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About the Editor 

Steven J. Dick is the Chief Historian for NASA and 

Director of the NASA History Division. He worked 

as an astronomer and historian of science at the U.S. 

Naval Observatory in Washington, DC for 24 years 

before coming to NASA Headquarters in 2003. 

Among his recent books are Societal Impact of 

Spaceflight (NASA SP 4801, 2007, edited with Roger 

Launius), Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight 

(NASA SP 4702, 2006, edited with Roger Launius), 

The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of 

Astrobiology (2004, with James Strick), and Sky and 

Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory, 1830 2000 

(2003). Dr. Dick is the recipient of the Navy 

Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, two NASA 

Group Achievement Awards, and the 2006 LeRoy E. 

Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy of the 

American Astronomical Society. 

On the back cover: Fifty years after the Space Age 

began, the International Space Station orbits the 

Earth. It is the result of a cooperative effort of 16 

nations led by the United States. 

ISBN 978-0-16-081723-6

90000

9 780160 817236

NASA SP-2008-4703 

here is no doubt that the last 50 years have 

witnessed numerous accomplishments in 

what has often been termed “the new 

ocean” of space, harkening back to a long 

tradition of exploration. Earth is now circled by 

thousands of satellites, looking both upward into 

space at distant galaxies and downward toward Earth 

for reconnaissance, weather, communications, navigation, and remote sensing. Robotic space probes 

have explored most of the solar system, returning 

astonishing images of alien worlds. Space telescopes 

have probed the depths of the universe at many 

wavelengths. In the dramatic arena of human 

spaceflight, 12 men have walked on the surface of the 

Moon, the Space Shuttle has had 119 flights, and the 

International Space Station—a cooperative effort of 

16 nations—is almost “core complete.” In addition to 

Russia, which put the first human into space in April 

1961, China has now joined the human spaceflight 

club with two Shenzhou flights, and Europe is 

readying for its entry into the field as well. 

After 50 years of robotic and human spaceflight, and as serious plans are being implemented to 

return humans to the Moon and continue on to Mars, 

it is a good time to step back and ask questions that 

those in the heat of battle have had but little time to 

ask.What has the Space Age meant? What if the Space 

Age had never occurred? Has it been, and is it still, 

important for a creative society to explore space? How 

do we, and how should we, remember the Space Age? 

On the cover: The Space Age begins. Top left: A 

technician puts the finishing touches on Sputnik I in 

the fall of 1957. Top middle and right: The Soviet 

Union launched Sputnik I the first artificial Earth 

satellite on October 4, 1957. Bottom: Explorer 

1 America’s first Earth satellite was launched 

January 31, 1958. Pictured left to right are William 

H. Pickering, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

that built and operated the satellite; James A. van 

Allen of the State University of Iowa who designed 

and built the instrument that discovered the Van 

Allen Radiation Belts; and Wernher von Braun, 

leader of the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal team 

which built the first stage Redstone rocket that 

launched Explorer 1. The photo was taken at a press 

conference at the National Academy of Sciences 

building in the early hours of February 1, 1958. 
viii Societal Impact of Spaceflight
REMEMBERING

the SPACE AGE
 
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ISBN 978-0-16-081723-6

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ISBN 978-0-16-081723-6 

0081-215 ) 

1000-20402
 

REMEMBERING

the SPACE AGE
 

Steven J. Dick
 

Editor 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration
 

Office of External Relations
 

History Division
 

Washington, DC
 

2008


 NASA SP-2008-4703 
 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Remembering the Space Age / Steven J. Dick, editor.

 p. cm.


 Includes bibliographical references.


 1. Astronautics--History--20th century. I. Dick, Steven J. 

TL788.5.R46 2008

 629.4’109045--dc22

 2008019448 
 

 

 

 

 

Contents 

Acknowledgments ....................................... vii
 

Introduction ........................................... ix
 

Part I.	 natIonal and Global dImensIons 

of the sPace aGe 

Chapter 1: Gigantic Follies? Human Exploration and the Space Age 


in Long-term Historical Perspective—J. R. McNeill .................3
 

Chapter 2: Spaceflight in the National Imagination—Asif A. Siddiqi .... 17
 

Chapter 3: Building Space Capability through European Regional 


Collaboration—John Krige .................................. 37
 

Chapter 4: Imagining an Aerospace Agency in the Atomic Age—
 

Robert R. MacGregor ..................................... 55
 

Chapter 5: Creating a Memory of the German Rocket Program 


for the Cold War—Michael J. Neufeld .......................... 71
 

Chapter 6: Operation Paperclip in Huntsville,Alabama—
 

Monique Laney .......................................... 89
 

Chapter 7:The Great Leap Upward: China’s Human Spaceflight 


Program and Chinese National Identity—James R. Hansen.......... 109
 

Chapter 8:“The ‘Right’ Stuff: The Reagan Revolution and the 


U.S. Space Program”—Andrew J. Butrica....................... 121
 

Chapter 9: Great (Unfulfilled) Expectations:To Boldly Go Where 


No Social Scientist or Historian Has Gone Before—
 

Jonathan Coopersmith .................................... 135
 

Part II. remembrance and cultural 

rePresentatIon of the sPace aGe 

Chapter 10: Far Out: The Space Age in American Culture—
 

Emily S. Rosenberg ...................................... 157
 
 

vi Remembering the Space Age 

Chapter 11:A Second Nature Rising: Spaceflight in an Era of 


Representation—Martin Collins ...............................185
 

Chapter 12: Creating Memories: Myth, Identity, and Culture 


in the Russian Space Age—Slava Gerovitch ..................... 203
 

Chapter 13:The Music of Memory and Forgetting: Global Echoes 


of Sputnik II—Amy Nelson ................................ 237
 

Chapter 14: From the Cradle to the Grave: Cosmonaut Nostalgia 


in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film—Cathleen S. Lewis................ 253
 

Chapter 15: Examining the Iconic and Rediscovering the Photography 


of Space Exploration in Context to the History of Photography
 

—Michael Soluri ........................................ 271
 

Chapter 16: Robert A. Heinlein’s Influence on Spaceflight—
 

Robert G. Kennedy, III .................................... 341
 

Chapter 17:American Spaceflight History’s Master Narrative 


and the Meaning of Memory—Roger D. Launius................. 353
 

Part III. reflectIons on the sPace aGe 

Chapter 18:A Melancholic Space Age Anniversary— 

Walter A. McDougall ..................................... 389
 

Chapter 19: Has Space Development Made a Difference?—
 

John Logsdon ........................................... 397
 

Chapter 20: Has There Been a Space Age?—Sylvia Kraemer......... 405
 

Chapter 21: Cultural Functions of Space Exploration—Linda Billings . . 409
 

About the Authors ........................................413
 

Acronyms and Abbreviations .............................. 425
 

NASA History Series ..................................... 429
 

Index................................................. 441
 
AcknowledGments 

I wish to thank the members of the conference organizing committee, 

including Roger Launius (National Air and Space Museum), Linda Billings 

(SETI Institute), Asif Siddiqi (Fordham University), Slava Gerovitch (MIT), 

Bill Barry (NASA Headquarters Office of External Relations), and, on the staff 

of the NASA History Division, Stephen Garber and Glen Asner. I also want 

to thank Michael Neufeld, who took over from Roger Launius as the Chair 

of the National Air and Space Museum Division of Space History during our 

planning and gave us his full support. My thanks to Nadine Andreassen in the 

NASA History Division for her usual good work in planning the logistics for 

the meeting, as well as Kathy Regul and Ron Mochinski for their logistical 

work. Finally, thanks to the Communications Support Services Center team at 

NASA Headquarters for their crucial role in the production of this book. 
viii Societal Impact of Spaceflight
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IntroductIon 

Fifty years ago, with the launch of Sputnik I on October 4, 1957 and the 

flurry of activity that followed, events were building toward what some 

historians now recognize as a watershed in history—the beginning of the 

Space Age. Like all “Ages,” however, the Space Age is not a simple, 

straightforward, or even secure concept. It means different things to different 

people, and, space buffs notwithstanding, some would even argue that it has 

not been a defining characteristic of culture over the last 50 years and 

therefore does not deserve such a grandiose moniker. Others would find that 

to be an astonishing viewpoint, and argue that the Space Age was a saltation 

in history comparable to amphibians transitioning from ocean to land.1 

There is no doubt that the last 50 years have witnessed numerous 

accomplishments in what has often been termed “the new ocean” of space, 

harking back to a long tradition of exploration. Earth is now circled by thousands 

of satellites, looking both upward into space at distant galaxies and downward 

toward Earth for reconnaissance, weather, communications, navigation, and 

remote sensing. Robotic space probes have explored most of the solar system, 

returning astonishing images of alien worlds. Space telescopes have probed the 

depths of the universe at many wavelengths. In the dramatic arena of human 

spaceflight, 12 men have walked on the surface of the Moon, the Space Shuttle 

has had 119 flights, and the International Space Station (ISS), a cooperative 

effort of 16 nations, is almost “core complete.” In addition to Russia, which 

put the first human into space in April 1961, China has now joined the human 

spaceflight club with two Shenzhou flights, and Europe is contemplating its 

entry into the field. 

1.	 Walter McDougall (see chapter 18 of this volume) opens his Pulitzer-Prize winning book 

. . . the Heavens and the Earth with such a scenario. See also Walter A. McDougall,“Technocracy 

and Statecraft in the Space Age:Toward the History of A Saltation,” American Historical Review 

87(1982), 1025. By the 40th anniversary of Sputnik in 1997 McDougall had revised his thesis 

to say “I no longer think that saltation was the right label for the chain of events kicked off by 

Sputnik.” But he thought in the long term, when a new launch technology had replaced the 

“clumsy chemical rocket,” saltation might still prove an apt term. Walter A. McDougall, “Was 

Sputnik Really a Saltation?” in Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger 

D. Launius, John M. Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 

xv-xx. In chapter 4 of this volume, Robert MacGregor also challenges the view of Sputnik as a 

technological saltation, arguing that technocratic ideas of the relation of science to the state were 

already well established by this time. In particular he points to the parallels between the Atomic 

Energy Commission and NASA, and further argues that “NASA’s rise in the 1960s as an engine 

of American international prestige was rooted in atomic diplomacy, and that certain debates in 

Congress about the new Agency were largely approached from within a framework of atomic 

energy, thereby limiting the range of discourse and influencing the shape of the new Agency.” 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

x Remembering the Space Age 

After 50 years of robotic and human spaceflight, and as serious plans are 

being implemented to return humans to the Moon and continue on to Mars, it 

is a good time to step back and ask questions that those in the heat of battle have 

had but little time to ask. What has the Space Age meant? What if the Space Age 

had never occurred? Has it been, and is it still, important for a creative society to 

explore space? How do we, and how should we, remember the Space Age? 

