such a privately developed piece of 

hardware.4 The government monopolized the capability required to 

launch payloads into orbit, and that capability had been developed at 

public expense. For this and other reasons, there was controversy from the 

- 

* 'fin pr~rir~ple applies pm~tuiarl\ ro the cpate appil~arlnn5 area Spate xleritr IS. almn.;t h\ definluun, cwlu~~vrly an R&D actlvlty NASA ha<. ((1 date. acted a' thr c~pcrdriorlai aRenty for iaunthlng 

nonrn~i~tary payltrdds Into cpdtc 
start over the noticn of government assistance to a single corporation* in 

achieving, if not a monopoly, at least a strong initial advantage in the exploitation of space communications. 

The Eisenhower administration was willing to leave research and 

development specifically related to civilian communications satellites to 

the private secior , but this policy was reversed in the early years of the 

Kennedy administration. Not only did the government take the initiative 

in establishing an entirely new entity, the Communications Satellite 

Corporation (COMSAT), to be the U.S. actor in operating international 

commercial space communications systems, but the President also 

au:horized NASA to invest public miney in communications satellire 

research and development, thereby helping firms other than AT&T to 

gain competence in this area without large commitments of their own 

resources. 

A final principle of U.S. space policy was that, although the 1958 

Act specified that NASA might "engage in a program of international 

cooperation," intemationd cooperation was second in pnority to 

nationdutic objectives and was to k pursued in the context of broader 

U.S. domestic and forelgn pofzcy goals. Both Presidents Eisenhower and 

Kennedy saw the potential for space being an arena of substantial international cooperation; this was one rationale offered for placing the U S. 

effort primarily under civilian control. However, President Kennedy, by 

setting preeminence in space technology as a high-priority pollcv goal, implicitly relegated international cooperation to a lower priority than competitive, nationalistic motivations for the U.S. space progrm. 

These six principles formed the policy framework within which at 

least the first decade of U.S. space activity took place. They were also the 

policy principles upon which an elaborate institutional structure for the 

national space program was developed. The main features of that structure are described below. 

Institutional Evolution of the U.S. Space Program 

Institutions are created, at least ideally, to embody a particular set of 

policy choices. As policies change, institutions either adapt, are modified 

by external forces, or become obsolete. Although the basic institutional 

structure of the U.S. space program has remained stable over the past two 

decades, there has beer? a good deal of organizational adaptation. 

* Even one, like AT&T, which already had a virtual monopoly on long-distance transmission of voice 

and video communications. 
Whether the changes are adequate to current space policy directions is 

very n~uch a live question today. 

Separate Programs, Sepante Sttuautes 

The policy decision with the most direct impact on the structure of 

the U.S. space program was that calling for institutional separation within 

the government of the civilian and military space activities. In the immediate post-Sputnik period, when it was evident that some accelerated 

response to the Soviet space accomplishments by the United States was required, there were a number of contenders for the job of managing the 

national effort. They included: 

a hgle agency for all government space progrzms managed by the 

nilitary, either at the level of the Secretary of Defense or by one of 

the armed services, most likely the Air Force; 

a new cabinet-level department of science and technology which, 

among its other responsibilities, would have charge of the civilian 

space effort; 

adding space to the responsibilities of the Atomic Energy 

Commission; 

expanding the responsibility of the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics to include a substantiz' component of space 

activities: 

creating a new c~v:lian agency with a responsibility for government 

space activities, except those primarily associated with defense applications (which would be managed by DoD). 

It is beyond the scope of this paper to detail the debate which led to 

the choice of creating a fundamentally new civilian space agency, 

although one arose around a core of technical capability transferred from 

NACA.5 Once the decision to separate civil and military space activities 

was made, the claims by the Department of Defense and by the armed 

services that they were the appropriate managers of the national space 

program found limited political support either within Congress or in the 

public (outside of those c2nstituencies with close connections to the 

.~ilitary). The idea that the U.S. space program in its civilian aspect: 

should be an open, unclassified effort was 7videly accepted amonz those 

concerned with shaping national space policy. 

As the government agency concerned with aeronautics research, 

NACA mounted a campaign to have space added to its activities. 

However, NACA was an introspective, research-o:ic..ied agency with 

little orientation toward major technological enterprises. Further, it was 
88 A SPALLI ARING PEOPLE 

an agency managed by a committee, not by d sir.gle executive; this was an 

administrative arrangement strongly preferred by the scientific commanity as a means of insulating from "politics" gwernment activities with 

strong scientific components. A similar form of organization had been accepted for the Atomic Lnergy Commission and had been proposed for the 

National Science Foundation, but was vetoed by President Truman. 

What President Eise~lhower's administrative, bq~dgetary, and policy advisors wanted was an agency res9onsive to the policy directions ot the 

President, headed by a single individual responsible for implementing 

those polic!? directives, and with the capabilities for carrying out potentially major research and development activities. Those activities, it was 

thought, would be carried out within the aerospace industry under 

governmelit contract rather than "in-house" with federal laboratories. 

They thus concluded that the creation of an essentially new federal stmcrure for space, but one built around the NACA core of technical capability and research institutions. was the appropriate route to go. 

In the Natioqal Aeroriautics and Space Act of 1958, the primacy of 

civilian objectives in space was stated: It is the policy of the United States 

that aciivities in space should be: devoted to peaceful purposes for the 

benefit of all mankind"; and the respon,.bility for those zctivities was 

given to a civilian agency: "Such activities shall be the responsibility of 

and shall be directed by a civilian agency exercising control over 

aeronautical and space activities sponsored by the United States. . . ." 

One area of controversy in the development of the 1958 Space Act 

was whether the new space agency should be responsiblc for all spate 

K&D, including that ultimately to be used by the militai-y for defense applications. The decision was :o make explicit from the start t' oral 

separation of these two major caregories of space activities. wi .-. ,ASA 

having no direct involvemen: in military work. Thus the Space Act also 

declared that the Department of Defense should have ~esponsibiliry for 

"activitie3 peculiar to or primarily associated with the development of 

weapons systems, military operations, or the defense of the United States 

(including the research and development necessary to make effective pro. 

visions for the defense of *he United States)." 

The formal separation of the civilin:~ anc nilitary spate artivitie; into 

different institutional frameworks meant transferring to the new civilian 

space agency capabil~ties related to its mission but under military control 

and, particularly after NASA had been assigned [he lunar landing mission, developing new capabilities required to carry out an active spce 
R&D cffon. Within thc Department of Dcfcnsc thcrc was a nccd to 

develop a spacc R&D and a spacc opcmtions structure, and to dctcrmine 

thc divi\.;n of responsibility between rhc lcvcf of thc Sccrctvy of Dcfcnsc 

and thc arious military xrviccs. hth thc NASA buildup and the 

devclor~ cent of thc initial military structure for spacc wcrc accompiishcd 

by thc cz :; 1960s. 

Witi..n thc first two yan of its existcncc. NASA had cransfcrrcd to it 

a number .. f facilities. programs. and people that had formcriy been 

opcmting undcr military auspices. Thcx included. from the Army, the 

von Bram rockct dcvclopmcnt tcam at Huntsvillc, Alabama. which 

bccvnc thc core of thc Marshal! Spacc Flight Gntcr. and the Jct Propulsion Laboratory at thc CaISornia Institute of Technology. NASA was 

authorizcd to dcvclop scvcnl ncw ficid ccntcrs rclatcd to its mission. including thc Goddard Spacc Flight Ccntcr for scicncc and applications programs and the Manncd Spacecraft Gntcr (iatcr the Johnson Spacc 

Ccntcr) for manncd programs, and to dcvclop a civilian launch facility at 

Cape Canavcral, Florida (htcr thc Kcnncdy Spacc Center).* Thew wcrc 

added ro thc rhrcc former NAC.4 ccntcrs: hglcy. Lewis. and Amcs. In 

addition. smallcr NACA facriitia at Wallops Island. Virginia. and Edwards Air Forcc Buc in California camc ~lndcr NASA control. By 1062. 

NASA had in place an impressive institutional capability, onc fully 

mobilized for rnetting a broad sct of narional objcctiva in space. 

This government institutional base for civilian spnx prog:ams was 

reinforce6 by the dcvclopmcnt of an claboratc external nctwork of 

organizations-industries. univenitia. and nonprorits-involved in 

carrying out tk civilian space program undcr NASA contracts or grants. 

!.As space activ~iies matured, other government agencics. including thc 

Departmcnts of Agriculturc. Commerce; Encrg>-; Health. Education. and 

Welfare; and Interior zlso became ~nvolved in space-related activitics.) At 

the peak oi the Apollo program in fmal year 1965. fully 94 percent of 

NASA's budget obligations went to external grants and contracts. and 

NASA's prime contractors in turn crsatcd a widc base of more spccializcd 

subconrractors. Of direct NASA procurements in that year. -9 percent 

went to business firms. 8 perccnt to educational institutions. 12 percent to 

other government agencics. and 1 percent ro nonprofit organizations. 

This patrern has remained consiwm ovcr the years; in fmal 1978. the 

same percentage (04%) of NASA's btldgc~ wcnt to extramural procurerncnt, and the distribution among performcrs wa. similar-business 

Thrrc aAs aircad) J mlltrrn launch IJ<IIII, ,; (rpc (ana\rrrl 

< -.& 
(81%); educational institutions (12% ); nonprofits (1 %); and other 

governrncnt agencia (6 % ). 

As thc dcvclopmcnt of govcrnmcnt spacc activities during thc 1960s 

and 1970s continued, thc separation bctwcen thc three components of 

government ?.ctivity--civilian. military. and intelligcncc-becunc quitc 

pronounccd. The govcrnrncnt dcvcloped and maintained xpvlic and 

distinct institutionrl structures for cach function. not only in tcrms of linc 

agencies within 4c cxccutivc branch. but also in terms of policy review. 

budget devclopr~c.it and rcvicw. and congressional ovcaight. lhcrc was 

coordination wrong thc ckmcna of thc govcrnmcnt spacc program, but 

it was limited in xopc in compariso.~ to thc xpmtc momcntum 

dcvcloped b;i each clcmcnt of the governmcnt spacc effort. 

Thc KASA structure crcatcd by its first two adwinistntors. Kcith 

Glcnnan -nd James Wcbb. has rcmaincd basically unchanged during thc 

past cwb dccada. NASA Hcadquanen in Washington is mponsiblc for 

policy dcvclopmcnt. overall managcmcnt, -and tcchnKd direction of thc 

various components of the civilian spacc research prcgram. Tcchnirx! 

managcmcnt of rhox jp~~lfic projects is assigned to onc of thc various 

NASA ficld centers. NASA has adopted the "Air Fonc model" of 

agcncy-contractor relationships, in which most R&D work is pcrformcd 

outsidc the government by thc aerospace industry. The govcrnmcnt rok 

1. rhar of program and project initiator. tcchnkd monitor of contractor 

prtormance, arrd dscr of the rcsuits of thc R&D cffons. 

The set of ficld centers undcr NASA authority today is the samc as it 

was during the early 1960s." Bccausc NASA is rcsponsiblc for civilian 

space activities aimed at a number of different purposes, including 

scicncc. applications, and dwclopmcnt of tcchnotog~d clpability, and 

bccaux the rcsponsibility for cach of thosc missions is lodged in a diffcrcnt ficld ccnter, one of NASA Hcadquartcn' major responsibilitia is 

allocating priorities and raourca across thc NASA institutiond complcx. 

Thc vitality of various ficld ccntcrs is closely related to thc priority assigned to particular types of spacc activities undcr that ccntcr's control, 

and thus thcre is strong institutional motivation to competc for puticu!ar 

emphase within thc overall NASA program. 

it may be useful to mention thc structurc for spacc policy within 

CC'I~~CSS. Aftcr creating two tcmporuy xlcct comrrittccs to deal with 

space policy in carly 1958, Iatcr that :?car Congress cstablishcd two new 

En- fa rhc bd pcrmd during which NASA also M an Ekrrtmrs R-h Gnrn In Gmbndgc. Massachums 
standing committm to deal with civilian spacc matters. In the Senate this 

responsibility was given to the Committcc on Aeronautical and Space 

Sciences; in the How. to thc Committcc on Science and Astronautics. 

Both of thcx committm derived their visibility and status within Congms from thc irnponancc of thc programs -they oversaw and their 

authority over thosc prognms. As long as the civilian spacc program was a 

matter of high national priority with major budgctuy supports. thcrc was 

a corresponding degree of status in being involved with thcx two congrasional committees. However. as the rcsourm allocated to civilian spacc activ~ty declined after Apolb. Congrcss viewed space activities as just one 

among various science and technology programs of govcmmcnt. and during thc 19705 committcc jurisdictions and names were modified to rcficct 

this reality. Now NAS.4 and thc National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) programs ur rcvicwcd in the Snatc by thc Subcommittct on Scicncc, Technology. and Space of the Cornmittcc on 

Commcrcc. Science. and Transportation; thcrc is no stparate Senate space 

committcc. In the Houx. thc Committee on Science u~d Astronautics in 

1974 was renamed the Committcc on Science and Technology and its 

jurisdiction was broadened to covcr ma; civilian sciencc and technology 

activities, mthcr than king fmuscd primarily on NASA efforts.* 

In summary. then, thc policy principle of scpvztc civilian. military, 

and intclligcncc spacc programs has resultcd in thc dcvcbpmcnt of 

separate and well-cstabiishcd institutional structures aimed at thox three 

objcctivcs. As the priority givcn to military applications of space has inacucd, the Dcpznmcnt of Dcfcnsc structure for cvrying out the activities has become more elaborate. However, as the priority assigned to 

civilian spacc activ~ties has changed, thcrc has not been a corresponding 

modifiiation of the basic NASA instituticnal structurc or institutional 

style. although thc sizc of thc NASA work force md supporting network 

of contractors has diminished. 

This institutional base offers the potcntiv for rapid mobilization if 

the nation wcrc to decide to accelerate the pace of its civilian spacc effort. 

The conscqucnccs of allowing the NASA and contractor institutional 

bvcs to shrink further arc unclear. It may bc a rund national invcstmcnt 

to maintain a strong institutional capability within the govcrnmcnt for 

civilian spacc dcvclopmcnt, even though that capability is not always bcing fullv utilized. On the other hand, it may also be apprcpriatc. as U.S. 

Mtltre and tnrclltgmc spxc prqpm arc aurhonzcd tn orhcr commtttm In bah Hauu and 

knatc. rho rctnforra thc vpvatr crrrut~ branth srnnturn for thc rhm cmpmrnts of thc U S 

pmrncnt spacc p:opm. 
activities in spacc mature. to shift morc of the responsibility for program 

and project planning and dcvelopmcnt to the private sector, with a 

pardel diminution of govcrnmcnt's institutional involvcmcnt. 

In 1977-1978. undcr thc dimtion of a National Security Council 

Policy Rcvicw Cornmittcc. a major review of thc structure of thc national 

space program was carried out. That review validated thc fundamental 

principle of separating civilian and military spacc activities. It concludcd 

that "our current dirmion set forth in thc Space Act in 1958 is wcllfounded" and that "thc United States will maintain currcnt rcsponsibilit! and management among thc various spacc programs." 

Thc dccision to xpuatc civilian, military, and intciligcncc spacc activities Icd naturally to thc rquircmcnt for policy and program coordination among thox separate programs. Thc typc of policy coordination 

needed and mcchanisrns for coordination havc bccn, and continue to bc. 

controversial issue. The naturc of coodinarion at thc program lcvcl has 

bccn las problcmatic. and working-icvcl cooperation between civilian 

and military space efforts has hen the rulc. Howcvcr. occasional disputes 

have arisen ovcr. for cxlmple, proposed civilian uscs of technology 

dcvclopcd for national security purpoxs. 

During thc 1958 debatc on spacc policy, a major congressional concrrn was the relationship bctwccn military and civilian objcctivcs in space 

and some broader xt of national interests. Seoatc h!ajority Lcadcr Lyndon 

Johnson. in particular. was convinccd that spacc policy bught to bc thc 

subjcct of prcsidcntial attention; thc Eixnhowcr administration was far 

kss convinccd that spacc policy dcxrvcd such high priority. Johnson 

wanted to efftct high-level policy coordination by creating an Exccutivc 

Office mechanism mdclcd on the National Sccurity Council but 

dcdicatcd specifically to aeronautical and zpwc activitics. Thc Eixnhowcr 

administr3r;on reluctantly accepted Johnson's notion as a pricc of gctting 

the spacc legislation through Congrcss. and a h'ational Aeronautics and 

Spacc Council was cstablishcd by the Space Act of 1958. l7-1~ Space Council was to be a high-lcvcl advisory body, chaired by rhc Prcsidcnt and consisting of the hcads of othcr agcncics conccrncd with spacc activities ar,d 

several nongovcrnmcnt mcmbcrs.* It was to wist and advise thc Prcsident in developing a comprehcnsivc program of aeronautical and space 

Thcx nonglntrnmcnd rncmhrn wcm never appntcd and the ptlW wcm cl~rntnatcd whcn 

thc Sprc Council rrr rcorpnizrd in 1'K)l 
activities, in assigning specific spacc missions to various agencies, and in 

rmlving diffcrcnccs among agcncics over spacc policy and programs. 

Although thc Eisenhower administration agreed to thc inclusion of 

thc Spacc Council in the legislation setting up thc national spacc effort. it 

ncver used thc mechanism. Rath,r, space policy undcr Eixnhowcr was 

dcvclopcd through National Security Council and Bumu of the Budgct 

channcls. Eixnhowcr bclicvcd that civilian and military functions in space 

dcvclopmcnt wcrc "scpamtc responsibilities requiring no coordinating 

body." Thus, in 1%0, he askcd Congrcss to abolish thc Spacc Council. 

This proposal was sidctrackcd by Lyndon Johnson. Whcn Kcnncdy 

won thc 1960 clcction, withJohnson as his Vicc Prcsidcnt. thc new Prcsidcnt was convinced to keep the Sz~cc Council, but to change the lcgislation so It would k chaired by thc Vicc President. During thc Kcnncdy 

administration. thc Spacc Council hired its fist staff mcmbcrs and played 

an activc role in dcvcloping the national policia which led to the Apollo 

program and thc administration's peetion on communication satellites. 

During thc rat of the 1760s. undcr the Johnson and Nixon administrations, the Spacc Council continued to exist. but at the margins of most 

spacc policy debates. It devclopcd a rclativcly largc (for the Executive Officc) st& under thc leadership of Vicc Prcsidcnts Hubert Humphrey and 

Spiro Agncw. However. as the priority wigncd to civilian spacc programs 

continued to dccrcasc and as the scpuatc spacc activities of thc govcrnmcnt prctty much wcnt thcu own ways, thc Space Council hame rathcr 

a moribund institution. and in 1973, Prcsidcnt Nixon proposcd its 

dissolution. Congress raised no objection and the Spacc Council wcnt out 

of cxistcncc. 

Without a central policy coordinating mechanism during the 197% 

s~rcucs among various govcrnmcnt spacc activitics dcvclopcd. Scvcral of 

these were thc results of disagrccmcnts bttwccn NASA and DoD ovcr the 

appropriate national security constraints to bc applicd to civilian spacc cfforts, particularly in thc Earth-observation uca. NASA-DoD rclationships 

with rcspcct to the Spacc Shuttlc program havc bccn another area of controvcrsy. It was thex stresxs, more than any othcr single influcncc, that 

kd to the Cartcr administration rcvicw of national spacc policy bcgun in 

1977. 

A major result of that rcvicw was thc reestablishment of a 

prcsidcntial-level policy rcvicw proccss for spacc. This process exists in thc 

form of a Policy Review Committee (Spacc). operating undcr National 

Security Council auspices, but chaired by thc Dircctor of thc Office of 

Science and Technology Policy. This committee provides a forum for 9 

involved federal agencies (including departments such as Intcrior and 
Agncufturt ) to air rbeh vim on space polq, ro dvisc the prtudmr on 

proposed changes in ~tional spare poh. to resolve dqmcs amow 

agencies, and to provide for rapid referral of spvc poliq Issues to tbc 

president for decision when required. Enlike the Spam Cod. he 

Polir! Rcvicw Committee (Spacci docs nor bvc a standmg profesuod 

d mcture. Rztha. it is a rccopticm of ofc need to fo&c the 

channels of interaction among thc various componenrs of ~o~rnr 

spvc bin- rather thvl hw poliq- and prqgro d.tspmes sdcd 

though the bud- rcvim process or otber means of interqcnn 

coordina~on . 

Tbc structures for coorhcion among dw- and ch-dun space 6- 

fom at rfic program Icvcl have had a rather &rent hen. than thw 

for po!ic\- level coordmation. T"ne 1956 Space -4ci creatcd a mechrmm for 

coordination at this lwei. the Cil-&an Mihq hn CoIMIrter 

(CMLC I. but that sntutoq commmee. like he Spxe Council. n.a a 

congress ion all?^-imposed srmcnut and was seldom used. Rather NA4S-4 

and DoD set up a number of working-lwei groups on kwes of lnttrcsr to 

borh agencies az the earl! years of the space program passed. The C,UC 

u-az cvenrualli- abolrshed and repIaced b) a non-sra~toq -4eronauti~ and 

A4~ronauucc Coordinating Board i .k4CB i. abch formahzed the contam 

hven NASA and DoD at the workmg lrvt! The .k4CB wat estabMed b!- a 1960 N.4SA4-DoD agreemcni and wa ~IVC~; re.~onsibii~n hi 

coordinatinp N.4S.4 and DoD actirrries so x, tro "avoid undesirable 

duplication and . . . achjcvc &-;ueni utiiizatio~ of avadabie resources" 

and undertake "the coordination of artirities in area. of common mterest." The earl! years of the .4.\CB weir qiure produruve m :ems of 

data exchar,gcs and creating an awareness of ~hai the other qencx's pkn 

wcrc: tbc AACB continues to wn rdai- as the pnmq mehanm for 

addressing major program ksucs of interest to DoD and !'i.45,4 rr, space 

Howrr~r. ;~z ~bt scprarc NASA .d deft-nse programs hecamr more instituuonalizcd in the 196a and 1 TOs. there ha. been a rmdenc) for coordnatlon bcrwtcn the progams to be defcnslve m character. I .e . . aimed ai 

protccring each agent!-'s oun proprams and "mri " 

Putting Re Results into Opmtim 

In the I958 debate over space amr-iues. the norlon of operanrmv 

civiiian space sytcrns d~d nor recerve much arrenuon. The Spacr Aci gavr 

h:ASJ4 the rcsponsibiiin. for mosr aeronautical and space art1vrrJe.r bur 

defined thosc activities 25. ( 11 "research inli~ . . . praMeim of fl~gh: 

within and outside the Earch 's atmosphere' ': (2 1 "i3e dwelctpmenr. the 

constroctlon. tmkg and operation for research purposes of aerc~naut~cd 
and space vehicles"; and (3) "such other activities as may be required for 

the exploration of space." This languagc seemed to limit NASA to R&D 

activities, and that was the general undemanding of the agency's mission 

at the time. 

In one area, providing launch services to a variety of customers including other government agencies, COMSAT and other private sector 

firms. and other countria, NASA has gone beyond R&D to a clearly 

opcmtional role. Restriction to R&D has had little impact on NASA's cfforts in space science and exploration or tcchnology development, but it 

has had a defmite impact in the space applications area. 

Limiting NASA to the R&D part of the job of bringing space applications into being mcans that other users of space tcchnology are 

ncccssarily involved in the total application effort. NASA has developed 

an orientation towards "technology push" dforts rather than a tradition 

of close coupling with potential users of space technology who would cxercise "demand pull" on the development of space applications. While 

NASA has almost from its start included "tcchnology transfer'' functions 

in its organization. many obxrvcrs think that NASA has so far done an 

inadequate job of marketing its tcchnological capabilities to potential 

users of spacc application systems. 

While an emphasis on dcvcloping and demonstrating new technical 

apabilitia is often necessary to convince potential users of their value, 

especially in situations where no preexisting user community exists, most 

observers believe that NASA, particularly in its early years, put more stress 

on pushing the technological frontier in space applications than on 

dcvcloping tcchnology either in response to user demand or in anticipation of the kinds af demands likely to arise as new capabilities became 

known. In addition, NASA has a history of emphasizing the development 

of constantly more sophisticated technology in its application programs 

nthcr than concentrating on bringing an adequate applications system into early operation. This is at least in some measure a reflection of the institutional reality that, once NASA completes R&D for an applications 

program, it must transfer that program to some user outside of thc 

agency. There is an organizational tendency to attempt to hold on to programs, even X that mcans prolonging the R&D phase beyond the socially 

optimum point.* Since thc early 1970% NASA appears to have put a 

higher priority on developing closer relationships with potential users of 

* Thcrc may br. of courx. tcchnical a~bd managcr~al as wcll as institut~onal rms why thc dcvclopmcnt of a spacc application may rake longer than originally hop3 for Somc also suggcst that thcrc 

haw been innancts of prcmaturc shifts from R&D to operational status in spacc applications 
space technology, particularly in the remote sensing and advanced 

satellite communications areas. 

The first test of NASA's bias towards continuing R&D in applications was in weather satellites. In the early 1960s, NASA's initial 

meteorological satellite program, which had been transferred fiom DoD, 

was called Tiros. As the agency in charge of space R&D, NASA regarded 

Tiros as only the first step in weather satellite development and wanted to 

go immediately to the creation of an advanced mcteorologicd satellite 

called Nimbus. The Weather Bureau within the Department of Commerce. 3 potential user agency, had another point of view. Even this 

initial wcather satellite would markedly improve its services, and the 

Weather Bureau wanted NASA to focus on Tiros rather than initiate a 

new weather satellite program. However. it took several years and 

substantial bureaucratic conflict before NASA was willing to shift its emphasis away from the advanced Nimbus development program back to 

completing Tiros and bringing it to an operational Eventually, 

NASA worked out an effective agreement with the Weather Bureau both 

to support ongoing meteorological satellite activities and to continue 

R&D on advanced sensors relevant to meteorological applications. 

The cgmplex history of the use of sstellita for remote sensiog of land 

and ocean areas demonstrates the institutional problems stemming from. 

among other sources, NASA's focus on R&D and its lack of close links 

with potential users of operational space systems. The debate over the appropriate development pace and management structure for the Landsat 

system has extended over a decade. A presidential decision to assign the 

operational responsibility for remote-sensing programs to NOAA has provided only a partial resolution of the institutional aspects of that debate. 

A major issue as arrangements for operational land remote sensing 

have been debated over the past decade is whether NASA's charter ought 

to be revised to extend itr authority to the operation of space applications 

systems. The presidential directive of November 1979 ended this debate 

with the decision to keep NASA as an R&D agency in remote sensing and 

to assign civilian Earth observation operations within the goveinment to 

NOAA, even though there were other claimants, such as the Departments of interior and Agriculture, to a share of the opera;ionai remotesensing role. Throughout the Landsat program, NASA hz emphasized 

the experimental nature of the early remote-sensing satellites. While it 

has worked with potential users to make them aware of possible applications of Lrrndsat data to their programs, it has also proposed more advanced sensors for orbital evaluation in later Landsat satellites. But it has 

not given priority attention to deveioping the gro~nd segment, including 
associated data management and information processing and disseminations systems. required for early deployment of a first-generation opemtiond remote-sensing system. 

Public Sector-Private Smot Relations 

NASA's relationships as an R&D agency for space with other potential users of space applications are relatively underdeveloped; this is particularly the case when those users arc not other government agencies, but 

rather private sector. profit-oriented fms. The appropriate division of 

responsibility between public and private organizations for research and 

development oriented towards commercial applications for space 

technology has been problematic since the start of the space age.* The 

area in which this issue initially surfaced is communications satellite 

research. The Eisenhower administration recognized that communication 

via satellite was an area of potential major economic payoff and decided, 

in keeping with its general pro-business orientation, that 

communications-satellite research should be left to those interested in 

making a profit in the area. Others, however, feared that allowing ~nlg 

private entities to develop the technology of space communications meant 

in effect giving a virtual monopoly in that area to the corporation with the 

most resources available to invest in communications satellite research. 

AT&T. From the perspective of those interested in preventing monopoly 

power in new areas of human activity, such 4 development was not 

desirable. The situation was further clouded by the recognition that, even 

if AT&T or another private entity developed a communications satellite 

using its own funds. it would have to depend on a launch capability 

developed with public ml,ney to place that satcllite into orbit. Thus the 

Kennedy adrninist:ation reversed the Eisenhower policy of leaving communications satellite research to the private sector; President Kennedy 

authorized NASA to conduct a vigorous program of research in the communications satellite area. 

In 1961 and 1962, as an initial space communications capability approached reality, there were those who thought that the government 

should not only be involved in communications satellite R&D and make 

the results of that research available to a variety of potential private sector 

firms for commercialization. but also that the government itself should 

* Of ruurw. th~s problem 15 not ltrn~tcd ro the spacc uc:or Thc ttsuc of fcdcral pollclcs affccr~ng 

prnate-xtcor Innovatton. ~ncludmg Arcct *upport of clvlltan R&D. has becn a sublcct of much rcrcnt 

dtxuulon wtthln both thc cxccut~vc branrh and thc Congms 
take advantage of that rescvch and undertake the operational satellite 

communications role, returning the eventual profits to the Treasury. The 

advocates of this position were not able to gather majority support in the 

1962 debate over communications satellite policy. With the creation of a 

new institutim, the Communications Satellite Corporation-which had 

some aspects of public control, but was fundamentally a new private 

enterprise-the mtion that the government should go into the communications satellite business itself disappeared .9 

The precedent established during the communications satellite 

debate was that developing new applications of space technology with 

commercial potential and nurturing them to operational status is a mixed 

private sector-public xctor responsibility, with the appropriate division of 

roles to be determined on an ad hoc basis for each area of applications; the 

goal, however, is eventual private sector operation of space applications 

systems. In each area in which a space application has reached or approached maturity, such as point-to-point communications and some applications of remote sensing, business structures have emerged which 

operate as commercial enterprises related to that application. The government has continued to fund research in other areas of space applications 

with potential commercial utility, including space transportation, 

materials processing, and other aspects of remote sensing, with the hope 

of discovering whether there are indeed profitable opportunities for 

private sector involvement in those areas, and demonstrating to potential 

opcratorc what those opportunities are. It may be that continued government willingness to push the applications of space technology and to bear 

the costs and risks of the research, development, and demonstration 

phases of commercializing those applications is the only way for them to 

become reality, at least in the short to midterm. 

One area of policy and institutional controversy during the Nixon 

and Ford administrations was advanced communications. In 1973, NASA 

was ordered to end its communications R&D efforts, on the grounds that 

the space communications business was far enough advanced so that it 

should be totally a private sector responsibility. The consequence of this 

decision was that the U.S. private sector concentrated on only those 

aspects of space communications which had the promise of early commercial payoff. Other governments have provided R&D support for advanced 

space communications development, leading to increasing international 

competition with U.S. firms for sales of advanced communication 

satellites. This situation led the Carter administration in 1978 to decide 

that the potential economic and social benefits of communications 

stellites for both private and public sector use were not being adequately 
tended to by private sector R&D. The Carter administration reestablished 

a NASA research effon in the advanced space communications area and 

charged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce with assisting in market aggregation 

and possible development of domestic and international public satellite 

communication services. 

From "Preeminence" to "Leadership" 

In 196 1. John Kennedy committed the United States to a policy of *I preeminence" in all areas of space activity. The notion that the United 

States should maintzin a position of "leadership" in space activity has 

been repeated by each chief executive since Kennedy. 

As other countries in Europe, Asia, and South America develop independent space capabilities and as the Soviet Union continues an extremely active space effort, the meanings for the 1980s of the terms 

"leadership" and "preeminence" are less than clear. One possibility is 

for the United States to compete with other nations across the board in all 

areas of space activity, from the development of large, permanent manned structures in orbit, through various types of space applications, to exploration of the cosmos. Another option is to focus U.S. space priorities in 

areas of high national payoff (which would include international Icadership in those areas). Another option is to view application activities in 

space as competitors with Earth-bound enterprises, and to undertake 

tha'n only when they are the most efficient means of meeting broader national objectives. 

The initial impact of the commitment to across-the-board 

preeminence was to create in NASA an agency with the structure, institutional relationships, ~nd organizational culttire needed to carry out a high 

prixity, nationally mobilized effort in the development of large scale 

technology. NASA, at least in formal terms, remains today an organization designed for such purposes, but the meaning of a national commitment to leadership in space activities is much less clear than it was during 

the peak of the Apolln progran~ in the mid 1960s. As space activities have 

matured, and as they promise to become even more a routine part of a 

variety of government and private sector activities over the coming 

decade, a major institutional issue is whether a single central space agency 

with the desire and structure for carrying out an integrated, high-piiority 

national space effort in the civilian sector is ar, anomaly. 

The International Context: Collaboration or Competition? 

During the 1960s. NASA developed international cooperative programs which were clearly secondary in priority to using space technology 
as a demonstration of national technical resources. Almost all of NASA'r 

international activities were scientific in character* and were carried out 

under policy guidelines which kept them limited in nope, including the 

notions that cooperation had to be based on mutual scientific benefit and 

that there would be no exchange of funds between the United States and 

its partners in international space activities. '0 This limited concept of international cooperation was broadened during the 1970s to the applications area, as a number of nations became interested in the Landsat program, building their own ground stations or otherwise receiving Landsat 

data, and for the first time paying NASA a fee for access to the remotesensing satellites. Other applications efforts had international dimensions; fa example, the Applications Technology Satellite and Communications Technology Satellite programs demonstrated some of thc 

uses of communications satellites for education and health care in both 

developing and industrialized countries. 

Also during the 1970s, there was limited use of international 

cooperation in space technology to serve what wete explicitly foreign 

policy goals. The leading example wa U.S.-USSR cooperation in the 

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Increasingly, the potential of space as a tool of 

our foreign assistance program and as a means of demonstrating our concern for the develoy ing countries has led to assistance prcigrams related to 

the utilization of remote-sensing data for a variety of thlld and fourthworld countries. 

During the same time period, there was the beginning of cooperation with our major industrial partners (and potential competitors) in 

space technology development. The European S;lace Agency assumed the 

responsibility for developing the Spacelab, which is to be flown on the 

Space Shuttle as a base for orbital scientific experiments requiring the 

presence of human experimenters. The relationships with other industrial 

countries with respect to space technology are, however, somewhat ambivalent, because of possible economic returns on a substantial scale from 

space ac-ivities and because of the desire of the United States to either 

maintain or establish a competitive advantage in such areas of future 

economic payoffs. 

As other major nations develop advanced space technology, the mixture between international competition and international collaboration in 

space should be a dynamic one. Competition between U.S. and European 

A major cxccption was the set of international agrecmcnts rcquirrd to establish a global tracking 

network. 
launch vehicles for payloads in the 1980s is just one example. A number 

of issues being debated in international forums could affect U.S. civilian 

space activities in the coming decades. Examples are the actions of the 

World Administrative Radio Conferences in allocating frequencies (and 

potentially slots in geosynchronous orbit) and the debate in the United 

Nations on a Moon Treaty. 

The Soviet Union, West Germany. France. Japan, Brazil-and i:?- 

deed a number of other countries-are allocating significant resources to 

space R&D. In coming years, the U.S. civilian space program will function 

in a quite different international context than has been the case. The institutional iinplications of this changed context-for example, how to 

relate space activities to foreign policy objectives and how to carry out the 

diplomacy required to support our space objectives-require 

examination. 

Current Space Policy Principles 

This section will examine the current status of space policy from the 

perspective of its relation to the present institutional structure of the national space effort just described. The purpose of this examination is to 

identify those areas of institutivnal stress which will condition the ability 

of the United States to carry out whatever objectives for space it chooses in 

the 1980s and beyond. 

The space policy principles of the 1957-1962 period described earlier 

represented a consensus arrived at after vigorous debate and under the 

competitive stimulus of Soviet space accomplishments. The sense of 

urgency that led to this consensus, which included setting a challenging 

goal as a central theme of the U.S. national space F. )gram, has been 

largely missing in the 10-ycar debate on appropriate principles to guide 

U.S. efforts in space in the post-Apllo period. That policy debate, indeed, still continues. Although some interim principles of U.S. space 

policy in 1980 are specified below, they do not command the kind of 

broad support among interested partie5 that the earlier set of policy principles did. A nurnber of views on the appropriate pace and direction of 

U.S. space activities and of the policy principles which should underpin 

those activities are still represented in the policy debate. 