It is with such questions in mind that the NASA History Division and the 

National Air and Space Museum Space History Division convened a conference 

on October 22-23, 2007, to contemplate some of the large questions associated 

with space exploration over the last half century. The conference was designed 

to discuss not so much the details of what has happened in space over the last 50 

years, nor even so much the impact of what has happened, but rather its meaning 

in the broadest sense of the term.2

 In doing so, the organizers made a conscious 

attempt to draw in scholars outside the usual circle of space history. This was not 

an easy task; we found that, with few exceptions, historians had not contemplated 

the meaning of the Space Age in the context of world history, even though the 

Space Age has given rise to an embryonic movement known as “big history” 

encompassing the last 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang.3

 We therefore turned 

to “big picture” historians, among whom is John R. McNeill, who had recently 

coauthored The Human Web: A Bird’s-eye View of Human History with his father, 

William H. McNeill, another big picture historian.4

 With the idea that space is 

the ultimate “bird’s-eye view” and that it has enlarged and enhanced the human 

web, we invited the younger McNeill to deliver our opening keynote lecture. 

Readers will find his provocative thoughts in chapter 1. 

The conference encompassed two main themes, reflected in the first two 

sections of this book. The first, “national and global dimensions of the Space 

Age,” was meant to examine the place of space exploration in human history. 

Here the guiding questions were as follows: Has the Space Age fostered a new 

global identity, or has it reinforced distinct national identities? How does space 

history connect with national histories and with the histories of transnational 

or global phenomena such as the Cold War, the rise of global markets, or 

global satellite communications? One might argue there is a fundamental 

2.	 On the question of societal impact, see Steven J. Dick and Roger D. Launius, eds., Societal Impact 

of Spaceflight (NASA SP-2007-4801:Washington, 2007). 

3.	 On “big history,” see David Christian’s “The Case for ‘Big History’” in The Journal of World 

History,2,No.2 (Fall 1991):223-238 (http://www.fss.uu.nl/wetfil/96-97/big.htm);David Christian, 

‘Maps of Time’:An Introduction to ‘Big History’, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004; 

as well as Fred Spier, The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang Until Today, Amsterdam: 

Amsterdam University Press, 1996, and Marnie Hughes-Warrington, “Big History,” Historically 

Speaking, November, 2002, pp. 16-17, 20 (available at http://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/november02. 

html#hughes-warrington). 

4.	 J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill, The Human Web:A Bird’s-eye View of Human History (W.W. 

Norton, New York, 2003). 
INTRODUCTION xi 

tension between national goals of preeminence in space, and the global identity 

that the Space Age fosters in a variety of ways—through communications 

satellites, through the global awareness brought by photos of the whole Earth 

and Earthrise from the Moon, and through international cooperation in huge 

human spaceflight endeavors like the ISS. Scholars from several disciplines 

and backgrounds examined these questions from a variety of perspectives, and 

the debate spilled over into the entire conference. Speaking in his article of 

applications satellites such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Iridium, 

Martin Collins concludes that “Spaceflight—especially those near-Earth 

applications cited here—has been a major element in creating the incarnation 

of the global we have experienced over the last 40 years. It has provided images 

and practices that have made the category of the global natural and insistent, 

even when different actors give it different meanings. It has been a primary site 

in which prior categories of the modern—the nation state, the military, civil 

society, capitalism—have been refashioned and given new meanings.” Others in 

this volume differ with that interpretation. 

The second theme, “remembrance and cultural representation of the 

Space Age,” posed questions about how the historical record of the Space Age 

has been collected, preserved, displayed, and interpreted around the world, 

especially in the United States, Russia, the European Union, Canada, and 

China. How do the “official” versions of events square with the document 

trail and with eyewitness accounts? How has the Space Age been represented 

in the arts, the media, the movies, in propaganda discourse, and so on? What 

does space exploration tell us about culture and the space endeavor’s relation to 

culture? Such questions are not confined to the realm of space. They permeate 

all of history, and especially global events affecting the masses. In the context 

of the 20th century out of which the Cold War and Sputnik emerged, for 

example, one thinks in the fictional realm of Herman Wouk’s novel War and 

Remembrance, or Emily Rosenberg’s non-fiction work A Date Which Will Live: 

Pearl Harbor in American Memory. 

In Rosenberg’s piece and others in part II of this volume, one will find 

reflections on remembrance and history. “From the 1950s to the 1970s,” she 

writes, “space held many meanings: it was a symbol-laden arena in which people 

and nations staged Cold War competitions, a ‘star’ in the media firmament, 

an ultimate challenge for scientists and engineers, and an inspiration for 

artists and designers.” In this vein, both Roger Launius and Slava Gerovitch 

contemplate the “master narratives” of the Soviet Union, Russia, and the 

United States with regard to the Space Age, finding them inevitably grounded 

in culture. As Gerovitch concludes, “There can be no ‘true’ memory, as any 

act of recollection reconstitutes our memories. As different cultures remember 

the Space Age, it keeps changing, revealing new symbolic meanings and 

providing an inexhaustible source of study for historians. By shifting the focus 

from debunking myths to examining their origins and their constructive role 
xii REMEMBERING the Space Age 

in culture, we can understand memory as a dynamic cultural force, not a static 

snapshot of the past.” Reflecting on the relation between reality, memory, and 

meaning, Launius offers a provocative premise: “Perhaps the reality of what 

happened does not matter all that much; the only thing that is truly important is 

the decision about its meaning. That may well be an intensely personal decision 

predicated on many idiosyncrasies and perspectives.” 

Remembrance is not simply a pleasant pastime, something to be contemplated at life’s end. Nor is history a luxury, an irrelevance, or a straightforward 

activity as some people might think. Not without reason does there exist a 

National Archives in the United States with the words “What is Past is Prologue” 

scrolled along the top of its impressive façade, this building duplicated in function, if not in detail, in most countries of the world. Not without reason does 

the Smithsonian Institution strive to display thoughtful commentary in its 

exhibits, despite criticism from its wide variety of audiences, each with their 

own interpretations of history. And not without reason does every high school, 

college, and university teach history. As Wouk said in the context of his novel, 

“the beginning of the end of War lies in Remembrance.” Whether we learn the 

lessons of history is another matter. 

Part III of this volume consists of reflections and commentary, where some 

of the major themes are once again engaged. Walter McDougall views the 50th 

anniversary of the Space Age as a melancholic affair, filled with disappointment 

and unfulfilled hopes, a secondary activity compared to the dominant trends of 

contemporary history, and in any case too embryonic to judge its significance. 

John Logsdon disagrees in part, arguing that both the modern nation-state and 

the global economy depend on space-based systems. The ability to operate in 

outer space, he contends, is an integral part of modern history. He agrees that 

the progress of the Space Age has been frustrating in many ways to those who 

lived through the Apollo era, a level of activity that was not sustainable. Sylvia 

Kraemer argues there are many competing events that may define the last 50 

years more than space exploration, including the Cold War and digital and 

information technologies. She also argues that the contribution of space activity 

to globalization has been far greater than its contribution to nationalism. Linda 

Billings reflects on space exploration in the context of culture, concluding that 

it means many things to many people, quite aside from dominant official 

narratives. Nor is this an academic exercise, for she suggests that if space 

programs are to survive and thrive in the 21st century they need to involve 

citizens and be aware of the visions they have for a human future in space. On 

the global level, this resonates with John Krige’s statement that “when 

‘Remembering the Space Age,’ we should not shy away from admitting the 

complexity and diversity of the space effort, nor pretend that the view of the 

world from Washington is the only view worth recording.” 

Some in the audience at this 50th anniversary conference thought it should 

have been more celebratory and described the meeting itself as depressing. Others 
 

INTRODUCTION xiii 

felt it reflected both the frustrations and the realities of the Space Age. In the end, 

there seemed to be consensus that human spaceflight has been a disappointment in 

the aftermath of Apollo, and in that sense the Space Age, if indeed it ever existed, 

has been a disappointment as well. Such disappointment is no artificial construct 

of historians; the legendary Wernher von Braun, who thought humans would 

land on Mars by 1984, would undoubtedly have agreed. Nor is disappointment 

necessarily a bad attitude; it means vision has outstripped practical realities and 

that vision may yet drive individuals and nation-states toward new realities. 

In common parlance, the title “Remembering the Space Age” carries with 

it a connotation that we are looking back on something that may have ended. 

Or maybe it never began; certainly launching Sputnik in and of itself did not 

constitute a Space Age, and the resulting reaction culminating in the manned 

lunar landings had ended within 15 years. Communications, navigation, weather, 

reconnaissance, and remote sensing satellites have been more sustained. But is 

such space activity, bounded by commercial and practical applications, enough 

to constitute a Space Age? Or, as several speakers opined, is space science the 

real core of the Space Age? As John McNeill concluded in his opening paper, it 

may well be too early to tell whether space activities over the last half century 

constitute a genuine “Age.” We may need more time for better perspective. One 

thing is certain: if indeed the Space Age exists and if it is to continue, it must be 

a conscious decision requiring public and political will. Like exploration, each 

culture must set its priorities, and there are no guarantees for the Space Age. 

The reader will find this volume filled with many more provocative 

thoughts and themes, large and small. However one defines or explains away the 

Space Age, whether in terms of space science, human spaceflight, applications 

satellites, or a combination of all of them, it is clear that what we usually refer 

to as the Space Age has been remembered differently by individual scholars 

depending on their perspective, by scientists and engineers depending on their 

specific roles, and by the public depending on their priorities. Moreover, it 

has been remembered differently depending on when one contemplates these 

questions. Quite aside from references to “semiotics,” “tropes,” and other 

postmodern terms common in the first years of the 21st century, the record 

presented in this volume is quite different from the perspective 25 years ago, 

or even 10 years ago.5 And it will be different 25 years from now. Such is the 

nature of memory; such is the nature of history. 

Steven J. Dick 

NASA Chief Historian 

Washington, DC 

May 2008 

5.	 See, for example, Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger D. Launius, 

John M. Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000). 
xiv Societal Impact of Spaceflight
 

Part I. 

NatIoNal aNd Global 

dImeNsIoNs of the sPace aGe 

~
 

 

Chapter 1 

Gigantic Follies? 


human exploration and the Space age in 


Long-term historical perspective
 

J. r. McNeill 

I

n 1667, the poet John Milton, in the final quatrain of Paradise Lost reflected 

upon the exodus of adam and eve from the garden of eden. as a believing 

Christian, Milton understood the biblical story as truth, and thus as the original 

human voyage of exploration: 

The world was all before them, where to choose 

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: 

They hand in hand, with wand’ring steps and slow, 

Through Eden took their solitary way. 

Since the first humans trod this earth, perhaps 10,000 generations ago, 

slow wandering steps have formed a characteristic part of the experience of 

most peoples at one time or another, and for some, migration and exploration 

has stood at the center of their experience of life. In recent years, wandering 

and exploration rarely involved literal human steps, but rather technologically 

sophisticated and organizationally complex efforts to take giant leaps. 

My aim in this chapter is to place the whole endeavor of the Space age 

into a global historical context. My friend and fellow historian, Felipe Fernandezarmesto, in his recent book entitled Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration, 

refers to space exploration as a “gigantic folly.”1 he could be right,but it is too soon 

to be sure. Folly or not, we can be sure space exploration is consonant with the 

deepest traditions of our species. 

In the pages that follow, I will try to show just how deeply rooted exploration is in human society and will speculate on why that should be so. I will also 

reflect on some of the global-scale changes since the dawn of the Space age in 

1957, and where space exploration fits in this contemporary history. 

1.	 Felipe Fernandez-armesto, Pathfinders:A Global History of Exploration (New York, NY: Norton, 

2006), p. 399. 
4 reMeMberING the Space age 

the reaL Great aGe oF expLoratIoN 

When I was a schoolboy in Chicago—early in the Space age—I defied the 

odds by studying “the explorers” five different times between third and tenth 

grade. Maybe it was the buzz surrounding the apollo program that inspired my 

teachers year in and year out to include a unit on Marco polo, Vasco da Gama, 

Columbus, Magellan and all the rest, usually ending with Lewis & Clark. I 

memorized the dates of voyages the way my grandfather as a school boy had 

memorized scripture. While it didn’t do me any harm, later in life I felt misled 

upon learning that da Gama hired a local pilot in Mombasa (today’s Kenya) to take 

him and his ship to India. he didn’t really explore anything: there were already 

people everywhere he went who gave him directions, as well as provided him and 

his men with supplies. the same was true of Marco polo, Columbus, Magellan, 

and the rest. they were visiting lands unfamiliar to them, and certainly took 

great risks on the sea, but “explored” only in a generous sense of the word. 

the real explorers in human history are almost all unknown, anonymous 

figures, people who explored unpeopled realms. and the real great age of 

exploration was long ago and lasted for tens of thousands of years. 

our species, homo sapiens sapiens, evolved from various hominid 

predecessors some time around 250,000 to 150,000 years ago, or so the scanty 

evidence suggests. this happened in africa, somewhere between the ethiopian 

highlands and the South african high veld. We evolved in ways that made us 

well-suited to the grassland and parkland ecosystems of east africa. among 

other things, we became excellent long-distance walkers. 

after the burst of climate change that occurred at the onset of a glacial 

period and a period of technological advance in toolmaking, a few bands of 

humans walked out of africa, probably around 100,000 years ago. they and 

their descendants probably skirted the shorelines of the Indian ocean—now 

underwater because of deglaciation and sea level rise in the past 15,000 years— 

where food could be scooped up fairly easily in the intertidal zones. they 

arrived in India perhaps 70,000 years ago, and in China about 67,000 years ago. 

people first made it to australia, which required a maritime voyage even in 

those days of lower sea level, perhaps 60,000 years ago. others veered off into 

europe about 40,000 years ago and into Siberia some 30,000 years ago. the 

final frontiers in this long saga of exploration were the americas (15,000 years 

ago) and polynesia (4,000 to 1,000 years ago). New Zealand was the last sizeable 

piece of habitable land to be discovered, around aD 1000 or maybe 1200.2 

these peregrinations were real exploration. In some parts of the world, 

these footloose Homo sapiens encountered a few Homo erectus, whose ancestors 

had also walked out of africa perhaps half a million years back. but those 

2.	 these dates are rough estimates—the older the date the rougher the estimate—subject to 

revision by a single new archeological find. 
 

 

 

Gigantic Follies? human exploration and the Space age 5 

in Long-term historical perspective 

Homo erectus did not have language, or at least not much of it, and could not 

tell Homo sapiens much of anything about the lands they were exploring. In 

any case, Homo erectus soon went extinct wherever our ancestors showed up, a 

disconcerting fact about our family tree. In europe, the new arrivals encountered 

Neanderthals and swiftly swept them into the dustbin of prehistory. So for all 

intents and purposes, these wandering Homo sapiens were exploring unpeopled 

lands, unfamiliar not only to them, but to everyone alive. the trip to australia 

must have been especially challenging—across open water and into a new and 

exotic biological kingdom with almost no familiar plants or animals. Similarly, 

exploring north into Siberia took much courage: few edible plants, trackless 

tundra, and bitter cold (the first humans arrived in the middle of the last Ice 

age). they needed warm clothes and skill in very-big-game hunting, as well as 

a full supply of either optimism or desperation. 

these paleolithic pathfinders knew nothing at all about what lay over 

the horizon, and no one could tell them, yet they went. had these individuals 

had the foresight to leave to posterity letters, diaries, journals, and handsome 

engravings instead of merely the odd flint or chunk of charcoal, their stories 

would be well-known and their status as historical icons assured.3 

MotIVatIoN aND expLoratIoN 

Why did they do it? Why leave home at all, why walk out of africa, 

why sail to australia? We can’t know, but we can make informed guesses. 

the last chapter of these great explorations was the polynesian one, and we 

know more about that than any of the earlier ones. there are oral traditions, 

such as those maintained by New Zealand’s Maori, as well as much more 

plentiful archeological remains. Linguistic and genetic evidence adds details 

to the general picture. the polynesians clearly organized deliberate voyages of 

exploration, discovery, and colonization. presumably, despite their legendary 

maritime skills, many polynesian voyages ended badly because the pacific is a 

big ocean with only a few specks of habitable land. these voyages were very 

risky undertakings. people accepted the risk presumably because staying at 

home seemed worse. In some cases, perhaps, island populations grew too large 

and starvation loomed, inspiring some to take to the sea in search of fertile land 

or fish-filled lagoons. oral traditions suggest that, in other cases, conflicts arose, 

such as between two claimants to a chieftaincy, and one had to go: their island 

wasn’t big enough for the two of them. If the loser was lucky, his followers 

3.	 Clive Gamble, Timewalkers (Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press, 1994) remains useful on 

prehistoric migration. See also Steven Mithen, After the Ice (Cambridge, Ma: harvard University 

press, 2004). 
 

 

 

 

 

6 reMeMberING the SpaCe aGe 

would accompany him over the horizon, perhaps to find a good uninhabited 

island somewhere, perhaps to find only endless ocean and early death.4 

the epic paleolithic peregrinations probably arose more often from 

conflict than overpopulation. It is hard to imagine the exodus from africa 

owing anything to overpopulation: there were probably well under a million 

people at the time, a number easily sustained on a continent as big as africa. So 

why did they move on? perhaps they were following game animals. perhaps a 

wet phase in the Sahara was ending and they had to find a new home. perhaps 

they were consistently curious. perhaps each incremental movement of people 

arose from different motives. but quite likely conflict was often involved, as 

among the polynesians, and the easiest resolution required some group to move 

away. In some cases, perhaps, cultural conservatives objected to some changes 

and, like the puritans who settled in New england, hived off in order to be 

able to practice their old ways without harassment. once they got there, they 

probably often quarreled, split, and the stronger or luckier drove off the unlucky 

schismatics, as among the Massachusetts puritans. In other cases, perhaps, 

cultural radicals pursued new ways that others found distasteful, so, like the 

Mormons in the mid-19th century, they were driven over the horizon where 

they, too probably quarreled and split. 

Space exploration also arose from conflict.5 although the dynamics were 

very different from what I have claimed about the puritans, polynesians, and 

paleolithic peoples, it is clear that the funds provided by the Soviet Union 

and the United States, beginning just over 50 years ago, would not have been 

allocated without the Cold War context (or some equivalent unprecedented 

peacetime mobilization of money and resources). the dog Laika, the first living 

thing to experience earth orbit, blasted into space aboard Sputnik II just a year 

after the october 1956 Suez Crisis and the Soviet invasion of hungary. Gagarin 

and Glenn were propelled into space by a climate of anxiety fed by the berlin 

crisis and the Cuban missile crisis. americans and russians did not explore 

space because they lost a quarrel or feared hunger, but because they feared they 

might suffer in the Cold War if they allowed space to be dominated by their 

rival. president Lyndon Johnson feared the communists would drop bombs on 

america “like kids dropping rocks onto cars from freeway overpasses.”6 In a 

less colloquial moment, Johnson claimed that, “Failure to master space means 

4.	 Within the sizeable literature on polynesian history, a good starting point is patrick Kirch, On 

the Road of the Winds:An Archeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact (berkeley, 

Ca: University of California press, 2000). 

5.	 roger D. Launius, “Compelling rationales for Spaceflight? history and the Search for 

relevance.”In:Steven J.Dick and roger D.Launius,eds., Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight 

(Washington DC: NaSa, 2006), pp. 37-70, reviews the american motives for space exploration, 

emphasizing the political ones. 

6.	 The Washington Post, october 2, 2007:a1. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

GIGaNtIC FoLLIeS? hUMaN expLoratIoN aND the SpaCe aGe 7 

IN LoNG-terM hIStorICaL perSpeCtIVe 

being second best in every aspect, in the crucial area of our Cold War world. 

In the eyes of the world first in space means first, period; second in space is 

second in everything.”7 americans and russians also found, as many had before 

them, that virtuoso displays of technological prowess and national resolve served 

useful propaganda purposes, which seemed especially important during the era 

of decolonization when the allegiance of billions of people around the world 

(and their geostrategic resources) was up for grabs. Laika, by the way, lasted four 

days in space before expiring from heat exhaustion on the 40th anniversary of 

the bolshevik revolution, November 7, 1957.8 

Space exploration has proved to be a risky venture, although in statistical 

terms it is probably less so than polynesian voyaging. polynesians accepted 

high levels of risk because they felt they had to: at times, staying put carried 

unacceptable costs or perhaps even greater risks. presumably, paleolithic 

explorers sometimes arrived at the same calculus. today, as for the last half 

century, one of the central questions surrounding space programs is that of risk. 

how much is prudent to accept when the returns are unmeasurable? Should 

human lives be risked for uncertain rewards? although insurance companies 

and their customers explicitly put monetary values on human lives, and those 

responsible for air traffic and highway safety do so implicitly, when it comes to 

space exploration, this calculation is not mainly a matter of money and numbers, 

but of moral and political positions. For some, the ratio of risk to reward spells 

gigantic folly; for others, an irresistibly noble calling. Different people, different 

governments, different eras will hold sharply divergent views on this, and they 

are probably not easily reconciled or persuaded by mere reason. 

In point of historical fact, no human being has ventured beyond low-earth 

orbit since 1972.9 to those in control, the further rewards to distant space travel 

since then apparently did not justify the risks. Détente, perhaps, diminished the 

determination behind human space exploration, as did financial difficulties. by 

the late 1960s, the Soviet economy had begun to flag, and although high oil 

prices helped prop it up for more than a decade after 1973, the malaise associated 

with the brezhnev years did not augur well for renewed commitment to lofty 

ambitions in space. the american economy (and government revenues) suffered 

a downturn in 1973 due in large part to high oil prices, raised higher in 1979. 

So with détente dampening the motives, and economic difficulty undermining 

the means, ambitions for projects in space waned since the heady early days 

(c. 1957-1969) when all seemed possible. but, as with paleolithic and polynesian 

7.	 Walter a. McDougall, “technocracy and Statecraft in the Space age:toward the history of a 

Saltation,” American Historical Review 87 (1982): 1025. 

8.	 this is not the only ironic calendrical coincidence of Cold War space history: the day Sputnik 

I was launched, october 4, 1957, was the day american tV stations launched that paean to 

normalcy,“Leave It to beaver.” 

9.	 Launius,“Compelling rationales,” p. 69. 
 

8 reMeMberING the SpaCe aGe 

explorers, such reluctance is always provisional. Conditions will change, political 

resources will ebb and flow, the premium on human safety will evolve. Sooner 

or later, someone in power somewhere will consider, once again, that the game 

is worth the candle. perception of acceptable risk is not merely a calculation of 

probabilities costs, and benefits; it is also a cultural choice and always subject to 

reconsideration. 