The Carter administration articulated a U.S. space policy for the 

1980s. but challenges to this policy concept hav:, arisen from key members 

of both the Senate and the House, from various aerospace industry group: 

and representatives of the aerospace profession, and from the rapidly 

growing network of interest groups which focus on space policy.11 The 
. . kly poky smnce ofthe Reagan iabmstndon is, at the time of writing, 

still vay undeu. Lacking any coascosus on syre policy, the U.S. civilivl 

spacc&iscontinuinghgclyonrhtmomennund~bydK 

ApoUo project ?aL. the other high intensity &tics d the 1960s and 

contind during the 19705 with the dcotlopment of a new technolo@ 

capability for space option- in the form of the Space T-tion 

srstmAt issue in chc current space poky debate arc such putstions as: 

Should long-term goals for space b articulated. or should the U.S. 

civilian space program bc ptimdy an evolutionary undertaking? 

Lirhcrcaaecdfbracommitrnenttoarmjor~tcchoologiai 

enterprise, such as the development of a pennulent manned orbital 

facility, to SCIVC as a foal point for the next decade in space. as 

Ape% did in the 19605 and the Space Shuttle in the 1970s? 

What rok should men (and women) play in future activities in 

space? 

How aggressively should the govemmcnt support the development 

and demonstration of ;rotmtd applications of space technology to 

provide bendits on Euth? 

A key clement of the original spacc policy was that certain types of 

spacc activities. plrticululy luge-scale demonstrations of technological 

apbility, would 5c undertaken for what were fundmentally political 

motivations. This poky. as was mentioned eulicr, was established by 

Resident Kennedy and was a rcved of the set of justifurions for spacc 

progrzrs accepted by the Eisenhower administration. It appears as if the 

United States has returned to that original set of justifications. which saw 

the dcvelopm~t of ;pace technology only as a means. not as an md in 

itself. The Carter administration in its space policy statement, noting that 

"more and more, space is becoming a place to work, " suggested that ' kdlitics u~d be pursued in space whcn it appem that notrond ob~ectives 

can most ejjkicntly be met through spae activities. " l2 

This policy principle is applicable most directly to the economic, 

social, and military applications of space technology. It recognizes the 

mpidly maturing state of space capabilities and suggests that space program ace incrc;lsingly recognized as mcans to some desirable end, not 

ends in themselves. Not only doe current policy rejm the notion of spacc 

as an arena for symbolic political competition, but it also indicates that 

there may bc limits on the investment 3f rrcsources in spacc activities 

limed at scientific returns. The .me spacr poi.icy statement, while emphasizing U.S. commiunent to a spacc science and exploration progmm 
tht ated fix "h--m &rib-* to impon hpcrl dts" 

whcnncccnuy.Ihtcombinuioaofapnbn'rcquircmcntsfor<lancBmkxs ;md thc mognkh rhat pmd &dam ammaims uc important dctctminants of tbt kvd of gommncnt investment m space utmitits~~1dcrpinamuctrmorelimiadcoaccptdtht~~yrrc 

rtivitiaoatbc~&thvlwasthc~l*~thcspocc~ 

at 1%1. 

1tsbouMbcnomlthutbtanrceptofa"lorrardprofiit"fordK 

U.S. sprc program did wt originat= rith tbc & of Jimmy 

Grm.mCvrcr~pdwgvlstoakrgcdcgrcc,a~~~~of 

that adopted during rbc rmmcdivc post-@olio paiod by Richvd 

Nixon,whodin 1970h "wharatdoin~~ bcmm mun 

bctomcafl~mdd~pznofour~lifrdrnusttbad~ 

bt pkd in conjuncuon with dl of tbc 0th uodtrnlungs which uc 

aka important to us." In 1972. thc Nixor: ;rdmiahrion did make a 

coinmianent to the Spacc Shurtk. a mak tcchndogy dcvekpmcnt program, but ht dcckion. to a lvgc dcgrcc. ms made without fcbuog it to 

my overridmg #a~t of policy obj; thcrt was a gtacnlrrtd notion 

~takssorpcnsivcdmortflcribk~zbilityforrouunCsprcopen60N~LiLelyto~a~~invcsm~ntof~rrsourres.~~~~ 

Shudc decision had fcw pu?lkk with thc kion to go to the Moon 3 

dccadc earlier; it was a- cornmi-t to technow dcvciopmcnt 

without a clcv link :o an overriding politid cr other poky- +i. 

Thc Gtcr administration rcjmcd an ApoUo-like commitment :o 

anorha mzjor space technolog). projm. &ing that "it is ncithcr 

fcasibk nor neccssvy at ~ timc to commit the United States to a hlghchdkngc space mginccring initiative compambk to ApoUo."" 

The carlia space policy of the Unitcd States smacd prccrnincncc. 

particularly in its implcmcntation by large scale rcchnological cntcrpriscs. 

as an owmidi~g policy god. This principle has kn rcpkd by one 

whKh stresses bakaru among schrfic qm. oppkamms of spe 

kchology. md recbnology rkvefopmenr. Within this balanced smrcg?- 

there is an anphasts on hh-oricntcd applications of space tcchnolog,. 

whcthcr they be social. economic. or military in naturc. This emphasis on 

balance among various typa of spacc activities is also onc that ncms from 

earlier administrations. In thc sunc 1970 natcmcnt mentioned atrow. 

Richard Nixon had natcd "many critical probkms heft on this pha 

m?kc high priority demands on our attcntion and resources. By no hcvls 

should wc diow our space program to stagnate. But-with thc cntirc 

hwrc and thc entire unkrsc before us--we should not try ro do 
cvaydmg ar oncc. Our approrh to spacc must be bold-but K must zlso 

bt ~."" 

Moii spcddy. thc Unitcd Stata has given id priority ora 

dK~dtCPdt~odt~dandpotcnthlmiliuryapplia~d 

space tcchnobgy. A "grd smor" over the past dcadc hzs brm 

d. dcvclopmcnt. danomcmk. and op& of spaax-bad 

military systmc for curying out s~nthl military nlpport firnctims such 

as cominuniatior~, commud. and control; eviy warning; stmcgic 

,wrvdancc: navigation: md weather forcosting. An exp?nded list of 

military qpliatks in sp;ce is now under ~&~ and rm). be 

mom likely togain pditdand budgeurysuppon thsnanyofthccontmding applications of spacc tcchndogv for civilian purposes. 

Onc principk of U.S. spec policy cmblishcd in thc htc 19% has 

trtnancri ;d;d in thc current situaticn. That printipk is that &ik. 

d-. a~'&kfig~ spocc atirrtirr*z d & ed OICI in sepmue iastitufid structxres. A mcnt prcsidcntial rcvicw codid thc cumrnt 

mvrlgcmcnt relations in thc govcrnmcnt 's space &on; and thus NASA. 

DoD. thc intelligcncc commanity, and NOAA each remain rcsponsibk 

for dHcrcnt pua of the qavcmmcnt spare program. However. with the 

maturing of space tcchncg.qgi. &~lopcd under tk various programs 

and with the cmphis on id &~Knc): and resource comavation. 

thew is more cmpAPN th &fire on trisfm of~rchnohg~ ammg the 

1r0raous gmetnecnt spae pmgromr ad on -loinr/j-fbn&d dj~indjmzmgcdpmgr~msemzkg mu&$& 06yict&es. 

Thc cmp5;lsis on tcchnoiogy-sharing and pint program will phcc 

increased dmad on mczhanizms for prognm as wcil as policy coordination. Because it is in the nature of mosr hpc-xdc buraumtic orgurizations to resist sharing rcsourccs and to prrfcr individually mvlyd programs. and because military dd intelligence Frognms can "hide" 

technology behind security classifnrtions. the kind of presidential and 

congcssiond pressure now being acned on the national space &on to 

suppon the idea of rcunrrcc-sharing is probably mcssu).. if thc win 

principle of maintaining the xparation bctwctn programs and attempting to cvry our tmly national cffom arc to be successful. 

Another policy principk stemming from the beginning of thc U.S. 

space program which remaim unaltered is that NASA ir hkhd to 

msear'h ad &~elopn=mt tuti~3ies 04 and wiU not opera spe 

systems. * NASA's role as an R&D-only agency was rcvalidatcd during the 

As mmtd dm. i. t~c~ptm to rho pnnopk s NASA's opmc~omi rdr as a pamkr d 

hrnh amrn Tha mk s Itkck to bc rrrnmlncd o rhc Sprrr Shutrk rrxha mrnnc opcmnnrl 

status 
d-h cf s+tGwJ @- on rcmctc samhg in 1979. Amc.lg 

othcn. the NASA leadastup believed that the ycocy- d b~st amtinuc 

mdcaamaibutionto&c~~~byrestrictiagit~~ 

to R4rD zctivitics. Aconscqueactofthis pdicypriacipk in a period in 

dichvuiousappkatiomof~mhndogy.pPniruhrlyin&d 

and ocrvl ob#mtion areas. appmach opcruionJ stuur is that some 

aher entity. cither public or private. mun be laigacd rcqmnsibiliry for 

the operation dspre lpplicuiom systems. Currently. ~IC rtsponsibility 

within govcmmcnt for Evth obmmkm 6rom sp;rrc has been lsngncd to 

r singk agcq, NOM, rather than spreading it among #rml fcdd 

lgcncics or cmting a ncw govcmmcnt agency with &K mponsrbilities for Eartb obscrvak. In coming p. NOAA may well 

bccomc as much of a paax ?gcnc)- as NASA is today, even though NASA 

will continue to do thc rcscarch kading towards op.mthal spare applications. iricluding rclatcd ground scgmma, and will rontinuc its rok as the 

~gtnc)- in chargc of spwc xicncc and cxplontior.. 

Anotha policy principk which has rtmaid unchanged in gcncd 

fonn. but rather diffcrcnt in ojxntlorul rncming, is that the goslnrrnrrrt 

yjr/ ~ctic2/r encour-ge p"r& secfor iksw'Beenf in the uses o/Csp~~ 

trchnohgy. ~7hr;k aho sponso~g mrmh tk .w.eru of porcntd corrrwdappIzi#ion. Thc dcvclopmcnt of rclatimships keen pdic scct.w 

and private mor intcrcsts in spc applications has proved a particularly 

diff~cult task. Thc transfer of the rcsults of gcvcmmcnt-hndcd rcscarch 

on commun~ations satciiitc technology to application in privatclpowned. operational. communications satcllitc systems was straighdorward 

in comparison to arranging for privatc scctor involvement ir, areas such as 

mvig-tion* and. particularly, rcmotc xnsing. With civilian spacc activitia within thc govcmmcnt now dividcd brxwccn NASA. NOAA. and 

a numbcr of orhcr fcdcnl agcncia. relationships bctwctn thc private sector and government spacc programs arc men morc cornplx. Printc smor 

involvcmcnt with NASA in thc daign of rcscarch &om in space applications is likcly to continuc to bc ncccsary. as will be relationships btrwttn 

NOAA and privatc scctor entities intcmtcd in thc comnmid porcntid 

of Earth obxnxtion s);stcnls. 

Finally. thc intcrnationd dimcnsiom of spacc activity arc receiving 

considerably morc artention at the prcxnt rime than had bctn thc cuc 

culicr. Congress has bccn particulariy intcrcstcd in intcmationd coopcntion in spec activitia. Bccaux other industrial countria arc dcvcloping 

*M~tdckrort'dmgtorprrr-bord~yunxl~hokdour~Dd).udmrtmg that rapabil~tv a\a~Lhk for cwllun appkarrna a pmmq probkmrhcrl NASA has unkmLcn 

miv i~nud 4 rdrd ro --had naqarm u paarm-loatma rgam 
substnntid dvilhn spm pragr~rns emphasizing apphtiom of space 

mhndogy. the United States frnds itstlf in a situation in whkh ow- 

~s~dBjucoop&~spatzrmmixedYitbtACpdrntid 

fir~~unupc~inartarofbgh~icrardsocr;rr/plrpfi 

Aloo,othcr&. pc~morcthantheUnitcdSates.still~c 

spscc prognms 2s mcurs ofenhancing nuiolul prestige. urd this motiv?- 

cia7 ammains coopakc &om. 3io clear policy principk rclaung to thc 

~~lspmsofU.S.sp;uertivitkhasycc~fromsprc 

poky &but ofthc Iw h&; this is an am of policy derrkpmcnt 

rrhirh is "ripc" for inacvcd attention. 

.As a new stage in the codution of US. spire mivity is entered with 

the imm'ncnt launch of the Splct Shuuk, a meeting such as this-aimcd 

x fausing the attention of historial prof- on oppormniries for 

study pmcntcd by splcc pragnms-sttms ro me to be quite appropriate. 

Ihc sprt program desmres the attention of aodtmic historians and thcir 

studcnrs. btclusc academia provides the unconsulincd and broadgauged context within which it can bc best understood. Future gcncrarmns arc almost cmain to vim mankind's fm tcntativc expeditions away 

hm iis homc phcr as major historical ma. From t!t pcrspcctivc, it 

is a privikgc to bc in at thc beginning. 
I. Thc fdbring xcmt dthcociglm d+crolutandU.S. y.rrcpd*and kin;tionsis 

dnm tiom Y numbn of soarm. indudmg: John Logs&m. T& &anon to go to t& Man. 

(Gddgc. Mm.: MiT b. 19-0); Anhur L. Irrinc. T& hrhrr oft& US. hgrarr. (k York PuMishm. 19-5): Robnr L. Wt . Aa Admrmu- &&q of 

MU. 1918-1963. (Wrt!kgtm. D.C.: NASA. 1%6): and Ed Bat Scktk. "Thc 

Euabhnn dNA5A". iit KIW&C&C off-: tiyr oa SacrccmdGmn~. ni. by 

.hfod A. w(&w York: Thc k b. 1966). 

2.Scc~.q~.nr..forafuUxcountofhathcApdbdcm~wasmdcandhorn 

rcprcnmtd a ~zharul rmml d poiour spmx pdiq 

3.h 1.. i+mq tn "Rmnk~~ in *c: SciU a Cmd .Sacimd Lnw." &. Vd. Xil. 

S.I. 4 (Winta 1969). dcfk as "ducvkg Wy bscd apabilitics mh 

qard to d lrprns d rhc sprr cmuonmcnt and then caauntly building upon and addmg 

to dmc apaInIiUa." (p. 959i. kc ako Vemm Vm &kc. MardP-(lj~. Unk- 

+ of Illincis Rcn. 1964) for an uul* of chc mmt~ undcrprnning car& C.S. sprc 

poln4. Foranvrmnt dthcdrrrbpmcntdU.S. pdiqun~ccommunkuiaa. vrJonadnn F. 

GaUo-xy. Tihc P&J md Tcdmnba 0;-SYrl% Coar-I (kryon. Mm. : D.C. 

kh and Co.. 19-2). 

5.Thcratr~LCYIM.RObhOlt.Srhw&.ud~chd&doconainarhm~count. 

6. Tic only puMr anmunccmcnt of lhc rcarlu of tha rcvk was in thc fam of ajunc 20. 1978 

prcsr tck from thc Whim HOLM. 

7. Qwrd in LRnr. p. 66. 

8. For a dcuikd account dthc NASf !Weather bu dapltc. see RKhd Uupman. TIROSXIMELE Ad-aaf~~~. PW. ad Tcc~&~~I ofLknlopag i.5. Ur& 

&&L~&J (!+~rm. N.Y.: Intcru- Grc Program. Im.. 1012). 

9. Scc Galloway. op. at.. fa a full disnaron of this dch. 

10. Thc foundations d U.S. policy toward intcmatarul co~pmtbn ac drscribcd b?. Amdd 

~tutlrin. fa&mamdSpau ~oo$emkm (Erykrood Cliffs. NJ.: Prcnrlcr Hdi. 1%); and 

ait~md by Don M. T& P& of Spat Cooperdon (War Lhymc. Ind: Purduc 

Unhxsir). Smdics. 1967: thcrc is no her dpk utumcnt d inmnuiond sport 

yh. 

11. It a ~mposribk to mnnurizc thc positions hci4 lay dl panics in thb dchtc. boch in trmu of 

(~df~~~urdintamdthr~gtoEr~.to~if~~aprognm 

IN. In Cmp. Scmm Adhi St- and Hvriun Schmin and Rcprcscnutivc Gccvgr 

Brow have each pmpd bilk cscaM~shirg ~utd splcc pdiq . and organizations as dim 

a thc Amcrian IMti~tr of Arronaut~s and hwuuutin. thc L-5 hrcc)-. thc ~hnctlr). 

h+. Gcd O'lricill's Spac Stdm Imtimrc. and thc Natiaul Spec ~Mti~tr. mwng 

ah. ham propovd di&rcnt approghcs to thc national spprc &m. In addition. NASA 

through various adkxy councils. summer auk. and in-hatrr planning is seeking to dcfinc 

bah tcrhnobg~d POQlbili(ks and appmpriatc gads for thc fum~. 

12. "Whitc Houa hct Sh m U.S. Civil SpPrc Pdky." Octobcr 11. 1978. 

13. Strtcmcnt by thc Pdm. Mmh 7. 1970. 

14. For an =count ofthc Sprc Shunk dccbion. scc John M. hg&m. "The Spxc Shunk Dcrision: Tcchnokgy and Pditd Choccc..' Jd of Cowem- Bnnruu. Vd. 7. No. 3 

Wmtrr 1979). pp. 13-)o. 

15. "White Hmsc hct Shm m U.S. Gvil wc Policy." Cktokr II. 1978. 

16. Scatcmcnt by thc Raidcnt. Mlrch 7. 1970. 
SPACE-AGE EUROPE, 1957-1980 

Walter A. McDougalI 

"Europe will be made in space . . . or not at dl!" 

Orio Giarini 

"I1 nc faut pas cspCrcr pour entrcprcndrc ni reussir pour pckcr." 

William thc Silent 

Soon after the Soviet Sp~mz.4 opened the frontier of outer space, 

European scientists. industrialists, and politkans began to clamor for 

rapid entry into the space age by Europe, the cradle of modem 

technology. It took 22 years before the European Space Agency ('ESA), on 

Christmas Eve 1979. finally achieved successful orbit of a Europeandesigned spacecraft riding on a European booster, the Arkne, from its 

equatorial spaceport in French Guiana. The launch was beamed live (via 

the American-built Intelsat IV communications satellite) to French television. But the viewers-and the newsmen themselves-were so unused to 

such &airs that each time the countdown went on another "hold" they 

reacted hysterically as if the whole program were about to be cancelled. 

This calls to mind another anecdote from a friend who watched the 

coverage of the first Moon landing in 1969 in the company of a peasant 

family in the South of France. They were curiously bl& about the whole 

affair-until the report that President Nixon was about to converse with 

the astronauts on t!ie Moon. Madame excitedly called the family to watch: 

"Look! The President of the United States, he is going to telephone the 

Moon . . . and we cannot even get a line to Paris!" 

In these vignettes are illustrated essential themes in the first chapter 

of space-age Europe: tardy and hesitant enthusiasm, a certain naiveti, 

and public apathy to events that do nor impingc on quotidian reality. In 

tired Europe, the age of adventure sometimes seems closed, but it is 

perhaps enough that there is a European chapter in space at all. In fact, 

the response of the major states to the challenges of Sputnih and Apollo 

reflect their very adjustment to the postwar world itself, a world in which 

the old continent struggles tc find its props place amidst superpower 

hegemony, decolonization, welfare statism, fitful integration, and, above 

all, perpetual technological revolution. 

The first European implications of SputniR were military. Now that 

the Soviets demonstrated m intercontinental ballistic missile capability to 

threaten the American homeland, was the U.S. nuclear deterrent still 

credible? Would America risk New York or Chicago to save Berlin or 
KAMlFlCAnONS OF SPACE ACTIVITY 109 

Paris? And if not, could xcond-rank powers like Britain or France see to 

their own defense? Only six months her Spatnih. Charles DcGaulle was 

called out of retirement to lead a nation smarting from Dien Bicn Phu, 

Suez. and Algeria. His "certdine i&e" of a glorious France rested not 

only on rhetoric, but on a vision of technological xlf-sufficiency in 

defense and industry. In five years. French R&D spcnding increased fourfold, yielding a vigorous nuclear power program, zz indepcndcnt 

strategic deterrent, and the world's space program. Benefiting from its 

country's military missile research, the French space agency "cut" a series 

of precious stones- rockets called the Agate, Topaze. Rubis-until in 

1965, a Diamant launcher lifted a French satellite into orbit from the 

Sahara dcscrt test range. There also followed the deployment of land- and 

submarine-based missiles. the Force de Frappe. and in our own day, the 

beginnings of a military space program. 

The French could not hope to match the space and missile efforts of 

the U.S. and USSR. But that was never their intent. Militarily, the French 

relied on the crude "city-busting" deterrence of the mutual-assureddestruction doctrine. In terms of general technology, they envisioned a 

world of multipolar competition in which Europe would evolve away from 

both Cold War camps. What was important. therefore. was that France 

assure herself the position of first among European equals. The French 

space program would help to establish French primacy in the European 

community. 

The British, on the other hand, reacted to Sputnik by throwing in 

the towel. Their V-bomber force would soon be obsolete, but they abandoned their missile effort and resigned themselves to dependence on their 

"special relationship" with the U.S.-the relationship that DeGaulle so 

despised. But lest their first-generation intermediate-range ballistic 

missile go to waste, the British offered the rocket, the Blue Streak. to 

Europe as a whole, to serve as the first stage of a European space booster. 

Meanwhile, an international committee of xientists organized by Pierre 

Auger lobbied governments on behalf of a spacc science program. From 

these two early initiatives the European spacc program emerged. 

dedicated to admitting European science and industry to this latest and 

most exciting human enterprise. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time. France, Italy, West Germany, 

and the Bcnelux countries had just formed the Common Market and 

EURATOM. A cooperative space effort was a logical stp I. Morever, the 

vast expense involved suggested the pooling of resourcr So in the early 

1960s. the European Space Research Organization (ESRc *nd the European Launch Development Organization (ELDO) were born. The two 
agencies became embarassing examples of how not to generate high 

technology. 

ESRO's r ember countries* pmT0m3e-c! to desiga payloads fa satellites 

to be hunched by NASA and eventually by EELDO. But thank to 

organizational problems. inexgerieace. md underfunding, it was not until 1967 that the erpcrimend ESRO 1 was in orbit. By that time Britain 

and Idy were already pleading stnitcned fmanca while dl member 

governments were goading ESRO to dcemphasize science in favor of commercial applications satellita with benefits perrcptiblc to parliaments and 

publics. ESRO founded some impressive facilities ir. its early yeus, e.g., 

the spacecraft design laboratory at Noordwijk, Netherlands; a Europcan 

space operations center in Darmstadt, West Germany; ground stations in 

Spain, Bclgium, and Italy; and a sounding rocket range m Kiruna, 

Sweden-but there were endless startup problems associated with them. 

Discord also stemmed from disproportional distribution of contracts to 

the member states, the problem of jusk retour. France, for instance 

received a percentage of ESRO contracts twice the level of her contributions, and less favored nations complaincd that such practice only 

perpetuated their industrial inferiority. This pointed up a grievous probkm with cooperative R&D: cff~cicncy demands that contracts go to the 

most qualified bidder, but politics demand "?ffmative action" for less 

experienced firms in countries hoping to play "technological catch-up." 

Either the poor help to subsidize the rich, or the rich subsidize mediocrity 

ir! the short run and new competition in the long run 

While ESRO sthlgglerl. TLD0 futled. It had projected a European 

booster coasisting of the Blue Streak as first stage, a French-built second 

stage, a German third (or apogcc) stage, and an Itaiian tat satellite. 

Anyone familiar wich the difficulties of systems interface in the American 

program can imagine the boondoggle of an international rocket. By 1969, 

the Europa booster had gone through numerous daign changes, had 

never flown, and was 350 percent over initid budget. Veterans of those 

days have written positively impolite accounts of their cxpericnces with 

foreign colleagua. One of the more tolerant was this depiction of national temperaments: "Whenever we faced a technical or administrative 

problem requiring improvisatioti, the French would stubbornly refuse to 

violate my hard-won principle of procedure; the Germans would endorsc 

Eklgium. Dcnmuk. Fnncc. Grmany (West). Italy. Netherlands. Spain. Swcdcn. Switzcrlmd. and 

rhc United Kingdom. Austria and Norway had obxrvcr srarus. 
RAM~CATIONS OF SPACE ACTIVITY 111 

the principle, then list dl conceivab:e exceptions; the Italians would excitedly urge re-negotiation of the principle to accomodate the offending 

contingency. while the British would cheerfuhy zcccpt any improvisation 

without question-so long as undct no citcumstanccs would it serve as a 

precedent!" Others complain that Europcan ministries uscd ESRO and 

ELDO as dumping grounds for dcadwood personnel. In any cuc. the 

babble of tongua only exacerbated the habitual lack of communication 

among scientists, engineers. and bureaucrats. 

By the late 13605. the Europcan space effort was a shambles. That it 

persisted was due in part to a second shock wave from abrcnd-the fmt 

had betn the Soviet Sprtnd, the second was America's vigorous reaction 

to SpuhiR. From aboard, America's hcady expansion of the 1!Mk 

xemed to comprise nothing less than a second industrial "takeoff." illustrated by her space triumphs. booming economic growth, and ubiquitous foreinr cnvcstment. It all xemcd to stem from what one French 

economist died "the keys of power": government forcefeeding of 

science, technology, education, and investment in "point sectors" of the 

economy, especially aerospace. Americans themselves may never have felt 

entirely comfortable with the massive incr~sc in state stimulation of 

economic and social change, but the American model made a profound 

impression on a Europe already inclined toward itattinre. Europcan 

economists and pundits swallowed the arguments of the Kennedy and 

Johnson administrations on behalf of big-government K&D even more 

than we did ourselves. The visionary Apollo program and its technological 

and managerial "fall-out" had xemed to open a vast technology gap between the U.S. and Europe. Talented Europeans fled to the advanced 

laboratories of America, causing a "brain drain" that further handicapped European science. It seemed the old industrial and imperial 

powers would face a future of "industrial helotry" if Europe did not 

match the technological surge of the U.S. DcGaulle himself intoned: 

"We must invest constantly, push relentlessly our technology and scientific research to avoid sinking into a bitter mediocrity and being colonized 

by the invention and capacity of other nations." 

For European business the apparent threat from America, later 

popularized by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schrciber's Le D$i amin'kzn, was 

the best propaganda for higher space budgets. As early as 1961, European 

industrialists had iormed a private lobby callcd EUROSPACE. 

Throughout the 1960s it beat the drum for state-financed R&D, warning 

Europeans apinst their tendency to sniff at the technical accomplishments of boorish Americans whilc taking comfort in their 

superior culture. "Carthage was a flourishing culture," observed the 
president of EUROSPACE, "when it met its doom. And it was not the 

exceptional culturc or eloquence of Rome that all-lved her in turn to resin 

the pressure of barbarians." Rather, "the evolution of all humanity is 

dosely linked to technological progress. . . . If Europe does not regain her 

place in the first rank of technological civilization it will soon be too 

late.", The Germans expressed this as Tonchi1~sspanik: Europe must leap 

now or the door to the space age would slam shut. The Italian government called for a "technological Marshall Plan." in Britain, Harold 

Wil.son proposed a "European Technological Community. " 

These fears and exhortations of the late 1960s proved to be exaggerated. But they seemed to be confiimed at the time by the one profitmaking enterprise in space applications-Intclsat. This consortium for international telecommunications satellites founded by 19 nrrions in 1964 

was an American show. The U.S. controlled 61 percent of the voting 

authority and all the technology. It was even managed under contract by 

the U.S. Communications Satellite Corporation, which was dominated in 

turn by such giants as American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). This 

situatics irked the Europeans, but there was no competing with the 

Ameri.:a..s since U.S. export laws forbade sale of launch technology to -- 

turope, d~ld NASA was under orders not to provide launch service for 

satellites at!^ to compete with Intelsat. Here was precisely the sort of 

dependency of which the French always warned. 

- 

A he early 1970s were consequently a confused time of negotiation 

and reorganization for the extant and aspiring space powers. Apollo was 

winding down and the Shuttle being planned. The U.S. invited the Europeans to cooperate more closely in space while talking compromise on Intetsat 2.nd satellite launch policy. Why should Europe waste millions to 

duplicate American efforts? This was persuasive, but on the other side the 

French continued to campaign for independence, offering to take the lead 

in a reinvigorated European effort. The result was a grand compromise. In 

1975, a new European Space Agency absorbed ESRO and ELDO, drawing 

on their facilities and experience, but dedicated to avoiding their shortcomings. A new system of a fa carte financing, by which members need 

pay for only the programs they support, and centralized management of 

major programs under a single country, promised both juste retour and 

improved efficiency. European aerospace frrms ah promoted equitable 

subcotirracting through formation of private international consortia. 

ESA was built around three main projects, all now nearing completion, which reflected the compromise between independence and collaboration with the U.S. To Britain went the major role in fundit~g and 
developing the MARECS marine navigation satellite system; West Germany received major responsibility for the sophisticated Spacelab,* a 

space sciences module custom-made for the cargo bay of the U.S. Shuttle. 

Finally, France chargcd ahead with development of Ariane, a heavy 

satellite launcher capable of boosting communications sat;llites into high 

geosynchronous orbits. Meanwhile, the U.S. relinquished control of Intcht in a new, perrfianent convention-and European and Third World 

delegates promptly voted to deny a launch contract to the U.S. and sign 

on with Ariane. 

It would appear at present that Europe h~s finally succeeded in 

fashioning the diplomatic, organizational, and technical prerequisites for 

a sustained, effective space program. European aerospace and electronics 

firms-often bearing worthy risks in light of fickle government policies 

and uncertain markets-have reached state-of-the-art expertise in chosen 

fields. But the future of Europe in space is still far from assured. ESA is 

still troubled by political and economic difficuities, and the central goals 

of European space activity are still unenunciated after 20 years. Both 

Eurospace and ESA's Director-General, E. Quistgaard of Sweden, pressed 

again in 1981 for a plan of space development for the decade of the 1980s. 

As in the p~t, member governments refused to look beyond immediate 

budgetary cycles or enunciate long-range goals. Funding should continue 

at current levels of about $840 million per year, enough to support an approved second launch pad at Kourou, French Guiana, development of 

the improved Ariane 2 and 3, and possibly an experimental Earth 

resources satellite. But new starts are few, and scientific missions like 

Giotto, the gripping rendezvous with Halley 's Comet, are small potatoes. 

h fairness, one must recognize the inability of the U.S., freed of 

multilateral confusion, to draft long-term plans of its own. But as 

Quistgaard laments, all the problems of the individual European governments andof the balked process of integration weigh upon those charged 

with getting Europe into space. 

Every member state contributes unique strengths and weaknesses to 

ESA. But the character of the European space propram from its inception 

has been shaped above all by France. ESA stil! lies in the shadow of a 

Gaullist Eur~pe that never happened. Britain never could have led 

Europe into space. Her tired taxpayers and confused bureaucrats wcre 

* Thc primc contractor for Spacelab wu t::c German furn ERNO, a subsidiary of VNV. Its dwclopmcnt cost wu $800 million. Thc first operational Spacclab mission, featuring a German utronaut. 

-5 xhcdulcd to ridc thc Shuttle ~n latc 1983. 
most skeptical of plamor~us R&D, had no defense motive, and were of 

two minds abut Eurapean integration. Germany was the founder d 

modern rocketry, but she was barred from missile R&D because of the 

unpieasant ux she made of the V-2. Only France was capable of a gritty 

national effort and of taking the lead in cooperative prodrms. And the 

advent of DeGauL by historical accident in 1958 meant that France's 

mission in Europe, and Europe's in the world, wcre defined in terms exceptionally favorable to space activities. Bu: it llso meant that Europe in 

spacc would be stamped with Gault;sm. ELDO and ESRO-instcad of 

helping to forge a united Europe-served instcad to elevate France within 

a Europe in which national prerogatives would be closely guarded and international institutions promoted mostly as a tool against the AngloSaxons. 

France dominated ESRO and ELDO, and her industries benefited 

most from them. France's cooperation policies with Europe. NASA, or 

the Soviet Union were designed as murh to tap foreign funds and skills for 

the benefit of her own national program as the other way around. It was 

France that led the campaign against dependence on America, even when 

logic may have dictated a division of labor. It was France that bartered her 

indispensable cooperation for ESA's approval of a Franco-European 

launcher and Franco-European communications satellite program. And it 

is France that benefits most today from the prestige, technology, and 

m~l~tarv applications of European spacc research. 

This is not to say that France has exploited others. She has consistently made the largest contributions to European spacc funds, curreatly 

25 percent. Nor is it to r -7 +hat France's partners in ESA do not glean 

rewards commensurate 1- ielr participation. Nor is it even clear that 

the Gaullist insistence o* .:h independence was not farsighted, given 

the uncertainties of wor:, politics and power balances over the long run. 

But the fact remains that French space policy has been doggedly nationalistic, and that the Europ~~n space establishment-as are all other 

European institutions-is a hostage to that policy. 

What of domestic support for spue activity? Here again, the role of 

Gaullism is critical. To be sure, public opinion has had its cycles, as the 

U.S. European excitement and worry about technological ideriority 

peaked around 1968, and by the early 1970s, Europeans, too, wcre 

beco~inp disenchanted with iechnology as a social panacea. Thus, even a 

ESA rme into being, European opinion was cautious on space spending. 

E8! and member governments have sometimes been uncertain what 

posiure is best for the protectio~ of spacc budgets: proud publicity or a 

low profile. Today the chances are good that the man on the street in 
Lyon. not to mention Napla or Liverpool. is scvccly a- of FSA or 

Arianc. 3ut current apathy o~ght not to obscure the kp domestic 

significvKt of the spacc don. For the legitimacy of a French or European 

thrust into the cosmos is rooted in the historical cirnunnv~cs of its birch, 

in thc role that ~echnolog) was to play in the stabilization of the Fifth 

Republic. D&uk declved hirnscif a defender of tditiod France in 

socd rchrions, politics, and cuiturc, cvtn as he decd the cnd of impend Frv~e (with mat from Algeria), the end of Europcvl Fmcc 

(with resistance to fiuther integration), the end of arlvrticist France (w I 

r ' hdrawd from NATO). d the cad of sodist Ftm (with dcfcat of 

the Icft). In order to prcsme tradition in the abstnct r& of French 

life, DcGaulle proposed to ovenhrow tradition in the material rdm. 

Technologid revolution mld nnd?tc abroad into tht pmtigc and independence of French tradition, and at home in the seductive vision of 

the future that invited Frmcc and Europe to irmginc thtmsclves "in the 

ycar 2000," that inexapabie slop of contemporary Europc. 

Hcncc the legitimacy of a Gadlist regime that claimed to play midwife to the future even as it invoked the past. What DcGaullc actually offcrcd was a French vcnion ot our own "Republic of Technology," in 

which social and international chakngcs alike arc spirixcd away (in 

thcory) through the genic of the technologid fix; where leaden pasc as 

defenders of tradition even as Ley undcrminc it indirectly through 

tcchnologid revolution. In a Europe that is Wy nonideologid, 

materialistic. and atheistic, this pattern of tcchncuon~ politics is 

discernible not only in France, but cvcrywherc. 

Has high-technology investment rdly transformed Europc? This is a 

tough question. given the difficulties of rr.:;suring xcond-order cowquenccs of R&D. Europevl ~ndustry has certainly escapcd "backwater" 

status. and western Europe is ag&n part of the world tcchnologid 

vanguard. But the dfcct of space activity on Europc must still bc sought 

ir the politid. not cconomic. rdm. For the Europeans chosc to rejm a 

global division of labor in space, and thus to duplicate many U.S. and 

Soviet achicvcments. And for what? Arianespace. the new commercial 

fm. may show a profit, but only bccausc its R&D costs were absorbed by 

European taxpayen and bccaw its launch price may bc subsidized to 

compete with the Shuttle. In any casc, AA:X~C only matches a capability 

the U.S. had had fcr two decades. As for the goal of industrial prowess. 