ChaLLeNGe aND LIberatIoN IN expLoratIoN 

When humans first left east africa for the wider world, they experienced 

both a challenge and a liberation. their new environments were unlike the ones 

to which they had been slowly attuned by biological evolution. a lot of their 

accumulated wisdom presumably applied less well to the shores of the Indian 

ocean and its hinterlands than it had to the savannas of east africa or the Nile 

valley. however, over time they developed new wisdom appropriate to their 

new surroundings. they adapted biologically in small ways in accordance with 

the novel pressures of their new environments, such as gradual variations in skin 

color to harvest more vitamin D in higher, sun-starved latitudes. In cultural and 

in biological ways, they met the challenges of migrating into unpeopled realms. 

the liberation consisted, in the first part, of escaping the pathogenic load 

that had evolved among their ancestors. Countless pathogens had had plenty of 

time to adapt to life within and among hominids in the long haul of evolution 

in east africa. Not all of these pathogens, however, made the trip out of africa. 

Some could not handle the cooler temperatures of eurasia. others, by sheer 

chance, had not been along for the ride when the migrants left and could not 

catch up. thus humans, upon arrival in asia, entered into a golden age of 

health that would last some 90,000 years until the transition to agriculture— 

farming was a great leap backward as far as health was concerned. to judge 

from skeletal evidence, the first eurasians suffered much less from infectious 

diseases than either their ancestors in africa or their farming descendants. they 

did not, it seems, live much longer lives: accidents, violence, and abandonment 

of infants and toddlers kept life expectancy at birth around 30 years. one had 

to be healthy enough to walk in those days. 

the liberation had a second aspect to it. In east africa, while the foraging 

and gathering was probably good, the hunting was probably bad. all the big 

game there had had plenty of time to develop appropriate suspicion of upright, 

fire-wielding, projectile-throwing creatures, thus limiting the success of hunters. but in eurasia, and later in australia, the americas, and New Zealand, 

people arrived amid populations of naïve wildlife. hunting was comparatively 

easy when the prey took no notice of hunters until they were well within spearthrowing range. the world outside of africa was a happy hunting ground until 

selection weeded out the unsuspicious or until the choicest prey grew scarce. 
 Gigantic Follies? human exploration and the Space age 9 

in Long-term historical perspective 

If humans are to leave earth behind and settle elsewhere in the universe, 

they will experience something of the same challenges and perhaps the same 

liberation. they will need to adjust their culture to their new environments, 

jettisoning all that which was applicable only on earth and devising new formats 

appropriate to the far corners of the universe. they will evolve biologically 

according to the pressures of their new surroundings, whatever those might be. 

For example, gravity of different strengths from what we have known on earth 

would presumably encourage different sorts of bodies. Since migration around 

the globe led to numerous small biological adaptations in humans over the past 

100,000 years (and among other animals as well), it stands to reason that space 

colonization would transform our bodies, too. Indeed, in short order humans 

elsewhere in space might cease to be humans. Given the vast distances involved, 

space colonists would cease to interbreed with earthbound populations. only if 

space colonies were to consist of glorified versions of biosphere II, hovering in 

near space, could the biological oneness of humankind be preserved for long. 

the biological evolution of space colonists, as with those of us here on 

earth, might in time become a matter of conscious design through genetic 

manipulation more than of natural selection of the sort characteristic of us since 

time immemorial. the genetic and biological diversification of the creatures 

formerly known as humans would, it seems likely, grow rapidly in the event 

of exploration outside our solar system. Should that happen, then even after 

people colonize space, further space exploration would still be into unpeopled 

realms, strictly speaking, once people ceased to be people. 

their social and cultural evolution would, of course, also be affected by 

their distant new environments. the migrants out of africa kept their basic 

social organization, the small band of 30 to 80 people who were mostly kinfolk, 

wherever they went. It seems to have adequately served the purposes of nomadic 

foragers and hunters, whether in africa, australia, or Siberia. only when people 

settled down and domesticated plants and animals did they find new social 

formats (villages, chiefdoms, states) more appropriate. Space settlers, once free of 

the umbilical cord of earth, would likewise presumably experiment with new 

social formats, finding alternatives to those we have known here on earth. 

thus, in social and cultural terms, one could anticipate a liberation from 

earthly patterns in the event of space colonization. Whether this would also 

include counterparts to the epidemiological liberation and the happy hunting 

ground effect seems much less likely, depending a great deal on what exists out 

there in the colonized environments. Since hunting provides only the tiniest 

proportion of the food supply among peoples technologically capable of pursuing 

space exploration, and because our digestive capabilities are calibrated to the 

things we eat here on earth, it seems most unlikely that space colonization 

would involve an analogue to the happy hunting the first eurasians, australians, 

and americans enjoyed—even if there is something out there to hunt. 

epidemiological liberation is another matter. 
 

 

 

10 reMeMberING the SpaCe aGe 

at first glance it seems reasonable to suppose that leaving earthly 

ecosystems behind might allow space travelers and settlers to shed much, if 

not all, of their pathogenic load. the early emigrants from africa apparently 

did so, as did the wandering bands that left Siberia for the americas around 

14,000 years ago, founding the indigenous american populations that were for 

millennia unusually free from infectious disease.10 however, it is implausible 

to suppose that all microbes can be left behind, and once in space microbes 

may behave differently. a new National academy of Sciences study claims 

that certain pathogens, salmonella in particular, prosper better in space than 

on earth.11 Moreover, in all likelihood, the human immune system, like our 

digestive system calibrated for conditions here on earth, would prove far less 

useful elsewhere in the universe. For this reason, if for no other, the health 

liberation that eased emigration from africa and assisted settlement of the 

americas, would probably not help us make our way in space. 

What MattereD IN hIStorY DUrING the SpaCe aGe 

this speculation about space, evolution, and who will remain really 

human threatens to get out of control and become its own gigantic folly. Let 

me return to a historian’s terra firma and reflect upon the changes here on earth 

since Laika’s orbital flight. 

In terms of health and demography, this last half century has been the 

most revolutionary in the human career. In 1957, the average life expectancy 

was about 47. today it is close to 67.12 While we have not been able to “close 

the book on infectious diseases,” as the Surgeon General forecasted in the 

1960s,13 we have intervened dramatically in the relations between pathogens 

and our bodies. Sanitation, vaccines, antibiotics, and other measures have made 

a huge difference in human health. Some pathogens, such as the smallpox virus, 

have been ushered into extinction or near extinction. Many of the crucial 

developments in this story—the germ theory of disease, sewage treatment, 

penicillin—date to well before 1957. but their application, their spread around 

the world, their full effect came mainly after that date. even though this health 

revolution remains unevenly distributed around the world, indeed unevenly 

distributed within many of the world’s cities, it probably amounts to the single 

10. See alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism:The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (New York, 

NY: Cambridge University press, 1987), pp. 197-198. 

11. See for example Gillian Young, “bacterial Virulence: return of the Spacebugs,” Nature Reviews 

Microbiology, 5, no. 11 (November 2007): 833-834. 

12. United Nations data appearing in James C. riley, Rising Life Expectancy:A Global History (New 

York, NY: Cambridge University press), pp. 37-38. 

13. this quotation is variously dated as 1967 or 1969. See J. r. McNeill, Something New Under the 

Sun (New York, Norton, 2000), p. 201. 
 

 

 

greatest social change of the last half century. Whether it can be maintained 

indefinitely is an interesting question that depends chiefly on the ongoing arms 

race between pathogenic evolution and human efforts at disease control. 

one result of the health revolution since 1957 is the global population 

explosion. the world had about 3 billion people in 1957; today it has more than 

twice that number. put another way, it took hundreds of thousands of years 

for human population to add its first 3 billion, but only 50 years (more like 47 

actually) to add the second 3 billion. Whereas for most of human history the 

annual population growth rate remained well below 0.01 percent, in the 1960s 

and early 1970s, it briefly attained 2.1 percent per annum. Now it is close to 1.3 

percent annually. the last 50 years has been one great spike in population growth 

rates, unprecedented in our history and destined to end soon.14 No other primate, 

perhaps no other mammal, has ever done anything like this in the history of 

life on earth. Consider this: roughly 10-15 percent of the years lived by people 

and their hominid ancestors going back four million years have been lived after 

1957.15 a memorable way to visualize it comes from the Italian historian Carlo 

Cipolla: if post-1957 population growth rates had obtained from the dawn of 

agriculture 10,000 years ago to the present, earth would now be encased in a ball 

of squiggling human flesh expanding outwards into space with a radial velocity 

greater than the speed of light, gobbling up planets and stars in its path.16 (Just 

as well that didn’t happen I suppose, even if it might have saved us the trouble of 

space exploration.) What did happen was remarkable enough. 

Connected to this stunning growth of population is the sudden 

urbanization of our species. For our first few hundred thousand years on earth, 

our characteristic habitat was savanna grasslands and parklands, riverbanks, 

and shorelines. For a brief span, maybe 7000 or 5000 b.C. to a.D. 2000, the 

farming village formed the standard human habitat. but now, for the first time, 

the typical human animal has become a city dweller. In 1800, about 3 percent 

of the world’s population lived in cities, and only one city, beijing, topped one 

million. by 1957, about 30 percent of us lived in cities, close to a billion people 

in all. and today, more than half of us, over three billion souls, are urbanites, 

and the world has some 468 cities with more than a million people.17 In 1957, 

only one urban area, New York, housed upward of 10 million people. Now 

there are about 25 such megacities, the largest of which—tokyo/Yokahama— 

14. United Nations data appearing in angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics (paris: 

oeCD, 2003), pp. 255-256. 

15.this figure is adapted from calculations made by J. N. biraben,“essai sur l’évolution de nombre 

des homes,” Population, 34 (1979): 13-24; and J. bourgeois-pichat in,“Du xxe au xxIe siècle: 

europe et sa population après l’an 2000,” Population 43 (1988): 9-42. 

16. Carlo Cipolla, An Economic History of World Population (harmondsworth, UK: penguin, 1978), p. 89. 

17.according to thomas brinkmann’s Web site at http://www.citypopulation.de/World.html (accessed 

September 4, 2007). 