European motives were agli~ largely political, as dcmonsuated by the fact 

that European aerospace fums have become xmi-public "chartered companies" of the state. The recent German union of MBB (Mcscrschrlridt) 

and VFW is only the 1a;m in a series of forced merger, that prtviously 
produced British Aerospace. France's Acrospatde, and Itdy's 

Aerospuiak-dl fm thc purpose of competing. not in capinlisr~. but in 

mercantilirtic fashion. with the g&.t Amcrican firms and with cach other. 

in a business othmise too big for "link" Ewpc. 

As the 1980s mature. it b entirely possibk thu cvm the comxntntivn of rcsourm within cach European sure. cvcn the poding of rcffnurts 

among European stata may not &KC to sustain an indcpcndcnt Europcvr role in space without shvply higher Ie-cIs of spending, which in 

turn may prove politically impibk. Em at the tw~ peak of thc 

mid-1960s and late 1970s. Europt spent only a dribkt on space: 0.1 percent of combincd GNP versus 1.5 percent for the USSR and bctwccn 0.5 

and 1.0 percent for the U.S. In per apiu tmns. thc superpmcrs have 

spent 20 tima more than Europe. As thc U.S. now gtus up for another 

spacc / defense push. and as musabk sp3cecnft. antisatellite weapons, and 

pcrmancnt space stations cmcfgc as mu-tcnn prospea. the future of a 

coherent, independent European space &on is dubious. By around 

1985. with Arhc wd Spacelab and MARECS cmpktcd. the Eumpc?~ 

will win havc to face the question "Vcspacc pcur quoi faire?" Member 

governments may havc to: 

Antc up a considerable investment on a truly multhtcnl basis. implying unprcccdcnted political unity; 

Continue such programs as ArivK pcrrnio. but othcrwlx accept a 

role of "subcontractor" to the U.S. in the many fields of space aploitation made possible by the Shutrh; 

Throw in thc towel. cutting back state oqcnditurcs on space and xccpting a reduced or very diffcrcnt view of the role dwcstcrn Europcan states in the world. 

Severe mnom~ crisis could force the third course. Otherwise. the 

Frenzh will remain independent and ambitious. The Arncricvls will continue to cxtcnd the hand of cooperation. in part to relicvc their own 

budgetary strains. The Germans. whose wealth and cxpcnisc arc atuactivc, will bc in the middk, wooed by washing to^ and Paris as rhcy were 

in DcGaullc's day. For tt: Shuttle may opcn up a universe of p-sibilitics 

in spacc industrialization. weaponry. ~atellite repair and rccovay, pcnmt manned nations. and more. The Gcnnans in turn wdl be enticed-and the irony may come to pass that decisions made in Bonn and 

not Paris will finally determine what "Europe in the ycu 2000" will bc 

doing in outer space. Gixini's intuition may won prove valid. that 

"Europe will be made in space . . . or not at all." 
Fa~rcounrrdrhrmuk!~~~ 

HorrPCornmmrun SJCrrr and T- Bd Udr~sisv .caAar~ .*mCompx 

ctT*al. I+--, 

.h fhp LhZ&lprr/e$b IT-1 

On-rprtOno Grarni L rz r r* ilrsrmc. 1-1 

RobmCltpn FrPWm&.~orI/YSarm&SMI 1hnm :*at 

-b-Jx- &ur-Srhrobrr Th. 4- C*iurrgr th Yd 

J..v Tm iin i'- @ tRm iu'G1 

wihclmal L.~Y~&~-~I~D.~uc i--f.* 

hmrmVig SCYU-Tcc~m&hl/. P&, tfMmd Il*rhr 

On r.r b.lrr rpn pcqnn 

Srhohr.hhff TikKmmaadriKC~ur~r%m IorL ..~-:i 

JamxOkg RrdSurmOnhiiNrrYd I-, 

OPrbSridm L SdSarr.~rw~ SP~~~~:~.II~P:(~-~~.SJF~~S 

Lod (Viahn@an iT4r 

lnnd\khmrm T& RumsmSpPr&@~Lmdorr 14-17 

chlntrkr 

Jocnrtm F CaUBn* Tiir Pal & Trrh'g? o'Spwiw tc-irc. .k&gIal 

.Mas . 19-21 
SPACE Am IN THESOVlEI' UNKIN, JAPAN, 

AND THE PEOPUS REPUBllC OF CHINA* 

& kllnrh of SpWd I by dac Saricf Unioa on Octobtr 4. 1957. 

began the en of dcm spdight. Within fouf maarhs. rhc Unid 

States hd joined tbe "spx dub" with tbc swxtaful orbiting of ExplbrrrI.~andahalfpur~bcfwtath*dauioopiaedthis * - ad& u~wuwra; Fru~c put m A1 sadhe into orbit oa November 

26. 1%5. Japan and the Peopk's Republic of Chim bcumc Asia's 

qmsa~itioa in spwc in 1970; dtc Jlpvrac Omai and thc Chincst 

EastIr Redrcrcorbimlon F&wq 11 and April 24. rrspmiPdy. Thc 

fulll mcmbcr of the "Spx Six," thc (Inid Kiogdom. hunched thc 

satdlitc hspm on ocmbcf 28. 1971. Gxnpativc dam for these 

satellite hunches arc given ia nhk 1. in 1981. thc Europcvl space 

Agency d Ucly bmunc dw smcnth oguLntw, - - * 3tobOOSfitSorrn 

paybad into orbit. As tbc number of sprcfuiag nations grows, we 

shouMlodrW?ndcxamimwharcommonanddiPicrgcnt~~ 

havcsparkcdthithruffinto~. ForthcpurposcsofdKYdcUnivcrsity Naiad Aeronautics d Spacc Adminkation (NASA) Conference 

on thc History of Space Activity. rhis papcr will concenmc on the space 

jx0gram.s of threc of the six nations that haw undcrrakcn their own spec 

pmgmm-thc Soviet Union, Japan, and thc People's Republic of 

China-ining briefly thc typcs of Lunch vchicks thcy have uscd and 

tht classes of splrccnft they have launched. 

To und-rstuld why six countria have engaged in such a costly cnterprix as splrdight, wc must realize that for cach country thcrc cxistcd a 

mpkx set of motivations for taking that first ncp. For thc purposcs of 

analysis. that motivations cm be bdm dow~~ into thrcc basic 

atcgories-political and military. xicntific. and practical. Thcx 

categoria axe ccrtly not mlusivc compartmmts, and I havt not attcmptcd to ratc one cotintry's justifications for ilndenaki-rg a space program as mort socially acccptabk than another's. 

It would seem that most nations made the commiuncnt to spacc 
oncc their public leaders ame to xt it as an accepdc and valuabk activitywithinthccoatcxtofdomcfficand intcmadpolitksandthca 

appnwcd thc crpcnditurc of public funds accumry to support thc vcnN~C. However, thc firs anifid satellite projects grew out of sticntifk 

ptopas;rlr madc for the International Geophysical Ycar (ICY) of 

1957-1958. a rnuk.ioad &oft to study thc cntk phmt. Sd participants bclicvtd th;u thc IGY would k cnW by using satellites to 

gathet gcophysiai and lfflophyuul data from above thc armospk, 

and only two nations had the wdth and technology to answer the 

chalkngc of sprdlight at this dy stlgc. thc United hta and thc 

Soviet Union. 'lhe scientists invohrtd in tbc IGY Lnm that morc than 

scientific riches would come from thc first succenful fhght of a mul.madc 

moon; politial and psychologid prestige with military O~C~~OIKS would 

bc thc cxa bonus. 

Competition betwem the Soviet Union and thc Unitcd Stata for icmnatid prestige was an extension of Cold War anituda that had 

existed between thcm sine the immcdiatc postwar yeus. Their alliuKc to 

dcfcat the Axis powers in World War I1 had bcm, in many ways. an 

unevy one. Ilhl with victory over the common enemy. thcy had begun to 

vicw cuh other with increasing apprehension and mistrun. In thc rtsultant rivalry. technology as translated into indusuial capacity and military 

hardwarc became a major indicator of national prestige and power. The 

Sovicts and Americans had cmcrgcd as victors from the World War in 

part bccausc the industrial scctoa of their respective socictia had providcd thcir troops in thc f~ld with the machines of war in quantities that 

Gmnany industry could not match. Among this hard- wcrc two ncw 

wcapons that would become critical LO the postwar world. One was thc 

atomic bomb dcvclopcd by thc Unitcd Stata; the other was thc V-2 

rocket created by Germany. The signifiimcc of the fim atomic weapons 

was immcdiatcly apparent after Hiroshima and Nagasak~, but the promix--or threat--of ballistic rockets ws wen ltss clculy. perhaps bccaux 

the V-2 had bccn a lea than perfect weapon. But the Sovict and 

American military atablishmcnts kastcd no tkc in developing this ncw 

ttchnology in thc dccadc following thc war. and both countries put 

military rockcts and nuclear research on their high-priority lists. 

The rcsults of this postwar competition Sttwecn thc Amcricans and 

the Sovicts are well known. The Soviets wcrc the fmt to orbit a satcllitc, 

which wu damaging enough to America's national ego; but morr worrisome, thcy did it with an intcrcontincntal ballistic missilc that could bc 

uxd to dclivcr a decidedly morc lcthal payload. Thc Sovicts had obtained 

a highly visible and indiputabic technological first. Americans not only 
Table 1. Compardtive Data for the First Satellites Launched by the Soviet Union, the United States. Francc, Japan, the People's ;5 Republic of China, and the United Kingdom o 

Datc of Lunch 

January 31, 1058 

Novcmlxr 26. 1961 

Fcbruary 11, 1070 

Apr~l 24, lu:O 

Country 

(launch vchlc.1~) 

Soviet Union 

(Rakctanosyrcl 

"Sputnik") 

Unircd Statcs 

Uupitcr-C) 

France 

(Diumant) 

Japan 

(Lambda 4s) 

Pcuplc's Republic 

of China 

(Long March I) 

Unircd Kingdom 

(Black Arrow) 

Namc of' Satcllitc 

(inrcrnationul 

designation) 

Sputnik I 

(1917.Alpha) 

Explorer I 

( 1058-Alpha) 

A 1 

( 1965-96A 

Osumi 

( 1970.11 A) 

East is Red 

(lL)7O.34A) 

Apc)gcc 

km 

(statute miles) 

Prrigec 

km 

(nature miles) 

Pcrlod 

minurcs 
perceived the chrrlkag of this accomplishment but ah saw it as a thmt 

to their security 2nd their pk as the d's kdhg military power. As 

the Sovica mped politial, military. and scientific rmuns hm their new 

star. Amcrkvl kadc~s embarked upon a pcmd of decp, worried =ifaamination.Thcobvious~ll~~touhcSovietfcltwasanin~- 

tionaftheAmericvlprogr~ms~iwacha~lteIlitedaniacreutinthe 

tempo of military rocket research. Dedvtd or not. a bilateral 

technow competition hod begun in this ocw arena. The "spre ram'' 

of the 1960s. at least for the United States, also brrmK a visible 

civhn-and perdul-sumgate for the mom sccm milimy anns rre. 

It has been argued that NASA's Apo prognm cculd be interpreted u 

Americl's way of telling the Soviet Union and the world that it was still a 

xchnologicll giant to don with. "If we an land a man on the 

moon.. . ."-would-be iulmmrics were invited to complete the 

scnttncc. The message was clear: The sophisticated technology applied to 

the lunar exploration project could be dy transhed to military systems. 

The French, under the leadership of Gend Charles DcGauk, 

devly undcmood this fact of life. Caught between the Scyh and 

Chvybdis of Soviet and American nuclear armament. DeGaullc was convinced that the French must develop a nub military capability independent of the two superpowers if they hoped to maintain credibility as 

a military and political power. The French began development of their 

Diamant (Diuwnd) launch vehicle in the early 1960s as a nuclear 

weapons delivery system. Taking advantage of the fm test hunch of the 

the-stage missile, the French ?Iso orbited their fm satellite on 

November 26, 1%5 (with NASA launching another French-made 

satellite, the RUI, a fm days hta.) Because it had no scientific mission 

and carried only limited mdio instrumentation. the A1 satellite was 

criticized by the world's scientifii community, but French military 

authorities readily admitted that the primary objective for the mission 

had been to rest the missile. Here was proof chat the French nuclearfimc 

rk fioppe was indeed genuine. The French could also play the game of 

surrogate technology. 

Japan became the fourth nation to develop the technology necessary 

to join the space club, but unlike the Soviets. Americans, md French, the 

Japmese did not use a modified military hunch vehicle. Their postwv 

constitution forbade the construction of such offensive military hardware, 

allowing them only defensive military quipment. Civilian organizations 

interested in the scientific and practical utilization of space served as the 

catalysts in Japan for the development of launchers and satellita. While 

not as technologically advanced as the Soviets or the Americans and still 
noc~mx,~fnwthe~dWdWu.theJnpracsc 

badshucdtheinmcnsofthed~insprccrp~sincethe 

IGYpcnod.Thtoughthe~teofI~.iddSdcnctatToLpoU~- 

sity. Jlgvl participated in the InrrmuioaPl Geophysical Yar in 1958 by 

hunduagdsoundiagroctctsapabkofatLrg~~t~ 

in the upper amxsphcrc and went on to hunch succasi*cly more powerful swndiag rockets in 1%1. 1%). and 1966. On Fcbnury 11.1970. the 

lnscituteofSp~nmdAcronurticPlSciencr(fwwdfnwrhemcrgcrob 

thc Institute af Indd Science and thc Tolrpo University Aamautical 

Laboratory) orbited its fint sptellite. Japan's Lambda 4s hunch rthidc 

was domdcdy developed, as was its sucrrssor M-roctet. 'Ihc N-roctct 

hunchcr is a hybrid made from the M-II-W-mbted 

Dclta(Thor)boostetandanuppersagedcvcbped~Jlp~ln.rith 

tcchnhl vsiftvKe from RochrcII Intcrmriond. Mimbishi Havy lndusuies strvcs as the National Sprc Development Agency's prim contnctor. The Japanese satellite progrvn is divided between scxdcd pmctical and scientific projects; the former arc conducted by the National 

Space Development Agcocy, the latter by the Institute of Space aad 

Aeronautical Science. 

Two and a half months after tht Japanese lwnched their fint 

satellite, military and space spccdss of the Pcopkes Republic of China 

launched theirs. It was dkd Eart is Red, bmusc it broadcast that mhitionq anthem as it orbited the Evth cmy 114 minutes. As had the 

Soviets. Americans. and French, the Chinese adapted an intermediate 

range ballistic missile dcd Long March 1 to carry their less-lethal space 

payloads. The last country to date to develop its own satellite and launching capability was the United Kingdom. The Black Arrow Iwnchtr, 

created for just this purpose, bed thc satellite hspetv into orbit on 

October 28. 1971. It was the only satellite launched with this Britishrmde rocket. Since then, the British have relied on NASA hunch vehicles 

for their various space projects. 

All six countries entered this exclusive dub to somc extent for 

politid reasons; for somc practial and xientitic motives were more important. For the Soviet Union, the United States, and the People's 

Republic, military reasons certainly figured highly. In the Sovict Union, 

&re are two space programs, OM military and one scientific. Military 

organizations apparently control the manukture of ail hunch vehicles 

and supervise the hunch Ebcilitits and operations. America's space program is more neatly compuunentalizsd. The National Aeronautics and 

Space Aation was created in 1958 as a civilian space oqphtion, 

with the congrcssiod mandate to promote the peaceful exploration and 
in- of sp;rct. Thc DepPrtwnt of Deftast. primarily through 

the Air Fam. was kft to conduct thc county's miluPry spree prognm, 

tbcfullddofnhichucaot~~undezstoodbKwsrofouioa;rl 

sccuriry taaktiom on the mk of information. Fmtxc, the Peopk's 

Republic. and the United Kingdom dl opcntc thcir spdhght prognms 

thrwgh the dm. but cniiiPn lgcocics develop much ofthe hardware 

and conduct most of the rcscuch. In Jqan. of coursc, the entire prognm 

is in tht hands of cidans. 

Spadqht. qwadly with orbital splcccnft, has opened entircly 

new vistas for thc notMws nitntaw comrr,..~ .r . Tabk 2 presents a record 

afsplrr~n#rcsfulin - E;cd orbit or beyoad. 

~prh.pamndicrldung~~.mrics~~c~ 

mdd&gnofoursolarsyacmbwrtsukedfromouraplo*ltionsof 

spre,scientiradohavca~ofncndataby~toundast?nd 

plvKt Earth. its Moon and sism planets. and the mtdlum of intaplvmvg spare. Hundrcds of investigations-zmmomial, bb-. 

gcophpsrcrl-have bcm Iaudcd since the luc 19505. In addition to 

serving tbe scicntisa as infixmation gatberm, slteIlitcs baw been put to 

other usts. Sumqiq the planet from h@ dtituda, satck serve as a 

tool for spcdms who hope to improve the mamgcmmt of our ~md 

rrsourccs and to iacrcvc the cffiuency of apcultural pncticts. But it is 

sop- wuthcr forecvting and communic;ltions that paItkL&uly 

attract new customers to the spacefold and keep them that 

Long-range wcuhcr predictions and hi& qualiq rammunicltions 

ovcr long dist~~ks arc two imprunt, h&ly visibk, practical conmbutions the space age has brought us dl. The Soviet Union, Japan, and 

China in particular haw important tcquirem~ts for improving their 

communicauons and meteorological systems. Russia's and China's huge 

lvld misses make it di&cult for them to develop adequate land-bad 

communiatio~s systems and weather reporring networks at rcasonabk 

costs. Widely scattered communities rn bc connected through satellite 

comm~tions links and weather patterns for iYgc areas observed more 

e&icatly from EPrth orbit than from the ground. Both countries hope to 

bypass the compkx ground-lines cornmunic?tions system that serve tfit 

United States, Europc, and Western Russia by investing in satcliitc 

systems instal. For a crowded island popStion like Japan, reMk 

weather prediction is critical to ~gnculnuc, fishtng, and personal safety. 

The Japancse have ahdy developed an advanced communications 

satellite network that enhances thcir undisputed success in the fields of 

electronics and automation. In both the U.S. and Japan, business and industry have increased thcir use of facsimile and computer data transmissions, creating the so-called electronic office. Satellites play an essential 

role in this latest communications revoIution. 

The Soviets launched their fust communications satellite, Molnzya 

1-1, in April 1965. Since that time through 1979, they have orbited 45 

MoInzya-1. 17 Mdnzyu-2, and 12 Molnba-3 class sdtellita, all of which 

had 12-hour orbits. In addition, they have scnt three Gorizont, four 

Ekran, and three Raduga type communications satellites into 24-hour 

orbits to ux for telephonic, telegraphic, television, and radio transmissions. In 1978, two amateur radio communications satellites called Rdio 

wcre boosted into orbit. These two spacecraft wcre similar in purpose to 

the American ham radio satellite series known as Oscar. In 1978 and 

1979, the Soviet Union also launched 54 military communirations 

payloads as part of the Kosmos program; 48 of these were launched in 

groups of eight with six launch vehicles (Kosmos 976-983, Kosmos 

1013-1020, Kosmos 1034-1041. Kosmos 1051-1058, Kosmos 1081-1088, 

and Kosmos 1130-1 137). During the same time period, nlnc Kosmos 

navigation satellites were deposited in Earth orbits. The Meteor weather 

satellite program has included 27 Meteor-1 and 5 Meteor-2 class 

spacecraft. 

By comparison with the Soviet Union and the United States, Japan is 

just beginning to build up its applications-or practical-satellite program, but it is moving ahead steadily. Japanese goals include the development of launch vehicles capable of placing satellitcs into geostationary 

orbit, the necessary tracking and control technology for such spacecrdt, 

and the perfection cf attitude colltrol systems technology. NASA has 

launched two geostationary communications satellitcs and one geostationary meteorological satellite for the Japanese. Their fust two attempts 

to orbit thcir Experimental Commu~~ications Satellite with the N-rocket 

in February 1979 and February 1980 resulted in failure. Concerned but 

undeterred, space agency managers and designers will continue with thcir 

program for a more advanced rommunications satellite system. A xcond 

Geostationary Meteorological satellite, GMS-2, is scheduled for la. -1ch by 

an N-rocket this year. In another applications program, the Japanex 

recently conducted an experiment in processing materials (an alloy, in this 

cue) in space. 

Space activities in the People's Republic of China are moving slowly 

from the initial stages of experimental launches and satellites to a more 

comprehensive program that will stress the practical applications of space 
technology. especially in communications, meteorology, and Earth 

resources management. In Novembei and December 1978, Chinese and 

American space officials met in the U.S. (the American delegation led by 

NASA Administrator Robert A. Frosch and the Chinese team by President of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology Jen Hsin-min) tc explore wilys in which the two countries could cooperate in the field of space 

technology. A key topic in these discussions was the development of a civil 

communications satellite system for mainland China. Involved is th r - p urchase by the Chinese of an American r-tellite communications system, including the associated ground receiving and distribution equipment. 

NASA would launch the satelEtes into geostationary orbit, and China 

would take over once the system was operational. A similv cooperctive 

agreement was reached concerning the sale to China of a ground station 

capable of receiving Earth resources information from the NASANational Ocean;, ard Atmospheric Administration Landsat remotesensing satellites, including the Landsat-D scheduled for launch in the 

last quarter of 1982. 

Since the first round of visits in 1978, the Chinese and Americans 

have had additional traveling exchanges i.ivoiving government space 

agency officials and industry representative^. It is important to note that 

having successfully orbited domestically built satellites with their own 

lauqch vehicles, neither the Chinese nor the Japanese find it unacceptable 

to acquire foreign assistance with projects of immediate importance as 

they work to advance the state of their own technology-a very pragmatic 

attitude. China's most immediate goals are to develop a more powerful, 

efficient launch vehicle, advanced solid-state electronic components, and 

sophisticated communications and meteorological satellites. 

China's new three-stage launch vehicle, called Long March-3, is expected to bc flawn this year, probably with an experimental communications satellite. The thud stage of this vehicle will have a liquid-hydrogen 

and liquid-oxygen fuel system similar in cancept to the American Centaur 

upper stage. These cryogenic fuels are difficult to handle, and the mastery 

of such te ' 13010gy by the Chinese will be a great leap forward. A 

19-membe, delegation from the American Institute of Aeronautics and 

Astronautics visited China's aerospace f~ilities in November 1979 and 

made some candid assessments in their China Spat Report: "We conclude that the Chinese are serious about theil stated goal of an itldependent capability in communications satellites in the next decade, and are 

making good technological progress toward it. Their own frequently cited 

description of their technology as "primitive" is ~rcessively modest. ''Advanced, but simple," would be more apt. What they do lack, vant, and 
expect to get from the U.S. is integrited know-how or "how to put it ail 

together. " They do not have experience or skills in systems engineering 

and program management. They do not seem to know much, for example, about designing to conflicting goals. such as performance, weight, 

power, cost, etc. Thty need information about reliability modeling and 

quality assurance te~chniques, and about scheduling ard project control. 

To some extent the Chinese economic and social system has insulated 

designers from the concept of cost, at least for their own developments." 

Unfortunately, the Chinese have been forced by economics to posprte 

for several years the acquisition of the American-built satellites (two 

operational and one hackup at about $150-250 millicn), but thry w~ll undoubtedly continue with their own research and development, even if at a 

lower level than before. Likewise, they have had to push back plans for 

their manned program until th . 1990s (the first flights had originally 

been planned fo: the late 1980s). 

If we tally up the total number of spacecraft launched from 1957 

through 1979, we see that the USSR has a clear lead at 1,250. The U.S. 

follows at 743; then France 10, Japan 15, China 8, and the United 

Kingdom 1. Because of the Soviets' use of the catchall designation 

"Kcsmos" (1 147 of which had been launched through 1979) and the 

secrecy surrounding military satellites. we cannot classify all 2027 satellites 

by payload (scientific, meteorological, communications, etc.), but we can 

see certain trends (see tables). There has been an increase in communications and meteorological payloads over purely scientific investigations. 

Military payloads also-presumably many of thew are communications 

and reconnaissance satellites-have been popular -ith the Americans and 

the Soviets. 11s public funds available for exptnsive space projects become 

scarcer in the years immediately ahead, it is probably safe to assume that 

ventures with some practical application that can be easily justified-like 

communications, weather forecasting, ar military reconnaissance-will be 

funded more readily than scientific or experimental advanced systems 

payloads. 

The Future 

It ;an be dangerous for historians ta ventuie into the field of projections; our crystal balls are as foggy as everyone else's. But the comments 

presented here are based upon projecTions made by Soviet, Chinese, and 

Japanese space experts. Clearly, thckr will be only five major space powers 

during the remainder of this century: the Soviet Union, the United 

States, the European Space Agency, Japan, and the Peoplc's Republic of 

China. And they will all apparently be concentrating their efforis on 
Earth orbital operations for thc fomccable future. with occasional 

planetary probe missions fir scicntif~ investigation. All five powers look 

forward to their fmt manned or nen-generation manncd projms. The 

Soviets will continuc with thcir Soyuz-Sdynr missions. building toward a 

lvge Eurh-orbiting space nation. A~~cticms hope to cnter a near en of 

manned spaceflight next month with the launch of the fm Shuttle orbiter. Shuttle flight: will givc European mission specialists assigned to 

ESA's Spzcelab an opportunity to cxperimcc spaceflight. and thc 

Japancx. among othcn. plan to send thcir payloads aloft via thc new 

American space transportation system. Although thc Chincx and 

,hpanee cannot cxpcct to conduct thcir fm manned missions until late 

in thls century. Chincx publications illustmtc astronaut training ir. 

skacccraft cabin mockups, simulators. and centrifuges. 

In thc spherc of satellite projccts, thc Sokict Union wi!l continuc 

with its scientif~. communications. mctcorologd, and militvy projccs, 

with greater emphasis on Evth rcsourca and oceanographic invcstigations. Bhusbu. launched on June 7, 1979, wu a joint %vier-Indian 

Earth resources satellite, and k;orm~s 1096. launched on April 15, 1970. 

was bclievcd to have been a partially successful ocean rcconnaissamc 

satellite (orbit d.cayed November 24. 1979). Thc Japancse arc committed 

to hunching increasingly advmced communications and mctcorolog~al 

spacccraft, but thcy also plan to become more deeply involved in Earth 

rcsourca investigations and ~ttcr practical missions, like material proccsskg. For the mid-1980s. thcy have plans tor biological payloads and 

limited lunar and planetary exploration with spacecraft of thcir own 

dcsign and construction. Chin- plans call for the launch d thcir experimental co~nmunicarions s4tellitcs in 1081 2nd an experimental 

meteorological satellite the ncxt year (the Chincsc weather satellite has 

been dexribed as roughly equivalent to the American Improved i'iros 

Operational Satellite-ITOS). This spacecraft will be placed in a 

900-kilometer polar orbit. !t is also likely that the Cilinese will continuc 

aork with military rec~nnaissance satellites. and it has been suggested 

that their manned ' Skylab" will have a mi!itar)- reconnaissance function. 

the same thina has been said for the Soviet Sdjrrt. Manned observation 

craft could precede the availability of spacecraft equipped with remotesensing deviccc by several years. A "box score'. of space activity through 

December 31, 1979 is given in table 3. 

Obviously, spaceflight is here to stay, and we will sce the tempo of 

activity increase considerably in the comirlg decades. As Walter A. 

McDougall has noted, just a; aircraft were the measure of a nation's - 

technology between the two world wars, space techno: jgy has become the 

pon-1945 symM of tcchdogka! pnraea. Abough rhc sprdLght 

Cnt~begrnutncnraaoaOfCddWarcom~d~~ 

;as~dpmJghfil?.~drbcpo~c~dpFcnyit 

hught itr backm. it has b sufflincd for irs prPttiai valucs. th is 

cvcryday utility. To bc ccrmin natim Fiil ccmtit~uc to met~uft aoc 

another by what the)- haw or haw not amompMd m amain 

t~utnrs.dspvc~bcoacofthcm.Butindiridrulna6011sdcxamincthcirom~inrcrrmofdKrYtiCJbCLKfitj 

rhcir sprc programs arc bhpg thcir or:. ycopk and socicxcommi 

sym. S~C may d krht "hyhfronti~~"-with dl tbc'hp~d 

dmtm that that tcm. implia-but n is rhc dnidcnds deiroard back 

to Evth that will kccp thc advrnnut going. 
COMMENTARY 

This staion loots at its subjm-"1)omcstic ad Inccmacional 

Ramif~atbns of Splrc Activity" or "Thc Politia of Space"-from 

nvcnl pcrspcctivts. They includc two disciplines. both pditial scKnce 

and history; and scvcn nations. the United Stara, Fru~c. Grcat Britain. 

West Gcrmmy. thc USSR. thc Pcopk's Rcpublic of China. an4 Japan. 

And thc pcopk rho do thc bokmg haw had rich qxricncc in rcscuch 

and othcr rcbt activitics. 

For mc, that arc very useful papers prcscntcd at a crwd stage. As a 

new member of thc advisory committee of thc NASA history program 

and a historian who has spcchiizcd in cultural and political appmachcs :o 

mcnt history rather than [hc hinor). of xicncc, tcchdogy. or thc spacc 

programs. I need the education that thac cxpcm La thc hi~fory ofsp 

programs suoply. I hopc the papas are quallv usciul to thc mcmk of 

this audience. In hopc of enhancing their uxfulncss, I wi!l summarizc 

them. strcaing the inrcrrchtions among thcm. 

Prof- logdon is concerned chicfly with thc principles that have 

go,rmcd thc Arncricvl space program and the institutiorul cxpmrions of 

thosc pnncipks. l-!c ddina six that camc to dominate in thc crucial )-cars 

from 1957 to 1962. thc vcvs 3f Prcsidcnt Eiscnhowcr and Kcnncdy and 

of Sp11t4 and the decision to go to our Moon. The principks arc: 

1. Activities in S~CC can be juscifd by political as well as ocher objcctivcs-xkntif~. milituy . intclligcncc, cconom~ . 

2. Thc United Stata should bc prccmificnt in a11 ams of spacc 

activity. 

3. Civilian and military spacc activities shwld bc xpantcd. 

4. NASA should be limitcd to R&D. 

5. Thc govcmmcnt should cncoungc privatc-sator involvcmcnr in 

thc ux of spacc technology bur should itxlf sponsor rescvch in 

arcas of potcniial commercial application. 

6. National objcctivcs mthcr than intcmationd coopemtion should 

be in fm placc. 

According to Logdon's very skillful analysis. some but not all of 

thex principles arc still in control. No longer so heavily influcnccd by 

political considmtions in this area, the United States no bnga insists 

upon pmmincncc. Civilian and militq activities continuc to be 

xparatd from one another; NASA remains conf~ncd to rcxuch and 

dcve!opmcm; the govemmcnt still sponsors rcjcvch that could Icad to 
profitabk commtrriai operations. As to the rchtivc imponmc of naGmalisn vcw intcrmtioluiiwn in S,XC Mivirk. the prc~cnt is ka 

cku than the pas. whik the future a uncertain. 

Pro* McD,wgaU dcllj with a very Mcrcnt prognm. Compvcd 

a-ith the Ammian pmpm, the Westem European is d ad hu; produced mall rcsub. !-!€ we it as m illustration of thc history of Wcwcrn 

Europe siarc W*!d War 11. Once the leading arm of the 4, it ha, 

sUKC the 1840s. bccn ddcd by the Sovia Union and the Unitcd htcs. 

In splcc. ir has ftspondcd to rhc rrompliztuncnn 4 both of t.k supcrpmn in French-kd &om to rclacn itxlf. but this m-powtrful and 

=ill pmd put thc d hts accomplis!wd vcr). littic. 

Providtd as w-c arc with the cgpomantty to xc ?xxh rhc American 

and Wstm Eumpcan programs. &an xc some imb!mccs. Thc htrcr has b,m iducnccd by political mbirk, rcprcscntcd cspecidq by 

thc French. it has bm idknccd 2LSO by a XFX Oi limits. with thc 

Brithh dc most important kc. And thc W~~csr Germans cspccid!y have 

dcmollsrratcd xicntif~ and tcchnobgicd capabilities siiih to those in 

thc American progmm. ALw. in Wcxcm Europc as well as in rhc Uniccd 

Sara. wc scc that cawdination in spx dfw can bc diffmlt to xhicvc. 

thc relations bmmn the public and thc private scam arc not easily 

dcfincd. and thcrc is tcnsion bcrnccn internathi coopion and national xli-lacrAn. In b~& prg-uns. bvrincamtn tsify to thcir 

cagtmca to Mtr from govtrnmcllt xiivitlcs and political mm try to - 

use busincssmcn: govcmmcnt organizaticns dndop and ux busintss 

organizations. 

Thc Wcstcrn Europcvl spacc st- also provides a dramatic illw.ration of thc signifiic of DcGaclk. It cvm cncouraga onc :a suggest 

that Ronald Rcagan m;g bc rhc Amcrrcan DcGaulk, hoarvcr offcnsivc 

somc may find such an anaiogv. And thc story raggats that it is not cuy 

to rcvcfx decline. 

Thc fat paper dd with the si~ond mcmbcr of thc "spacc club" or 

thc "Spacc Sb." as Dr. Ezell labcis thc nations that haw launchcd 

atcllita. Thc mond paper focuses on thc third mcmbcr (Francc) and the 

cinh (the Unitcd Kingdom). Ezcll cxamincs thc first (thr USSR). tE: 

fourth (Japan). and thc f&h (thc Pcoplc's Rcpublic of China). In :he proccs. hc supplics somc useful starktics on thc size of thc diffcrmt progmc. Thcy illustmtc how much largcr thc Russian and American programs 3f~ thzn thc others. 

Ezcli mlka other contributions. Hc adds to our understanding of 

the comptcxiry of thc participation in thc spacc programs, md thc roln of 

civilian anci military organizations and of thc public and private sccton. 

134 A SPACEFARING PEOPLE 

but rather how little. " The American historical professioa, he suggests. is 

not cqmizcd in ways that encourage compamtivc work. Perh;lpa the 

discussion from the floor an push us Eucher toward a comparative history 

of the space prognms. 
THE RATM 

SPACE D(PtOR4rn 
N85-35150 

THE IDEA OF SPACE EXPLORATION 

In the 1950s. man fim ventured into outer space. At the end of the 

1960s. he was on the Moon, having tnvclcd over 200,000 mila and at 

spceds upward of 16.000 miles per hour. The modem Dacdalus had 

taken his fmt step into reality. An age-old dream had been r&ed. A 

proud Wcrnhcr von Bmun compared it to that moment in evolution 

"when aquatic Life came crawbng up on the land. " 

Now we seem to be crawling back. The Moon landing, for all the impact it had during that sultry July night in 1969. has suttercd into small 

&ccn upon us. Our cxpcaations fulfilled, we now xtm to have lost interest. I am puzzled by the disparity between the greatness of the deed 

and the meanness of the result. How to explain it? 

To cxplorc further the gap between the deed and in mimation. we 

can proceed along two major paths: to comp;uc space with past episodes 

of exploration and develcpment; and to examine the contemporary context in and of itself. Both, evcn briefly examined, arc revealing. 

In comparing space with past cpisodcs that bea~ a resemblance to it, 

we are engaging in historical analogy. Historical analogy gives flesh to a 

pcrception of vague rcscmblanre. It is not a rigorous form of reasoning, 

but it is one of the more attractive. It is. roo, a fashioner of 

myths-durable ones that survive, like a locust's brittle armor. evcn her 

life itself has dcpartcd. Analogy, finally, has but one eye, and it sets only 

similarities. 

The analogy that immediately springs to mind is the Age of 

Discovery. One is struck by the similarities: a desire for national prestige; 

a hope of gain, both economic and milituy; an impulx to adventure; 

sheer curiosity. There also was a religious factor in the 15th century. Even 

that finds a 20th-century expression in our notion of scientific "mission. " 

In the end, however, I do not believe that the analogy of the space 

progrm, emphasizing its exploratory asp, with the Age of Discovtry is 

as useful as some others (e.g., with thc railroad, as I shall attempt to 

show). Wc have inaugurated an age of discovery, but it is not the Age of 

Discovery, and it lacks the props and resonance we wcre conditioned to 

expect. 