GIGaNtIC FoLLIeS? hUMaN expLoratIoN aND the SpaCe aGe 11 

IN LoNG-terM hIStorICaL perSpeCtIVe 
 

 

 

12 reMeMberING the Space age 

is home to some 33 million people, roughly the population of the entire United 

States at the time of the Civil War. Cities everywhere used to serve as a check 

on population growth because their infectious diseases killed people faster than 

others were born. but in the last few decades this has changed and cities are no 

longer demographic black holes, but instead hothouses of further growth. 

this is, to put it mildly, a bizarre transformation. It is less conspicuous in 

the United States, where half the population was urban by about 1920, than 

in asia and Latin america, where things happened later and faster. In national 

terms, the fastest large-scale urbanizations in world history were those of the 

Soviet Union in the 1930s (while building socialism) and China since 1980 

(while dismantling it). the urbanization of our species surely carries tremendous 

significance in ways not yet fully apparent. We have built new environments 

and new habitats while simultaneously populating them and leaving behind the 

milieux that formed us and our institutions. 

one of the reasons that cities could grow as they did and do is the radical 

changes in energy use witnessed in our times. before the era of fossil fuels, 

cities in temperate latitudes, say North China or europe, needed to command 

an area of forest some 50 to 200 times their own spatial size to meet their fuel 

wood needs.18 this, together with limits to agricultural efficiency, constrained 

urban growth. Fossil fuels broke this constraint, and helped break the ones on 

agricultural efficiency. Since 1957, global energy use has almost tripled, largely 

as a result of the globalization of oil use. oil was a small part of the energy mix 

outside of North america until the 1950s. What China and India are doing 

now in terms of deepening energy and oil appetites, was done by Western 

europe and Japan on a smaller scale from the mid-1950s to the 1970s.19 

again, as with urbanization, the significance of fossil fuels since the 1950s 

is less conspicuous in the american context than elsewhere because they became 

important in the United States earlier. but in global terms, it is only after the 

1950s, with the opening of the so-called elephant fields in Saudi arabia, and 

then those in Western Siberia, that cheap energy became routine. With cheap 

oil, automobiles became the normal accoutrements of middle-class and, in richer 

countries, working-class life. Furthermore, transportation of goods around the 

world became far more practical, leading to ever more complex divisions of labor 

and levels of specialization that enabled larger and larger numbers of people to 

live lives of ease instead of near-universal grim and grinding toil.20 

18. Vaclav Smil, Energies, (Cambridge Ma: MIt press, 1999), p. 118. 

19. Useful histories of energy include Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (boulder, Co:Westview 

press, 1994); alfred Crosby, Children of the Sun: A History of Humankind’s Unappeasable Appetite 

for Energy (New York, NY: Cambridge University press, 2006). 

20. this is explained for 	europe in Christian pfister, Das 1950er Syndrom: Das Weg in die 

Konsumgesellschaft (bern, Switzerland: paul haupt Verlag, 1995). 
 

 

 

Gigantic Follies? human exploration and the Space age 13 

in Long-term historical perspective 

Cheap energy is probably the single most important factor behind the 

spectacular economic growth of the last half century. For most of human 

history, the global economy grew at a snail’s pace and, indeed, often shrank. 

the period since the middle 1950s, however, has chalked up by far the fastest 

growth rates ever posted. In the last five decades, the global economy has grown 

by about four percent per annum, twice as fast as during the second quickest era 

of expansion, which was 1870-1913. In per capita terms, the global economy 

has nearly tripled since 1957.21 of course, this is a very uneven achievement 

as some populations—in Central africa for example—have scarcely benefited 

from this trend, while others, such as those in east asia or southern europe, 

have experienced far higher than average per capita income growth. For its 

overall growth, and for its wild geographic unevenness, the economic history 

of the last half century is far and away the most eccentric in the human record. 

this would be obvious to all if we did not naturally assume that what we have 

known from our own experience and observation is normal. 

the extraordinary histories of population, urbanization, energy use, and 

economic growth over the past half century have combined to produce the most 

turbulent times yet in the history of human relations with the biosphere. Since 

at least the harnessing of fire, humans have had an outsized impact on earth. 

that impact grew more widespread and profound in the 19th century when 

population growth and energy use began to climb at hitherto unprecedented 

rates. but the impact entered a new, tumultuous phase in the 1950s, so distinctive 

that the Nobel laureate chemist paul Crutzen labeled it the “anthropocene,”22 

the geological epoch dominated by human influence. 

Since the dawn of the Space age, the carbon dioxide concentration in the 

atmosphere has risen by a fifth,and global climate has begun to warm.Global forest 

area has declined by about 11 percent and grasslands by 19 percent. Freshwater 

use has tripled, and global irrigated area is up by 240 percent. Sulfur dioxide 

emissions have at least doubled (and that counts their decline in the United States 

and europe since 1980). Same with methane emissions. Livestock numbers— 

mixing sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle together, no doubt an old testament, as well 

as methodological, abomination—are up about 170 percent. Cement production 

is up eight-fold.23 You get the picture. Despite some improved technologies and 

21. Maddison, The World Economy, pp. 260-262. See also eric Lambin, The Middle Path: Avoiding 

Environmental Catastrophe (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago press, 2007), pp. 26-28. 

22. See Will Steffen, paul Crutzen, and John r. McNeill, “the anthropocene: are humans Now 

overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?” Ambio 36, no. 8 (2007): 614-621. 

23. Data from the database maintained by Kees Klein Goldewijk at www.mnp.nl/hyde/bdf (consulted 

on September 4, 2007). 
14 reMeMberING the Space age 

greater efficiencies in resource use, the economic miracle of the last half century 

has put unprecedented pressures on the biosphere that sustains all life.24 

In the fullness of time, this environmental turbulence may come to 

appear the most important thing in the history of our times, more so than the 

Cold War; decolonization and the end of the british, French, Soviet and other 

empires; the growing emancipation of women; the rise of terrorism; the rise 

of China; the resurgence of political religion; the splitting of the atom; the 

decipherment of the human genome; or globalization. that remains to be seen: 

what is important about a given era depends entirely on what happens next. 

Should the stresses and strains upon the biosphere turn out one day to have 

been a mere tempest in a teacup, then this suggestion will have proved wrong. 

but if they build over time and prove disruptive in human affairs, then they 

will seem more meaningful, in time, than what preoccupied those alive in the 

second half of the 20th century. 

the pLaCe oF SpaCe expLoratIoN IN the SpaCe aGe 

Given all these developments of the last 50 years that I claim are unprecedented, remarkable, revolutionary, and so forth, where do space exploration and 

space programs fit in? I am tempted to take refuge in the wisdom of Zhou enlai 

(1898-1976), Mao Zedong’s urbane foreign minister. French journalists in the 

1960s asked Zhou what he thought was the significance of the French revolution 

of 1789. Zhou paused thoughtfully and said that “it is too soon to tell.”25 

It is in fact too soon to tell what the real significance of the Space age 

may be. at the moment, space exploration, space flight, and space research, all 

seem, at most, secondary next to the dominant trends of contemporary history. 

Moreover, nothing to do with space seems central in the sense that, had there 

been no Space age, no Gagarin or Glenn, no Moonshot, no hubble telescope, 

no Laika, everything else probably would have unfolded much the way that 

it did. Some things would have been a bit different without spy satellites, 

communications satellites, weather satellites, earth-observation satellites, and 

so forth. hurricane Katrina (2005) and other weather disasters could have been 

even worse had we not known in advance what was coming. Figuring out the 

ozone hole over antarctica would have taken longer.26 but I am skeptical of the 

24.an excellent study that shows the interplay of economic expansion and increased efficiencies in 

the Spanish national economy is oscar Carpintero, El metabolismo de la economia española: Recursos 

naturales y huella ecológica (1955-2000) (Madrid: Fundación César Manrique, 2005). 

25.this phrase is variously reported,for example,as “too early to tell” in Wikiquote (en.wikiquote.org/ 

wiki/Zhou_Enlai). In any case, Zhou spoke with French journalists in French as he had studied 

in France for three years in his youth. 

26. See ray a. Williamson and henry r. hertzfeld, “the Social and economic Impact of earth 

observing Satellites.” In: Steven J. Dick and roger D. Launius, eds., Societal Impact of Spaceflight 

(Washington DC: NaSa, 2007), pp. 237-266. 
 

 

 

 

GIGaNtIC FoLLIeS? hUMaN expLoratIoN aND the SpaCe aGe 15 

IN LoNG-terM hIStorICaL perSpeCtIVe 

view that, for example, spy satellites prevented the Cold War from turning into 

World War III. the big things would probably be much the same, for better or 

for worse. I write “probably” in italics as a way to convey uncertainty because 

I am conscious that there are many things about space programs that I do 

not know. Furthermore, questions of causation in counterfactual scenarios are 

inherently unknowable, even for the best informed.27 had hundreds of billions 

of dollars and trillions of roubles not been spent on space, what might they have 

been used for? We can’t know, but my guess is nothing out of the ordinary, that 

is, a little more of both guns and butter. 

perhaps space programs indirectly affected the big trends, even if spy 

satellites cannot be credited with preventing World War III. Could, for example, 

the current surge of globalization have derived some of its momentum from an 

enhanced awareness that we are all in the same boat, all stuck on the same 

small blue dot spinning through the darkness? or could it owe something to 

instantaneous communications via satellites?28 My view is the best answer is: 

yes, but not much. If no one had ever seen photos of earth from space, and if 

information from India and Indonesia still arrived by telegraph and took a day 

or two to reach other continents instead of a second or two, would globalization 

be substantially different? 

Space programs, of course, had spinoffs that affected contemporary history. the two most consequential so far are communications satellites and 

(very indirectly) the Internet. Nearly two-thirds of all satellites are used for 

communications,29 and they have dramatically lowered the time and cost 

required for long-distance communications. the Internet arose from the Defense 

advanced research projects agency (more familiarly known as Darpa), which 

itself was created in response to the successful launch of Sputnik. these are both 

developments of consequence in today’s world. but the Internet would likely 

have evolved, in somewhat different ways no doubt, even without Darpa. 

and in the absence of communication satellites, what they now transmit would 

likely go via the Internet (as, increasingly, long-distance phone calls do now). 

these musings reinforce the conclusion that space programs changed the history of our times, but not (yet) in any fundamental ways. Contemporary history, 

however, will inevitably look different to those no longer in the middle of it. 

Space exploration, as opposed to the totality of space programs, could well 

be relegated to the status of historical footnote if, in the years ahead, exploratory 

probes are shut down. Satellites in near orbit are surely here to stay for a while, 

27. For a more favorable assessment of the significance of space programs, see erik M. Conway, 

“overview: Satellites and Security: Space in Service to humanity.” Societal Impact of Spaceflight, 

pp. 267-288. 

28. James a.Vedda,“the role of Space Development in Globalization.” Societal Impact of Space Flight, 

pp. 193-206. 

29. The Washington Post, october 2, 2007:a1,a6. 
 

 

16 reMeMberING the Space age 

as they serve several useful purposes, and some of them at least are profitable. 

but exploration programs are another matter: they are especially expensive and, 

since they probably won’t cure cancer or defeat terrorism, they are at high risk of 

being phased out by Congress and its equivalents in other lands when money gets 

tight. If so, in time space exploration will be forgotten, a dead end, a historical 

cul-de-sac. on the other hand, it could be that space exploration will thrive, 

find new budgetary champions in the corridors of power, perhaps in China if not 

elsewhere. the likely endurance of geopolitical rivalry means space exploration 

programs will probably have some appeal, partly practical, and partly for 

propaganda value. It could well be, given the appreciation of the risks involved, 

that robotic space exploration will have a long future but human space flight will 

not. this, I imagine, is more likely to be the case if the sponsors are aiming at 

practical benefits rather than rewards in terms of prestige and propaganda, for 

which heroic humans still, and perhaps always will, carry outsized value. 

one way to look at the experience of space exploration, and one justification for its endless continuation, is to see it as a species of expeditionary science. 

past rulers have often sent out scouts, spies, and scientists to take inventory of the 

resources and peculiarities of other lands. In the 18th century, britain and France 

competed for geopolitical dominance in several parts of the world, and in that 

context sponsored scientists and scientific expeditions to gather useful information, 

whether about medicinal plants, trees suitable for naval timber, or a thousand other 

things that might come in useful one day. When Napoleon conquered egypt in 

1798, he loosed a team of scholars and scientists upon the country to ransack it for 

information (and art) of all sorts. From russia to Spain, all european states with 

overseas interests sponsored expeditionary science on some scale, as in time did the 

United States.When Jefferson purchased half a continent from Napoleon in 1803, 

he bankrolled Lewis and Clark to take a preliminary inventory of what he had 

bought. During the Cold War, the United States and the U.S.S.r. sponsored scientific expeditions on a much more lavish scale to the polar regions and deep beneath 

the seas.their space programs were, among other things, part of this tradition. 