The major difference, I believe. is that in space there arc no flora and 

fauna. There are no people on the Moon to be conquered or convened. 

There are no new animais to grace the parks of a Spanish king, no exotic 

PRECEDlNC PAGE BLANR NOT FILMED 
plants to nurture in the royal gardens at Kcw. Columbus returned with 

naked savages. Lewis and Clark identified 24 Indian tribes, 178 plants, 

and 122 animals, 111 of them previously unknown. Even the voyagers of 

the Beagle sailed into port with exotic, if ugly, Fucgians that titillated the 

English public. 

Space, in comparison, is "empty," and our chief harvest thus far has 

been in the form of rocks. The Moon is unpopulated; its "man," visible 

from 200,000 mila away. vanishes on clox approach. The only cvthly 

comparison is the arctic and antarctic, although thcy arc, in fact, more 

richly endowed. and neither of these, for comparable reasons, has ever 

aroused much enthusiasm. Vast, cold worlds, thcy lie largely untapped 

and unsettled. 

How can one bccome enthusiastic about such "inhuman" areas? Exploration of such "terrains" cannot give rise to a sense of "climates of 

opinion." which shake the traditional order. It does not leave us with the 

19th century's feeling of being "Between Two Worlds," either in time or 

geography. Where early explorations were preceded by myths about 

gargoy!es blowing off shore, or apes raping women (as Voitaue fondly 

imagined), or even abominable snowmen, the main equivalent titillation 

of the space effort was a scientific surmise about the possibility of some 

kind of extraterrestrial life. In this, we were soon to bc disappointed. 

In such an empty world, devoid of any presence other than one's 

own in a clumsy, bulky spacesuit, myths and imagination crumbled into 

computer bits. The symbolic nature of space dissolved. Physical and 

biological scientists might well be abwrbcd, but what was there to interest 

their social science and humanistic collcagua? Or the general public, for 

whom the iattcr served as interpreters? 

If space and the Moon offered so little of "human interest," what of 

the explorers themselves? They, too, failed to capture our imaginations. 

They were fighter and test pil~ts turned astronauts, but not adventurers. 

They were not heroes, in spite of NASA s media hype (and though the 

age was antiheroic, k was ambivalently so). Instead, the astronauts were a 

tcai?, replaceable men, with not a Columbus or even an Amerigo 

Vespucci among them. The Moon landing craft might be called the 

"Eagle." but no Lindbergh, in lone splendor, sat at its controls. The 

argument over manned and unmanned spacecraft was without "human" 

consequence, for the astronauts became replaceable and duplicable instruments just as much as the unmanned vehicles. 

Norman Mailer, in one of the few attempts to respond imaginatively 

to the space effort-one thinks earlier of Camocn's The Lusd, or 

Shakespeare's The Tempest-brilliantly attempts in Of a Fire on the 

Moon to kindle sparks of imagination to set aglow our hearts and minds. 
He sp& of dreams that border on either madness or ecstasy, of Hemingwayaque courage, and dread of death. A11 to almost no avail. NASA. 

in its very concern that an Apolio 11-connected death would result in the 

end of support for space investigation. unknowingly aborted the public's 

kltercst. As Mailer puts it, "The ircny was that the world, fmt sacrifices in 

octer spacc paid, would have begun to watch future flights with pain and 

concern." Death fears and dreams gav: way to a TV picture, whose 

dramatic appeal was almost nil. Tranquillity Bax took on, unintendcdly, 

a soporific quality that spread out over the entire space program. So much 

for the Age of Discovery analogy. 

The other major analogy useful to make is with what clscwhere I 

have called "social inventions." I define it as an invention that is 

technological (e .g., missiles, launching pads), economic (e .g . . involving 

large-scale employment of manpower. widespread use of materials), 

political (e.g., involving new forms of legislation, and new dispositions of 

political forces). sociological (e.g., affecting kinship groups, communities, 

classes), and intellectual (e.g., changing man's vim of spacc and time). 

Such an invention has a profound effect on us; it is literally "rcvolutionary." The lowly cotton industry in the early 19th century and the 

railroad in the mid-19th century. in Britain, were of this nature. Thus, 

the innovations in cotton maxiufacturing had enormous secondary and 

tertiary effects, helping to spark the Industrial Revolution, or what W. W. 

Rostow has called "sustained takeoff ': cotton manufacturing brings into 

being the factory, and its operatives (or proletariat, a new class); groups 

the workers in an increasingly populated urban setting; stimulates the 

growing of cotton and the cotton trade (not to mention r: slave trade); 

and strongly affects the coal and iron industries by its demand. A Manchester, as well as a Mancheser School of Free Trade, symbolizes its impact. There is no comparable "Manchesrer"-Cape Canaveral will not 

do-in space development. 

The railroad is of a similar magnitude to cotton manufacturing, but 

more analogous to the space program in its use of engines for transportation, though without the element of exploration. The railroad, like the 

space program, for a while also annually consumed about 2 YZ percent of 

the GNP as its investment requirement. But think of the railroad's impact on communities, on social structure, on related tcchnologies, on the 

economy as a whole in comparison to the space program, i.e., its return to 

society! 

And now remember the optimistic predictions. In 1963, Robert 

Jastrow and Hornet E. Newell predicted that the space program would 

mean "the be~kfits of basic research, economically valuable applications 

of satellites, contributions to industrial technolop, a general stimulus to 
education and to the younger generation, and the strengthenir~g of our 

international position by our acceptance of leadership in a historic enterprise." Erik Bergaust exalted: "Fifty years from now? Who knows, 

perhaps we will terminate the use of the title doctor- -because everyone 

will have at least a Ph.D. degree. That might well become a typical result 

of our current Space Age brainpower drive." Toby Freedman, Director, 

Life Sciences, North American Aviation. Inc., announced that in his own 

field of "medical miracles," contributions exist "that to my mind have 

already paid back the cost [of the whole program]." 

Critics of the program, on the other hand, point to its huge 

costs-40 billion dollars plus for Saturn, 12 billion dollars alone for the 

construction of the Space Shuttle, and another 15 billion dollars projected 

to operate it-and ask whether the touted side effects of the space program could not have been achieved directly md more effectively by the 

expenditure of lesser sums of mcjney. Most of us want less "spaced out" 

reascns for spending the enormous amounts involved to loft such massive 

payloads as Saturn V/Apol.o 11, with such seemingly minuscule payoffs, 

whether in material benefits or psychological rewards. 

If anything. the overblown claims of space enthusiasts have come 

back to haunt them and to add to public disillusionment. Wayce Biddle 

is typical whcn he concludcs his article on the Space Shuttlcz by detailing 

it5 rtrohlern.. as much political as technological, and saying that "the real 

cinving hrce is clearly not the solid promise of cheap, routine access to ., space. Space exploration, in short, has not revolutionized our lives, or 

any part of them, though it is clearly powered by mundane as well as 

purely scientific motives. 

The justification in terms of national prestige today fares no better. 

We see an American space program, whose liftoff took place as a result of 

the Cold Wat. The impetus in 1957 was clearly rivalry with the Soviety 

Union; that was justification enough for huge expenditures. Earlier explorations. e.g., in the 16th century. did result in military conflict. 

Macabre as is the thought, even a small-scale conflict in space would rivet 

public attention on the program. Science fiction is filled with such 

wa-s-and hence "human" interest: we think of the movies, "Star 

Wars," and the TV shows, "Star Trek" and "Battlestar Galactica." (Incidentally, "Star Wars" also appeals because of its peopling outer space 

with strange other humans and with imaginary animal-beings.) Our more 

fortunate and peaceful present lacks such daring, and pays the price in 

public boredom with space. In addition, with the change in public opinion afier the Vietnam war, plus our Pyrrhic victory in the space 
race-how has this really advanced us against the Russians? The military 

and national prestige motive has lost much of' its force. 

What is left? The "high" has Seen taken out of the adventure-a 

humanless spacc and a heroless program have seen to that. There are no 

heathen to missionize, no or little further military and national prestige to 

be gained immediately, and either paltrv or very long-range economic 

gains to be reaped. 

What is more, space science has been caught up in the same renilsion that has manifested itself so strongly against general science in our 

contemporary culture, a revulsion whose symbolic expression has become 

the nuclcar protest. True, the revulsion is flamed bv a small, activist 

group, while the general public remains silently supportive of science. as 

polls show. But the activists have made physics znd its kin appear as a 

Pandora's box more than a cornucopia. The "Idea of progress" has lost its 

automatic conviction. 

The fmes justifying space exploration, therefcre, have become 

discretionar,-. As a dir cretionary matter, and not a matter of r~nquestioned 

national purpose, the space program is now weighed against other discretionary expenditures-cancer research urban renewal-often found wanting and wac:ef~l by comparison. Until space colonization or stepped-up 

military conflict in space come along to rekindle public interest, the space 

program's chief ally seems to be leftover momentum: the fact that certain 

programs, planned long ago, happen to be under way. 

Yet, to my mind, there are two arguments that suffice to justify a 

leap into space, both of them as unprovable as they are irrefutable. The 

first is that :he flight into space changes our whole view of ourselves and 

the Earth. Th.= fact of sheer flight itself, while enormously significant, is 

not of the same order of importance. One could, of course, say. "Well, 

the spacecraft is simply an extension of the airplane. Man has flown 

already, and that's the big breakthrc~gh." In part, this argument is catrect: by jeaving the Earth in sustained flight, even if only 20 feet oif the 

ground, man changes his nature, extends it to the aves class. Within a few 

decades of Kitty Hawk. Hubert Wilkins, later Sir Hubert, flew over the 

barren wastes of the Arctic and ,lntarctic, followcd by Richard Byrd over 

the North and South Poles. Armstrong and Aldrin flying past equally 

barren wastes on the Moon, even setting foot on it, in this sense do 

nothing new. 

The newness, the greatness, resides in the fact, not of flig! of 

man's thrusting himself out into space past his terrestial abode ana the dtmosphere that has nourished and protected him. As Hannah Arendt 

noted, man now occupies a position from which he can observe his own 
abode as an "outsider." both physically and phiiosophically, pod to 

explorc further the rest of his solar system-and beyond. It is not the 

mechanical flight, a.vtsomc as that is. but the spacial reorientation, mental as well physical, that marks :he ncw cvolutionaq ncp. 

Put vcry simply, thc Earth is now perceived as itsclf a spaceship. Suddenly, all Emh is turned into a larger form of the vcry vehicles it sends in- 

:o spare-? macrocosm^ form of the n.icroxopic projectile that is 

powered into a fucd orbit. The Earth is now conccivcd of as a "ship" 

navigating the "ocean" of space. carrying tts human crew and thcu lifesustaining equipment.' Now. too, thew is thc xnx that the shrp. Fmh 

can go down, i.c.. bc shipwrecked. Only in this cut, it will have bccn the 

human crew, not the oceans of space, :hat innundate or befoul thc ship, 

and thtis wreck it. 

The Earth as spaceship, thcrcforc. is a newly imagined way of conceiving our terrcstul abode. A comparison with previous attitudes toward 

"Mothcr Earth'' shows how the conccption of a "spacccMft" frccs us-in 

a terrifying way-from the old rc?ssuranca cmbodied in the notion of 

temfinne.4 The whole Earth has become ihcddus-with no fd landing place. psychoiogicaIly. to which to mum from its flight. 

The second argument justifying he spacc program is that it is man's 

destiny continually to test himself against the unknown to know hk!f 

by his cxcrtions. And to my dcfcnsc I call upon an cartier tnvclcr in 

unknown space, Ulv, cncountcrcd by Dantc in thc Inferno: 

"0 brothers," I said, "you who 

through a thousand perils have comc to the Wet. 

to thc brief vigil of our xnxs 

which is left, do not deny 

expericncc of :he unpcoplcd world 

to 5c discovered by following thc sun. 

Considcr what origin you had; 

you wcrc nor created to live like brute, 

but to xck virtue and knawlcdgc. " 
SCHa Nora 

1 Tk R.&kdndl& Spmc Frogrum A= &q%rolzr u ft 4*. d br &wc 

(Cunbndg. MA MK Re. i965' 

2 vru t'd Tics ~wltafat CJUIY 22. 1980) p 40 

i Thcraw.trdrplnmda"~'rrnrmm((fwahhta~tkhrcrh~a 

<-T I)O(C (1853-83) [m T6r Yn'lar '&an&- Auumn I')%r)] -nth m .rh an xd 

d.ngrhg,tnttw~.hdh~bnrrrnthrL(an~arrrrdbF~wkudtkhmmg 

wa~ofthcrnrramt~~.~Inbrb~d~ nr udrprc-urdqhrh. 

rnnmdrradrhcpJIdhIr(omupmtktdrr.rk~~tc~:thccn, 'd" 4 On: form our uurr~ ha takm a m tk "s&tuy' of LWI Thn cm bc cxphmrd 

psddopdli. a a qa~ d ow om uuruam rlro mxr- u pqcn our tncm*~ 

ud rtum unto ah th a fuk amhs PC L b Jung's urrk. 'Rnry Soum A 

M~lrkm - U~xh of Ttungs Smn m rhc Sb.'. m m T- 4 10 tn rhr MIFuun&m nnr of tk dkmd ratr dJq ) Cf cm. a!! ccnnuxs rra, hm 

ah,-s anrrnrd ~~#mtmns fmm kvcn. bur tk .irrr m thc fmn d crr 

*sm nu~.mrrNNouc-tbrkfs 
Thc~izcrs~fthis~onft~~~~hlv~doncmcgrcltdisscrvictin 

designating mc a humanis. because thm is an army of chvbrmtic 

prnchcrs throughout the nation who say they arc going to drivc dl 

hummiffs from publk lac. Wc are heki to be sutversivc to family 

sdidarity. dcumctivc of honcsc rc5ghs principks. and comrnittcd to 

crypto-communism. 

I do not mognizc chis dtxripuon of mysctf. Thc humvrinr I 

think of whcn the word is said arc Sir Thomas More, William 

Shakcspcarc. Johann Gocthc, Plato. and Bcnjamlc Silliman ot this 

univcnity. I have always strid to follow dccmtlp in tbcir foctstcps, 

and I am proud to call myxifa would-be humanin. Let mc rev& how 

onc humanist. over a cwrx of nearly 75 years, has responded to thc 

challcngc af spacc 

As a young boy I had thr good luck to acquuc a copy of iVoflon i 

Sur At& published bv Gail arid fnglis of Edinburgh. With it. and 

apcciaily its smail-print tcxt. I fm explored the hnvm. and through 

thc dccadcs 1 havc always kept a COPY with me. 

In Worid Wu 11, I xd in Guaddcanz; and Ncrv Ztzluld. 

ahcrc I was ablc to studv with special c;rc the southcm cclcstid 

hcmisphcrc. 

As a conxqucncc of such invcstigatioi~ I became intcrmcd in 

cosmogony and starting in 1948 began to rcacl dl that a?pcucd on this 

subjmt as it was pubiishcd. I becarnc a dcvotc: of Fred Hoyk's thcoria 

and constructed a rational rccnario for a cloxd uni rcrw that was constantly rcplcnishing itself. Thc morc I studicd. prior to 1960. thc morc 

satisfied 1 kame with my theory. 

WJhy was I. a non~tronomcr. intcrcsted it1 cosmogony? It xtmcd 

to me rhtn. as it dccs now, that a ctnaiu pcrccz tagc of thc hum&? racc - 

is obligated to spcrnlatc abut uitimatc caux. for from such spccuh50n ensues grzat understandings. In ancient Asyria I would certainly 

havc studied thc stars. At St~nchcngc I would bavc hclpcd align thc 

stones at the solstices. In medieval Poland I wouli4 havc been agitated 

by the thmria of Gpcrnicus-and as a tradit;on.disr would have oppos:d thcm; but Ncwton would havc bl.-stcd my n.;nd loox. cspccidly 

whc., I compvcd his rcvclations with what Kcplcr had hen saying. I 

would haw waitcd avidly for tach ncw repn of thc telncopc 
NOW we come to what I lccudy did Whcm I have lived I have 

spt a year rnarlcq the sO)StiCCS and the elevations of Sun, whkh 

is what any prudent man ought to do. I studied Pe.;ival Lowell as 

carefully as a layman could and concluded that he was t?lltmg 

nonsense. On the tvt of hhker 9i mvvelous photographic rcvch- 

[ions i sated publicly my convimwn that Man would produce no ascaainabk life and repeated my opinion at the mhquiurn hckl in 1976 

on thc M of the actual landing on Mur. I tried my bcst to visualize 

the plvlctvy sjem. 

During thc firs ycvs of public dixuzsion of Ehrccifi's theory I 

was tdy con- but with the aid of certain elegant crpositions I 

worked my way to a layman's understanding. and it has bcm n py to 

follow subrcqumt ramifications. which acquire s~ccid qpfiinccs 

today. 

In 1%5. my comfomble assumptions were boldly shakca by thc 

work of Pmzk and Wilson. Thcy informed the worid that their 

rrussivc antenna was picking up ndktion which couid not bc accounted for by known ccntm of cmissmn. Othcr investigators suggested that this must be cmic Dlackbodv radiation, at thc predicted 3 

K tcmpcmturc and on tire 3.2 cm watclcngth. From this it wu an easy 

kap to dccidc that this must bc the midue of tt~t Big Bang which 

astronomers had contmphtcd and prcd~ted. 

Ail my cvly cor,;~cturn were blown apart. and I was forced to 

think of an unlimited ilnivcrsc. Quasars with their rremcndo~s 

distances and speeds rquired new understandings. hh provided 

equn;llcct cnigrnrt in the radio field and provided ~p~portunitics for 

ndid new interpretations. Black holes pvc mc no troublc. for I had 

bng speculated about thc ultimate conscqucmcs implied by aspects of 

thc Einstein rhtory. And the concept of 3 singularity. with a11 it implies. was not diffiiult to accept. 

It was at this point that I kamc xrious:j- interested in rhc work 

king donc by NASA. I followed with cuc thc mapping of thc Moon. 

thc sending of spaccsh~ps to the outer plmcts, thc xnding aloft of 

tel,woyc which could photograph astronomical bodin treed from armosphcric disronioi~s. The nupcndous additions to cur visual 

understanding of the universe wcrc of great signif!rance, because I 

agrcc with thc Chincse chat onc picture is oftcn w~nh a tholrsand 

words. 

On my desk thezc days I keep a copy of thc amazing photograph 

of Quasar 3C-2'3 with its ejccta of staggering dimension. Thc other 
day I madt some rough ukuhtions and deduced thit if this gmt outthrusting is cylindrial. as it lppcus tc be. it -Id provide room to 

contain 60 million bi of our tvrhs (5.96 x 10'~). 

And u I mtcmpluc it. and thc dazzling dkcouak of which it is 

a minor pan. I find that dl interlock in their siyifiante. and I 

brcomc aware that rnankind is in thc midst of one of its nobles pcmds 

dlrtclkmiaitxpnnsion. ILiLcnittotheCopemianAgc,tothtAgc 

of Newton. and to thc cxpbaivc conscqucz~cs of Charks kin's 

thcg. ofdution. 

And mcsapbly I have to ask: If this agc is so cremendaus in thc 

impliati.ms of its drscmcries, why is the gcnd popuhrion so 

unaware of. or so indi4mt to if awarc of. the stupendous situation in 

which m find OUIXIVCS? we Iiyc amid a fulras.ic cxphm ofmcming 

and wc rcrmin &nost indiffamt to it. &It was it any different in thc 

Th Zopernim Age. I haw been doing much work in Poland 

ud I cakuhte thar nor more than 1 perctnt of the pcrrons living at 

that tirnc could haw heard of thc Copcrnkvl db&. But I ako 

find that time who wcrc going to modify life in the m-turia that 

followed did makc thcmscha aware. 

Nmmn i Codr$utkrrz. Thac could not haw been known by the 

vast ?r+ry of p&ns Iking nith Ncwron, or havt been 

But the life of cvayonc was to bc modifid by the xicntif~ conxqucnces which wcrc impid tj- Nmon's rt~tlat~. Again, thosc 

who nccded to know. kncw. - 

Dmak i Tkory. Thij differed fiom the other two bcaux it did 

produce an immediate fallout. jlnce it touched religion It occasioned 

heated public debate which continua. Vkn I was in Ahha rtccntly I had an opportunity to hcar seed of the .icw electronic 

ministers. They wcrc a brilliant lot. ~mulr;rblg able and pcrsuuivc. I 

found m~lf agrccing with some of thcu major points. as many xnsiblc listeners wwld, but whm they bcgan to attack mc as a humanist i 

shivered. for thq said spccifudly that the^ intc:~dcd driving people 

like me out of public liie. Their atnck was focused heavily on Duwinisrn. ad by ixtcnsion on geology. anthropology. palcoborany, and 

dcm explorations of astronomy. It is entirely possibk that the day 

might comc when, it you mat voui daughter or son to cxpbre the 

ultimate meanings of space, she or he might hzvc to emigrate to Gcrinan): or Japan. 

Tonight I srond confiiscd On the one hand, it seems as if our nation has turned its back on space exploration. Onc major program &cr 
Yrotha is bttng scuttled and we will Wly not mn smd a 

mcscnga out to gmt H2Lky's CMCf. which comes our way me in 

76 yeus. 

C~lgrrs is haitan: to commit moncy to cht pd odmturc. 

NASA has no cku dtc for the years ahead. 

The publ~ is apathclic. cvtn about the Jupim and &turn flybys. 

* R& arc constantly pcrfKting thcir slrillr and un&erstl?durgr. 

As to thc great disrorrries. we live in an age of l&t but insist 

upon hiding in a caw. 

Thtrc is a ronsnnt and growing rebellion ?grinst xicnce, witness: 

growrh of asmbgy; rejection by young pcopk; attacks by rhc 

dcrgy; attacks on kc Mik Islurd; mpn# to +he DC-10 probIcm; wild agitation om Skyhb. 

Or the other had, I scc rhc public increasingly fircinatcd by 

space: the spax muscum in Washington; "SAW Wan" and "Clozc Ekconrrten "; a~xxpancc and growfh of ricncc fit; enthusiastic suppon tbr thc work of Carl Sagan; explosive distribution of handheld 

alculators and home computers. 

I an bc emvrcd $1 am confwed. In 1938, President Rooxvclt 

nxmbkd 2 scminv of ttc bright- American scientists avaiIab1e and 

vkcd them what mdd dcvcbpmmts in sckxc the Amaican goyernmcnt ought to anticipate. The scientists handed him a thoughtful 

rcpori in which they failtd to predict six startling dcvtloprnmts about 

to crp:odc on the xcnc: radar. penicillin. camputea. jct aviatian, 

rockers. zd atomic explosions. How can our society lotk~ptc md 

prc?arc for thc explosive dkovcrics that loom ahcad if we block 

orderly discussion. cxphmtion. and cxpmimcnmtion? 

Whzt should the posture of NASA bt at this critical juncture? I 

bclitvc we must commit ourselves to thc logical nm steps in ihc expbmtion of the univcrsc. Our strategy must bc to prepare ourselves for 

physical cxptamtion of the solar system and for the unmanned cxplorauon of the remotat regions of outer space. Bur what should our pnctical tactics bc? 

NASA should adjust easily and intelligently to such temporary 

misions as the Congress and the intcllcrtual community can 

agree upon. on thc defensible grounds that even a snldl step in 

the right direction is a worthy step. 

NASA should strive to sustain and enhance the nation's vision. 

NASA should maintain pressure for funding to support csscntia! 

missions. 
NASA must. above all else, preserve thc cadre of informed experts prepared to take the next stcps. I deem this to be a rational 

priority. and of the most austcre necessity. 

In hex days of anxiety ovcr lost oppomnitie and possiblc next 

stcps, I often think that thc United State is in thc position in which 

Portugal and Spain found themxlvcs in thc 16th century. They had 

made the stunning explorations. but then thcy withdrew from the 

competition and stood aside as Fm-c and England took tho next stcps, 

including the czplomtions upon which nations and cmpircs wcrc built. 

The lose that follow upon such surrenders arc inevitable and 

irrevcrsiblc. 

I havc said that Dn my desk I keep a photograph of 3C-273 ro remind me of the immcns;ty of our universe. I keep another photograph 

in my work file, where I study it almost daily because 1 havc long fclt 

that it was the most beautiful object in nature. It is that stunning. 

clar. almf portrait of N.G.C. 4565, an edge-on glwy which must 

look much as ours would from a comparable point in space. It lia in 

Coma Bcrenices and is invisible to the nakcd cyc or cvcn to a small 

telescope. But thcre it rida, immensely far away, irnmenscly bcautifui. 

reminding us that we who ponder the problems of space and the 

unlversc are also involved in the meaning of beauty 

COMMENTARY 

Grroll W. PurseU, Jr. 

I have been asked to comment en papen cxploring thc rationale 

of the syzce program and I will take thr word rationale to mcan thc 

underly: ~g reason or the rational foundation. At the same time. I think 

it importarat to watch for what Bill Holley has c~!lcd the redresons, as 

distinct from the good reasons. 

Mulish idenrifia the common rationals for the space program: 

the age-old dream of space travel the hope of revolutionizing our lives. 

the drcm af economic payoff, arid the quest for nationd prestige. To 

thcx hc adds his own rew~ns: the coqcept of spaceship Earth has 

changed for thc bctter our own view of ounelvcs and our world; and 

thc datiny of humafikind is to push against the frontiers of the 

unknown. Mr. Michencr. in a graccfu! and moving personal testimony, 

invokes much thc mc sort of spiritual and intellectual imperative. 
Both papers share common points. First. they favor science as such 

and do so largely because it is good. true, and beautiful. Such a view is 

not necessarily wrong but it xovides no criteria for independent 

analysis. As the then Dircctoi .,f the Bureau of the Budget quipped 

about Vanncvar Bush's famous 1945 report, it might as well havc been 

titled Science the Endess Ewpenditure. The real problem is not 

whether or not science is good. but rather how much we can afford to 

buy, and for what purposes. 

Another common assumption is that anti-science is a bad. and 

perhaps growing, phenomenon in our country today. Mr. Michener 

worried about the mood of the nation. I do not share this perception, 

however; recent polls show that the American pcople still hold sciencc 

in high esteem. It is possible that technology has been somewhat 

demvstified in recent years, but that is another matter and, in my own 

opinion, a good thing. If John Higham was correct in his idea that 

technology has been the most recent and powerful unifying agent in 

American culture, its fate is certainly a serious matter. However. 

neither of the speakers really raises that issue.' 

I think that history tends to undermine the basic rationales for the 

space program, but history also should give us some reassurance about 

current changes in the fate of the entire enterprise. The analogy with 

the Age of Exploration is too simply put. It was not a period of rivalry 

only between Spain and England but between these two and Portugal. 

France, Holland, and others as wel!. The fact that the fortunes of each 

waxed and wancd should be a source of reassurance. not of alarm. In 

the long run which of these has triumphed? None are today great 

superpowers. 

Nor should one be unduly alarmed at the sudden threat to funding for space sciences. Science, like all other fields, has always ken 

subject to "fads." Since the late 19th century, geology, chemistry, 

physics, and biology, in something like that order, havc been the 

"hot" fields of science. None go away, all advance, and certainly 

sciencc as such is not tied to any particular ranking among them. Like 

thc example of the Age of Exploration, the lesson is not one of doom, 

but a caution against assuming that Western civilization rests solely on 

current (peihaps already eclipsed) instkutlons and enthusiasms. 

I think that the basic ideological thread running through both 

papers and pcrhaps through the entire space constituency, is very close 

to the motto of the 1933 Chicago Century of Progress world's fair: 

"Science Finds-Industry Applies-Man Conforms." Dr. Sylvia 

Fries, chair of the NASA Historical Advisory Committee, has 
discovered in a recent study of congressional testimony on science and 

technology policy a pervasive and consistent belief in the notion that 

"technology is the instrument by which Man transforms science into 

history." This is an unexamincd and debatable proposition. and any 

feu for the fate of civilization based upon it is an act of faith, not a 

conmi L...cnt to rational progress. 

The concern of our two speakers for preserving and supporting the 

good that underlies the space program is to be applauded and shared 

by all of us. What that good is. and how cloxly it must be tied to the 

space program itself, is a question we have hardly begun to ask. 

References 

John Higham. "Hanging Togcrhcr: Divergent Unities in American History." Tkjosmidof 

Amriun Htsror)., vo1. 61 (Jurc 1974). pp. 5-28. 

Loarc11 Tozcr. ''A Ccnrury of Progress. 1833-1933: Technology's Triumph Ovcr Man," A&- 

urr QrucWn'y. vd. 4 (Spring 1952). pp. 79-81. 

PARTICIPANTS' BIOGRAPHIES 

Edward Clinton Ezell is Curator of Military History at the National Museum of American History. After taking a Ph.D. in the 

history of science and technology from Case Institute of Technology in 

1969. he taught at North Carolina State University and Sangamon 

State University. Under contract to NASA. he wrote with Linda 

Neuman Ezell: The Partnership: A Hirtory of th~ Apoffo-Soyuz Test 

Project (1 978) and On Mars: Erpforation of the Red Phnet, 19J8- 1978 

(1984). At the time of this conference, Dr. Ezell was the historian of 

Johnson Space Center. He has also published extensively on military 

technology, including Smd Arms of the World ( 1 1 th ed., 1977). 

Sylvia Doughty hies is an historian who received the doctorate 

from the Johns Hopkins University in 1969. The author of a number of 

stud:es in colonial and 19th century American ideas and attitudes, she 

is currently exploring the ideological makeup of our contemporar) 

scientific and engineering professions. She has served as a h~storical 

consultant for the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities. and NASA. A former chair of the NASA 

IIistory Advisory Committee, she is now Director of the NASA History 

Office. 

Richard P. Hallion is historian of the Air Force Flight Test Center, 

Edwards Air Force Base. California. He received his Ph.D. in the 

history of American technology from the University of Maryland in 

1975, and served ;as curator of Science and Technology at the National 

Air and Space Museum from 1974 until 1980. Among Dr. Hailion's 

many publications in aerospace history are Supersonic Ffight: Breaking 

the .Yoand Bamer and Beyond ( 1972). Legacy of Fiight: The Guggenheim Contribution to American Aviation (1977), Test Pilots 

(1981). and On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981. He 

has taught in both the Department of History and the Department of 

Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland and has been a 

Visiting Fellow at Yale University. 

I.B. Holley, Jr., is Professor of History at Duke University. After 

service with the Army Air Forces in World War 11, Professor Holley 

took his Dh.D. in history in 1947 at Yale University. He teaches 

American social and intellectual history, but his major research and 

writing have been in military history and the history of tcchnology. 

Best known for his Idear and Weapons (1 953, 197 I), Professor Hollcy 

has also authored Buying Aitcrafi: Materiel Pmcuretnent for the Amy 

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Ali hmes (1964). and most recently Generd John M. Pdmer, CCitzen 

Sddien, and the Amy of a Democracy (1982). 

Richard S. Kirkendall is the Henry A. Wallace Professor of History 

at Iowa State University. When he participated in the conference (and 

for xven and one-half ym before that due). he was both Professor of 

History at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Executive Secretary of 

the Organization of American Historians. He has also taught at 

Wesleyan University (1955-1958), and the University of Missouri, Columbia (1958-1973). chairing the Department of History in the latter 

from 1968 to 1971. His publications include A Gfobd Power: The 

United States Since the Age of Roosevelt (1979). 

Arnold Levine has taught at Brooklyn College, served as project 

manager for a Washington, D.C., research organization, and is currently the marketing researcher for a large architectural and eng: rneering fum in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Levine received his Ph.D. in European history from the University of Wisconsin in 1972. He has written 

several articles on the relations between education and scientific 

research and has delivert , , .rrs before the American Historical 

Association and the Sixth Intern& ?a1 Congress on Economic History. 

His book on Managing NASA in tr:: Apollo Era, of which this paper is 

a summary, was published by NASA in 1982. 

John M. Logsdon is Director of the Graduate Program in Science, 

Technology, and Public Policy of George Washington University, 

where he is also Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs. Holder 

of a Ph.D. in political science from New York University, Dr. Logsdon 

has pursued research in space policy, the structure and otocess of 

government decisionmaking for civilian research and development programs, and international science and technology policy. He is the 

author of The Decrjzon to Gb to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest (1970), and articles and reports on space policy and 

science and technology policy. Dr. Logsdon has served as a consultant 

to the United Nations, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Commerce, the Office of Technology Assessment, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other public and private organizations. He is a former chairman of the Committee on Science and Public 

Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

and is currently a member of the Public Policy Committee of the 

American Institute for Astronautics and Aeronautics. 
Pamela E. Mack is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is completing a dissertation under Thomas P. 

Iiughes on "The Politics of Technological Change: The History of 

Iandsat." In 1980-1961, she held a Guggenheim Fellowship at the 

National Air and Space Museum. She has taught at Worcester 

Polytechnic Institute and Hampshire College. Her "Space Science for 

Applications: The History of Landsat" appeared in Paule A. Hanle 

and Von Del Chamberlain, eds., Spuce Science Comes of Age: 

Perspectiv8.c in the HIjfory of the Spae Sciences ( 198 1). 

Bruce Mazlish is Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology, where he has served as Chairman of the History Section 

and Head of the Humanities Department. A Fellow of the American 

Academy of Arts and Sciences and Associate Editor of The Journal of 

Interdisc~finary History, Professor Mazlish is a prolific author whose 

long list of publications begins befo:e he took his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1955. Perhaps best known for The Western Inteffectual Tradition (with Jacob Bronowski) and numerous books and articles 

in psychohistory, Professor Mazlish is also editor of The Raifmadand 

the Space Program: An Erpforation in Historical Analysis (1965). 

Walter A. McDougall is Associate Professor of History at the 

University of California, Berkc;ty, where he has taught since 1975. 

After ~ervice in Vietnam with the U.S. Army, Professor McDougall 

took a Fh.D. in modern European history at the University of Chicago 

in 1974. His revised dissertation, France's Rhinehnd Diplomacy 

1914-1924: The hst Bid for a ante of Power in Eurvpe reinterpreted European diplomatic history between the world wars on the 

basis of recently opened French Foreign Ministry files. For several years 

Professor McDougall has been working on the international ramifications of the space program. His "Technocracy and Statecraft in the 

Space Age-Toward the History of a Saltation." Anetican Hirtoncal 

Review (October, 1982), is a preview of a forthcoming, book-length 

study. 

James A. Michener is one of America's most prolific and most 

read authors. Equally capable at both fiction and nonfiction, Mr. 

Michener is author of 30 books ranging from his dramatic and influential Kent State: What Happenedand Why (1971) to his Pulitzer-prizewinning Tales of the South Pact-c (1947). His long string of bestselling novels has recently been completed by Space (1982). 
Carroll W. Purxll, Jr., is Professor of History at the University of 

California, Santa Barbara. Since taking his Ph.D. from Bcrkeley in 

1762, Professor Purse11 has taught at Case Institute of Technology, the 

University of California, Santa Barbara, and Lehigh Llniversity, where 

he was Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities. 

Coeditor (with Melvin Kranzberg) of the standard two-volume study 

Technology in Western Civdiz~tion, Professor Purse11 has written or 

edited numerous other works, iduding Ean'y Stationary Steam 

Engines in Ammiia (1769) and most recently Technology in America 

(1381). Since 1975, he has been Secretary of the Society for the History 

of Technology. 

John A. Simpson is Arthur H. Compton Distinguished Service 

Professor of Physics, University of Chicago, and Director of the Enrico 

Fermi Institute of Nuclear Studies. Upon taking his Ph.D. in physics 

from New York Univers~ty in 1942, Profcssor Simpson joined the 

Manhattan Project at the University of Chicagc, where he has been ever 

since. P. member of the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Simpson established the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research in 

1964. He has researched and written extensively on particles and fields 

in space. 

John Noble Wilford was educated at the University of Tennessee, 

Syracuse University, and Columbia University. He has been an editor 

or reporter since 1956, serving successively on The Wd Street Journd 

and The New York Tines. Since 1965, he has concentrated on space 

explc~ration. His many awards include the Aviationispace Writers 

Association Book Award (1970) and the Press Award of the National 

Space Club ( 1974). His books include We Reach the Moon (1969) and 

(with William Stockton) Spaceliner ( 1781).