Space exploration may survive on one or another basis, but it still will 

not loom large in terms of human history unless something really new and 

interesting happens, the sort of thing people in the space business probably 

dream about—finding intelligent and agreeable (or at least neutral) life out 

there or colonizing new corners of the universe—or probably have nightmares 

about—developing effective space-based weapons suitable for use against 

earthly enemies or finding intelligent but hostile life out there. If any of these 

things happen, then the first 50 years of space exploration will look like the 

beginning of something of epic significance. If they don’t, it will look like 

a small step for mankind that led nowhere, and did not amount to much in 

the balance before being consigned to the dustbin of history. It is indeed too 

soon to judge whether the whole enterprise is a gigantic folly diverting money 

and talent from more urgent applications, a noble calling consonant with our 

deepest nature, or something else altogether. 
Chapter 2 

Spaceflight in the National Imagination 

asif a. Siddiqi 

INtroduCtIoN 

Few would recount the history of spaceflight without alluding to national 

aspirations. this connection between space exploration and the nation 

has endured both in reality and in perception. With few exceptions, only 

nations (or groups of nations) have had the resources to develop reliable and 

effective space transportation systems; nations, not individuals, corporations, 

or international agencies, were the first actors to lay claim to the cosmos. the 

historical record, in turn, feeds and reinforces a broader public (and academic) 

consensus that privileges the nation as a heuristic unit for discussions about 

space exploration. historians, for example, organize and set the parameters of 

their investigations along national contours—the american space program, 

the russian space program, the Chinese space program, and so on. We 

evaluate space activities through the fundamental markers of national 

identity—governments, borders, populations, and cultures. 

as we pass an important milestone, moving from the first 50 years of 

spaceflight to the second, nations—and governments—retain a very strong 

position as the primary enablers of spaceflight. and, in spite of increased 

international cooperation, as well as the flutter of ambition involving private 

spaceflight, there is a formidable, and I would argue rising, chorus of voices 

that privilege the primacy of national and nationalistic space exploration. the 

american and russian space programs remain, both in rhetoric and practice, 

highly nationalist projects that reinforce the notion that space exploration 

is a powerful vehicle for expressing a nation’s broader aspirations. Similarly, 

second tier space powers such as China, Japan, and India, which have long 

been spacefaring nations, have more recently strengthened the link between 

nationalism and competence in space activities. the evidence from the past 

50 years of spaceflight convincingly counters utopian notions—expressed in 

television, film, fiction, and journalism—that as spaceflight becomes mature, 

national space programs will disappear, and all spacefaring countries will come 

together to work towards a shared set of objectives that have global resonance. 

despite the fundamental and enduring nature of the relationship between 

space exploration and the nation, we know very little about the manner in which 
 

 

18	 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

nations articulate their engagement in space activities. my goal in this essay is 

to offer some preliminary thoughts on the broad patterns that characterize the 

public rhetoric surrounding national space programs, patterns that are common 

across different national contexts. here, I define “public rhetoric” to include 

the discourse generated by governmental agencies, journalists, historians, 

and public commentators, i.e., those that elucidate and establish the contours 

of public debate over space exploration in particular national contexts. I do 

not claim that this discourse reflects or approximates the “real” relationship 

of spaceflight to national aspirations, i.e., that space exploration can only be 

understood in terms of the nation. on the contrary, I strongly believe that 

the immutable association in the public eye of spaceflight with the nation has 

helped to obscure important non-state processes, an understanding of which 

might offer valuable insights in analyzing the history of space exploration.1 I 

do, however, believe that the language describing space exploration has certain 

semiotic characteristics that communicate persistent ideas about the history of 

spaceflight that repeat across entirely different cultures and contexts. these ideas 

are important to discern since they serve as a filter for the public understanding 

of spaceflight and consequently contribute to the public enthusiasm (or lack of) 

for space exploration in general. 

the evidence suggests that through the first 50 years of the Space age, 

all spacefaring nations have used four different tropes—linguistic constructs 

dependent on symbols—to articulate their space programs to the broader 

public. these four tropes, which take the form of particular rhetorical 

strategies, continue to be fundamental to the way that the project of space 

exploration has been articulated in both official and unofficial discourses; 

governmental agencies, journalists, historians, public commentators and the 

lay public in spacefaring nations have consistently invoked these archetypes to 

construct a master narrative of the history of space exploration. they are: the 

myth of the founding father, the claim of indigenous creation, the connection 

between spaceflight and national identify, and the essential need to justify space 

activities. In elaborating these tropes, I use as examples the five nations which 

have achieved the domestic capability to launch objects into earth orbit and still 

retain that capability—the Soviet union (achieved orbit in 1957), the united 

States (1958), Japan (1970), China (1970), India (1980), and Israel (1988). two 

european nations which once had that capability—France (1965) and great 

britain (1971)—have relinquished it. the former folded their efforts into the 

european Space agency (eSa) while the latter saw no value in having such a 

1.	 I make this point in my “Competing technologies,National(ist) Narratives,and universal Claims: 

revisiting the Space race,” paper presented at the NSF-sponsored workshop of the Society for 

the history of technology, october 18, 2007, Washington, dC. the paper can be accessed at 

http://fiftieth.shotnews.net/?page_id=23. (accessed February 29, 2008). 
capability. eSa still remains the only multinational organization to develop its 

own satellite launch capability, having achieved that ability in 1979.2 

FouNdINg FatherS 

the first trope of a national space history is that of the “founding father.”3 

each space program arrives in the historical record with a singular figure whose 

determinations mirror and telescope the spacefaring ambitions of the nation 

in question. For the Soviet union, there was Sergei Korolev (1906-1966), for 

the united States, Wernher von braun (1911-1977), for Japan, hideo Itokawa 

(1912-1999), for China, Qian Xuesen (1911-), for India, Vikram Sarabhai 

(1919-1971), and for Israel, Yuval Ne’eman (1925-2006).4 In some cases, their 

claims as founding fathers are contested—especially in the case of von braun— 

but the commonalities between them are striking. each of these individuals 

embodies a unique combination of dualities: they are always both capable and 

visionary, brilliant engineers and unequalled managers, and comfortable with 

the topmost levels of power and yet accessible to the rank-and-file technician. 

there are early traumas typically associated with each, ordeals that were 

physical, moral, or professional. For example, Korolev served a sentence in the 

gulag, von braun never fully escaped the moral quandaries of being associated 

with the dora labor camp in Nazi germany, and Qian’s life and career were 

disrupted by the red Scare in the 1950s when he was deported to China on 

charges of being a communist sympathizer. In all cases, these men were seen as 

overcoming these adversities to achieve prominence later in their lives. For those 

reconstructing narratives of national space programs, these traumas become 

metaphors for the uphill battles faced by the space programs themselves. 

2.	 although I do not focus on them, the same patterns also apply to those countries that are close 

to achieving a domestic capability to launch satellites into orbit but have not yet done so: brazil, 

North Korea, Iran, and South Korea. In addition, I do not explore the strategies of those dozens 

of nations that have developed or purchased satellites but lack the expertise or resources to 

launch them themselves and, therefore, pay other nations or agencies to do so. 

 

 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 19 

3.	 It goes without saying that there were no women founders of space programs; the history of 

space exploration has been dominated by men in all nations, partly because of the substantive 

obstacles faced by women in pursuing higher education in the applied sciences or engineering. 

on the other hand, women in large numbers did contribute to space programs globally 

at mid- and lower-levels of management (e.g., as computer operators, medical personnel, 

draftspersons, administrative staff, custodial laborers, and daycare workers). because social 

history has not been a concern for space historians, these women and their contributions 

remain largely invisible in most space history narratives. 

4.	 For useful biographies of some of these individuals, see Iaroslav golovanov, Korolev: fakty i mify 

(moscow: Nauka, 1994); michael J. Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (New 

York: alfred a. Knopf, 2007); Iris Chang, The Thread of the Silkworm (New York: basic books, 

1995);amrita Shah, Vikram Sarabhai:A Life (New delhi: penguin Viking, 2007).
20 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

What purpose does the founding father trope serve? there is hardly a 

historian who would agree that Korolev single-handedly founded the Soviet 

space program, yet his epic biography completely overshadows the mention of 

many other individuals who made critical contributions to the emergence of 

the Soviet space program. here it is important to distinguish between formal 

academic history and the popular notion of history that becomes part of the 

collective memory of a nation. With the former, historians are drawn to 

complexities and the messiness of yesterday; with the latter, our predilection is 

to distill complexities down to broad themes, personalities, and events that are 

often deterministic and teleological in nature. thus, one purpose of the founding 

father archetype is to reinforce deterministic explanations for space history (e.g., 

“Korolev did X, therefore the russian space program is like Y”). 

the founding father archetypes did not arrive out of a vacuum but 

rather drew upon a longer tradition of similar archetypes. most european 

nations, for example, reinforce narratives that they have founding fathers for 

particular scientific and applied scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, 

biology, mathematics, computer science, etc. these narratives center around an 

individual who is not only a deep thinker but also a builder of institutions, as well 

as an individual who bequeathed a substantial system (of research, education, 

etc.) for the good of the nation. In that sense, the founding father narratives 

of space exploration also parallel and mirror narratives about the founding of 

the nation itself, which are often tied to singular individuals who embodied 

some of the same kinds of qualities. thus, these founding fathers represent not 

only the space program but also become key figures in nation building. by 

association, our conceptions of the founding father archetypes attach national 

space programs to imperatives, challenges, and triumphs associated with the 

founding of the nation. as a result, to many, the space program acquires a level 

of gravitas typically associated with concerns about the future of the nation. 

INdIgeNItY 

all national space program narratives depend on the claim that its 

achievements were native in origin. In other words, the space history of each 

country assumes that nations are airtight constructs where immutable borders 

overshadow transnational flows and fixed delineations trump the fluid nature 

of both identities and knowledge. there are obvious reasons why the appeal of 

a particular space program depends on the notion of home-grown expertise: 

such accounts bolster national claims of competence, both to domestic and 

international audiences. Indigenous technologies—or at least those that are 

represented as indigenous—serve as surrogates for the projection of national 

prowess, a phenomenon that dates back at least to the late 19th century when 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 21 

both great britain and germany began to assert their standing on a global stage 

through accomplishments in science and technology.5 

In the case of the space powers, each of their achievements served to place 

them on a global stage. much like the acquisition of nuclear capability—more 

prosaically termed “going nuclear”—the domestic capability to deliver objects 

into earth orbit secures a powerful and symbolic status that is also discrete since 

it divides “before” and “after” as being completely different. the symbolic 

power of such moments derives from the way a single launch can represent a 

convergence of many national aspirations—pride in history, a consensus that the 

present is a moment to be celebrated, and a confidence in a bright tomorrow. 

In 1980, when India launched its first satellite into orbit, prime minister Indira 

ghandhi noted in a speech to the Indian parliament that “this is a great day for 

India and for Indian science.” mass media response in the West was predictably 

reductive but couched the event as a landmark: the Washington Post reported, 

for example, that it was “a remarkable achievement for a country that still uses 

bullock carts as a prime mode of transportation.”6 

From the Indian perspective, it was important to emphatically underscore the 

value of indigenity and the issue of ownership:the Indian space program was,above 

all else, Indian. participants of the Indian space program continue to emphasize this 

aspect of the development of their first satellite launch vehicle,the SlV-3,attributing 

the mastery of this capability both to the high level of existing Indian expertise 

and the circumstances generated by draconian technology proliferation controls 

which forced Indian engineers to “go it alone.”7 even though the development of 

the SlV-3 actually predated the enforcement of the missile technology Control 

regime (mtCr) that limited international flows of “sensitive” missile technology 

to selected countries, the current existence of such controls serves to embolden 

ahistorical and disingenuous lines of argument and, in fact, obscures the significant 

international collaboration that led to the SlV-3 rocket.8 

Claims of indigenity are not monolithic across nations. In the more mature 

space powers, the tone of these assertions communicate unquestioned celebrations 

of national character, while in the “newer” space powers, they come across as 

preemptive responses to accusations of clandestine (or otherwise) appropriation 

5.	 bernhard rieger, Technology and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and Germany, 1890–1945 

(Cambridge, uK: Cambridge university press, 2005). 

6.	 “India becomes 6th [sic] Country to put Satellite into orbit,” Washington Post, July 19, 1980. 

India was actually the seventh nation to put a satellite into orbit using its own rocket, and the 

eighth if one includes the european Space agency. 

7.	 See for example, b. N. Suresh,“history of Indian launchers,” IaC-07-d2.2.01, paper presented 

at the 58th International astronautical Congress, hyderabad, India, September 24-28, 2007. 

8.	 the history of international contribution to the SlV-3 has been all but forgotten from the 

“official” record of its development. For a still-valuable historical work that explores the 

development of Indian launch vehicles, see gopal raj, Reach for the Stars:The Evolution of India’s 

Rocket Programme (New delhi:Viking, 2000).
 

 

 

 

 

 

22 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

of technology from other nations. an example of the former is the united 

States, where the achievements of the american space program—particularly 

the apollo lunar landings—represent the achievements of americans, and not, 

for example, germans or Canadians.9 as the author of a very popular book on 

apollo recently noted: 

Free competition motivated american workers whose livelihoods were related to the quality and brilliance of their 

work, and we saw extraordinary, impossible things accomplished by ordinary americans. the american flag on the 

moon is such a powerful symbol because it is not a vain one. 

america, like no other nation, was capable of the moon.10 

Soviet and russian commentators, including veterans, have long made 

similar pronouncements in relation to the achievements of Sputnik and gagarin, 

albeit, in the backdrop of latent suspicions (especially in europe and the united 

States) that the help of german engineers kidnapped after World War II was 

critical to the spectacular early successes of the Soviet space program.11 

Claims of fully indigenous space technology are often motivated by 

accusations from abroad that this technology was “borrowed”; such allegations 

themselves focus mostly on non-Western nations. In other words, while the 

mature Western programs are largely insulated from charges of benefiting 

from foreign technological expertise, both new and mature non-Western 

programs are continually dogged by such accusations—usually emanating 

from the West—prompting a generally defensive posture that requires repeated 

assertions about domestic expertise. through the entire period of the Cold War, 

for example, Soviet space achievements were continually marred by Western 

claims that the Soviets benefited from the “other germans” or that they used 

9.	 both germans and Canadians, naturalized as u.S. citizens by the early 1960s, made significant 

contributions to the apollo program. For the Canadian contribution, see Chris gainor, Arrows to 

the Moon:Avro’s Engineers and the Space Race (burlington, ontario:apogee books, 2001).there are 

a vast number of books on the german contribution. For a representative example, see Frederick 

I. ordway, III and mitchell r. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (New York, NY: Cromwell, 1979). 

10. david West reynolds, Apollo:The Epic Journey to the Moon (New York, NY:tehabi, 2002), p. 257. 

11. Soviet rocketry veteran boris Chertok, who represents a “mainstream” voice within the Soviet 

space history community, concedes that german help was important in the immediate postwar 

years but dismisses any notion that this help was essential to the early successes of the Soviet 

space program. See boris Chertok, Rockets and People, ed. asif a. Siddiqi (Washington, dC: 

NaSa, 2004). on the other hand, a number of german writers, without much convincing 

evidence, have recently attributed most of the early Soviet successes in rocket design to 

germans. See for example, the three-part article by olaf przybilski, “die deutschen und die 

raketentriebwerksentwicklung in der udSSSr,” Luft- und Raumfahrt no. 2 (1999): 30-33; no. 3 

(1999): 28-33; and no. 4 (1999): 33-40.
 

 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 23 

technology stolen from the u.S. space program through skillful spying.12 

Similarly, Western commentators, both official and independent, continue to 

express concern about possible Chinese use of sensitive american technology 

for use in the development of their ballistic missiles and launch vehicles.13 

While such expressions are linked to concerns about the global proliferation 

of potentially harmful technology, they also communicate an implicit message 

about the inability of certain nations to innovate without outside help. Not 

surprisingly, such a stance tends to embolden and fortify the opinions of the 

scientific elite in non-Western nations who reject the notion that they are not 

capable enough to master the technology of space exploration. affirmations 

of domestic competence emanating from Chinese or Indian scientists and 

engineers challenge the unquestioned assumption that there is an arbitrary line 

in history that divides those who are innovators (i.e., Western nations) and 

those who are proliferators (i.e., non-Western nations).14 as such, in the nonWestern world, claims of indigenity serve not only to boost national pride 

but are also vehicles for affirming a kind of revisionist and non-orientalist 

historical thinking that decenters and deprivileges the West as the de facto basis 

for all discussions of spaceflight. 

SpaCe aS aN eXpreSSIoN oF NatIoNal IdeNtItY 

each national space program is also articulated both in contemporaneous 

times and in retrospect as an expression of a nation’s identity. In other words, 

discussions about space exploration across extremely different national 

12. the most famous example of Soviet “copying” was the case of the buran space shuttle. See John 

Noble Wilford, “Soviet design appears in debt to u.S. Shuttle,” New York Times, November 

16, 1988. For a careful and recent analysis of the possibility of Soviet appropriation of u.S. 

technology in relation to the buran, see bart hendrickx and bert Vis, Energiya-Buran:The Soviet 

Space Shuttle (Springer: Chichester, uK, 2007), pp. 82-85. 

13. For the controversial and error-ridden report issued by the u.S. house of representatives on 

China’s alleged efforts to obtain technological information covertly from the united States 

(including those related to space technology),see the Report of the Select Committee on U.S.National 

Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China (more commonly 

known as the “Cox report”) at http://www.house.gov/coxreport/ (accessed February 29, 2008). 

14. Itty abraham makes this argument about the arbitrary nature of the definition of nuclear 

proliferation in “the ambivalence of Nuclear histories,” Osiris 21 (2006): 49-65. hugh 

gusterson similarly describes a moral distinction made by Westerners in terms of the 

acquisition of nuclear weapons. he writes: “there has long been a widespread perception 

among u.S. defense intellectuals, politicians, and pundits—leaders of opinion on nuclear 

weapons—that, while we can live with nuclear weapons of the five official nuclear nations for 

the indefinite future, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to nuclear-threshold states in the 

third World, especially the Islamic world, would be enormously dangerous. this orthodoxy 

is so much a part of our collective common sense that, like all common sense, it can be usually 

stated as simple fact without fear of contradiction.” See hugh gusterson, “Nuclear Weapons 

and the other in the Western Imagination,” Cultural Anthropology 14 (1999): 111-143. 
 

 

24 rememberINg the Space age 

contexts almost always include the notion, implicitly or explicitly, that there 

is something fundamental in the national character that gives force to the urge 

to explore space. Such expressions use three different rhetorical strategies that 

are not necessarily mutually exclusive: first, they involve a suggestion that space 

exploration represents a logical and further expression of deep-rooted cultural 

traits; second, they underscore national space achievements as a natural outcome 

of historical events; and third, they couch the space program as a vehicle for 

communicating a nation’s prowess in science and technology. 

both the united States and the Soviet union had deep-rooted traditions 

that suggest antecedents for their respective 20th century space programs. In 

the former case, there are any number of archetypes that justify and underlie the 

spacefaring activities of the united States. these are dominated by the notion 

of exploring the Western frontier and its attendant links to the idea of freedom: 

the freedom to explore, the freedom to settle, and the freedom to move again 

into the unknown. the “frontier thesis,” as first cogently articulated by historian 

Frederick Jackson turner in the late 19th century was a powerful statement of 

american exceptionalism, and as an analogy, it has proved remarkably resilient for 

many different american endeavors, including, of course, the space program.15 In 

american space exploration, many commentators saw not only how engagement 

with the frontier shaped american society and culture but also how american 

society and culture shaped the frontier itself. american exploration—from lewis 

and Clark to the apollo program—was acting both on a generic human impulse 

to seek knowledge and a deep-rooted american urge for inquiry, exploration, and 

the freedom of wide open spaces.16 Commentators as varied as rocket engineer 

Wernher von braun, space visionary gerard K. o’Neill, and space advocate 

robert Zubrin all have couched their arguments with a distinctly american 

spin—ingenuity, frontier, freedom—in their search to advance the cause of 

human survival in the form of human colonization of the cosmos.17 

as with americans, many russians also argue for deep-seated 

autochthonous urges for space exploration. In a recent article, a prominent 

russian philosopher argued that the ideas of Konstantin tsiolkovskii—the 

founding theorist of Soviet space exploration—provides the basis for a “russian 

15. For turner’s original works, see John mack Faragher, ed., Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: 

The Significance of the Frontier in American History and Other Essays (New haven, Ct: Yale 

university press, 1994); george rogers taylor, The Turner Thesis: Concerning the Role of the 

Frontier in American History, 3rd ed. (lexington, ma: heath, 1972). For a more contemporary 

critique, see richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century 

America (New York, NY: atheneum, 1992). 

16. For an excellent summary of these themes as they relate to american space exploration, see 

roger d. launius, “perfect Worlds, perfect Societies:the persistent goal of utopia in human 

Spaceflight,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 56 (2003): 338-349. 

17. howard e.mcCurdy,Space and the American Imagination (Washington,dC:Smithsonian Institution 

press, 1997).
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 25 

national idea,” an alternative to a “europeanized” russia that is part of the 

global system of capitalism and dependency. tsiolkovskii, the author argued, 

had shown that the true destiny of russians, like no other nationals on this 

earth, resided in space, a place that transcends borders and nations.18 While 

some would argue that this line of thinking is rooted in the marxist-leninist 

utopian thinking unleashed by the russian revolution of 1917, such ideas of 

technological utopianism can actually be traced further back to the mystical 

and occult pre-revolutionary philosophy known as Cosmism, a tradition that 

was made up of a hodgepodge of eastern and Western philosophical traditions, 

theosophy, panslavism, and russian orthodox thinking. the outcome was a 

nationalist and often reactionary philosophy that, in spite of its reactionary tenets 

(or perhaps because of it), continues to attract the attention of many russian 

nationalist intellectuals in the post-Communist era.19 the cause of Cosmism 

was “liberation from death,” a goal that would be achieved by human migration 

into space that would allow humans to reanimate the atom-like particles of all 

those who had already “died” in the previous hundreds of thousands of years. 

the eccentric late 19th century russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov, who 

articulated much of this philosophy before anyone, wrote in 1905 that “[the] 

conquest of the path to Space is an absolute imperative, imposed on us as a duty 

in preparation for the resurrection. We must take possession of new regions of 

Space because there is not enough space on earth to allow the coexistence of 

all the resurrected generations. . . .”20 In present-day russia, the philosophy of 

Cosmism holds a deep sway among many commentators, especially those who 

meditate on the meaning of russian space exploration.21 

Spaceflight is also linked to national identity through history. most 

spacefaring countries, for example, claim pre-modern historical events as part 

of their narrative of space exploration. Such arguments rooted in history lay 

claim to the idea that the nation’s path to space was preordained and inevitable, 

and that the modern space program is but a continuation of activities stretching 

18. l.V. leskov,“K. e.tsiolkovskii i rossiiskaia natsional’naia ideia,” Zemlia i vselennaia no. 4 (1998). 

19. For links between modern russian Cosmism and post-Soviet russian nationalism, see James p. 

Scanlan, ed., Russian Thought After Communism:The Recovery of A Philosophical Heritage (armonk, 

NY: m. e. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 26-28. See also michael hagemeister, “russian Cosmism in the 

1920s and today” The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, ed. bernice rosenthal (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell university press, 1997), pp. 185-202. 

20. S. g. Semenova and a. g. gacheva, eds., N. F. Fedorov: Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, 4 vols. 

(moscow: progress, 1995-2000). For a detailed exposition on the role of Cosmism in the origins 

of Soviet space exploration, see asif a. Siddiqi, The Red Rockets’ Glare: Soviet Imaginations and the 

Birth of Sputnik (Cambridge, uK: Cambridge university press, forthcoming). 

21. For a small sampling of works on russian Cosmism since the early 1990s, see l.V. Fesenkova, 

ed., Russkii kosmizm i sovremennost’ (moscow: IFaN, 1990); S. g. Semenova and a. g. gacheva, 

eds., Russkii kosmizm:antologiia filosofskoi mysli (moscow:pedagogika-press,1993);o.d.Kurakina, 

Russkii kosmizm kak sotsiokul’turnyi fenomenon (moscow:mFtI,1993);o.Ia. gelikh,ed., Kosmizm 

i novoe myshlenie na Zapade i Vostoke (St. petersburg: Nestor, 1999).
 

26 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

back centuries that embody similar sensibilities. In non-Western nations, there 

is also a specific pattern of linking contemporary space programs with events 

that predate Western modernity. Chinese writers, for example, are eager to 

emphasize the importance of China as the birthplace of rocketry in the 13th 

century, while Indian writers similarly stress the importance of tippu Sultan’s 

rockets from the late 18th century as a harbinger of the future.22 In these 

narratives, tsiolkovskii, goddard, and oberth are all peripheral. 

Finally, national identity is linked to spaceflight as an expression of national 

technological competence. Since the very first satellites, space exploration has 

served as a reminder to both domestic and international audiences of a nation’s 

mastery of science and technology, not too dissimilar from other technological 

metrics of late 20th century modernity such as nuclear power, computing, and 

biotechnology. already by the late 19th century, and especially in the light of 

experiences during the great War, technology had assumed a fundamental role in 

the projection of national prowess,contributing to and joining the other measures 

of global dominance such as imperial adventurism, military assets, and industrial 

growth. In his study of the role of technology in the creation of modernity in 

early 20th century britain and germany, bernhard rieger notes that: 

[t]echnological innovations not only underpinned the competitiveness of national economies as well as both countries 

military might; a large range of artifacts also became national 

symbols and prestige objects that signaled international leadership in a variety of engineering disciplines.23 

a half a century later, especially after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the 

connections between technology and national prowess became fully established. 

and just as Sputnik marked a particular historical moment that attached the notion 

of technological competence to the Soviet union, apollo did the same for the 

united States. I would argue that the most enduring aspect of the iconography of 

apollo has been to set a benchmark for technological competence in american 

22. For the Chinese references, see brian harvey, 	China’s Space Program: From Conception to 

Manned Spaceflight (berlin: Springer, 2004). For India, see a. p. J. abdul Kalam, Wings of Fire: 

An Autobiography (hyderabad: univ. press, 1999); S. Krishnamurthy and b. r. guruprasad, 

“on the Nature and Significance of tipu Sultan’s rockets from a historical perspective,” 

IaC-07-e4.4, paper presented at the 58th International astronautical Congress, hyderabad, 

India, September 24-28, 2007. 

23. rieger, Technology and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and Germany, 1890–1945, p. 224. 

In a similar vein, see guillaume de Syon, Zeppelin!: Germany and the Airship, 1900–1939 

(baltimore, md: Johns hopkins university press, 2002); peter Fritzsche, A Nation of Fliers: 

German Aviation and the Popular Imagination (Cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 

1994); gabrielle hecht, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World 

War II (Cambridge, ma: mIt press, 1998). 
 

 

 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 27 

culture, as underscored in the oft-repeated lament that begins, “If we could send 

a man to the moon, there’s no reason we can’t. . . .” the later second-tier space 

powers have deployed this fundamental link between national prowess and 

space technology in similar ways. For emerging global players such as China 

and India, space exploration represents one of a constellation of important ways 

with which to announce their “arrival” as global powers: upon the launch of 

their first lunar probe, for example, Chinese space scientist ouyang Ziyang 

noted that, “[a]s lunar exploration embodies our overall national strength, it is 

very significant for raising our international prestige and our national unity.”24 

the media hype over a possible asian space race among China, Japan, and India 

in recent times is one symptom of this belief in “raising” prestige on a global 

level; the overtly nationalist rhetoric about the meaning of space exploration for 

the youth of the nation—as was seen with the domestic coverage of cosmonaut 

missions from malaysia and South Korea—was another.25 

JuStIFICatIoNS 

the fourth dimension of the public articulation of national space programs 

are best described as justifications. Space exploration—especially the kind that 

involves developing a domestic space transportation system—requires enormous 

investments in resources. as such, articulation of any particular space event, 

whether in real time or in retrospect, demands a variety of rationalizations not 

only to justify but also to explain the event. historically, most other major and 

mature technological systems of the 19th and 20th centuries, especially ones 

that have developed over a period of a half a century (such as urban electrical 

systems, air travel, high speed rail, telephone networks, and television systems) 

have not required the kind of concomitant justifications that are de rigueur in 

discussions about space travel. While the benefits of these other systems—in the 

form of social welfare or profit or both—have been seen self-evident, in the case 

of space travel, social benefits and material gain continue to be issues of debate 

24. Jim Yardley, “China Sends Its First probe for the moon Into Space,” New York Times, october 

25, 2007. 

25. both malaysia and South Korea paid the russian Space agency to launch individuals from their 

respective nations into orbit on board a Soyuz spacecraft for short visits to the International 

Space Station. See azura abas and Nisha Sabanayagam, “First malaysian in Space: angkasawan 

to Inspire Schoolkids,” New Straits Times Online, october 11, 2007, http://www.nst.com.my/ 

Current_News/NST/Thursday/Frontpage/2057731/Article/index_html (accessed February 29, 

2008);“malaysians over the moon as their astronaut blasts into Space,” Space Travel: Exploration 

and Tourism, october 10, 2007, http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Malaysians_over_the_moon_as_ 

their_astronaut_blasts_into_space_999.html (accessed February 29, 2008); Cho Jin-Seo, “Sputnik 

and arirang:50 Years of Space exploration and Korea,” Korea Times,october 8,2007, http://www. 

koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2007/10/129_11545.html (accessed February 29, 2008). 
 

28 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

rather than unquestioned axioms. as a result, discussions surrounding national 

space programs have remained inseparable from invocations of justifications. 

historian roger launius has described the various rationales put forth 

justifying the cause of space exploration: survival of the species, national pride, 

national security, economic competitiveness, and scientific discovery.26 to 

these five, I would add “benefits to the populace” as a sixth set of justifications. 

these justifications are central to space narratives because they preemptively 

try to insulate discussions about space travel from critiques both internal (i.e., 

domestic and institutional) and external (i.e., international and public). Without 

dispensing judgment on the validity of these justifications, it is clear that they 

play a critical role in the discourse about space exploration, one that is so deeply 

ingrained that we hardly even think it odd that there should be any suggestion 

that we not have to justify spaceflight. 

Justifications for spaceflight have been historically contingent; different 

historical periods required different justifications to be accentuated. moments 

of perceived crisis, for example tend to privilege some justifications over others. 

In the initial collective national anxiety following Sputnik, the raison d’être of 

the american space program was framed in discourses of national pride and 

national security. these justifications were particularly effective in the 1960s, 

the former for apollo and the latter for various military and intelligence space 

projects. the other three justifications—economic competitiveness, survival of 

the species, and scientific discovery—were at the forefront in the post-apollo 

years when the american space program was more mature but also more 

directionless in the inevitable letdown after the moon landings. 

the crisis of the post-apollo years—in the aftermath of a costly foreign 

war, an energy crisis, and a space program without a vision matching apollo— 

generated enormous discussion about the practical costs and benefits of the 

space program.27 as indifference to the space program mounted in the 1970s, 

NaSa sought to attract positive attention to its cause by emphasizing the 

rewards of space exploration, benefits beyond the clichés of tang, teflon, and 

Velcro—none of which were developed by NaSa but which had become 

comedic counterpoints to the perceived majesty of apollo. the agency also 

devoted significant resources to advertising its efforts to transfer the benefits 

of space travel to taxpayers; in 1962, it created the technology utilization 

program, and, since 1976, it has published the annual Spinoff volume. What is 

the purpose of preparing this publication? according to NaSa: 

26.roger d.launius,“Compelling rationales for Spaceflight:history and the Search for relevance” 

in Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight, eds.,Steven J.dick and roger d.launius (Washington, 

dC: NaSa, 2006), pp. 37-70. 

27.For a lengthy discussion of how the writing of american space history was also affected by the rise 

and fall of apollo, see Siddiqi,“american Space history: legacies, Questions, and opportunities 

for Further research” in Critical Issues in Space History, pp. 433-480. 
SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 29 

it is a convincing justification for the continued expenditure 

of NaSa funds. It serves as a tool to educate the media and 

the general public by informing them about the benefits and 

dispelling the myth of wasted taxpayer dollars. It reinforces 

interest in space exploration. It demonstrates the possibility 

to apply aerospace technology in different environments. It 

highlights the ingenuity of american inventors, entrepreneurs, and application engineers, and the willingness of a 

government agency to assist them. and finally, it continues 

to ensure global competitiveness and technological leadership by the united States.28 

one striking aspect of these justification narratives is that they have been 

deployed in support of space programs regardless of the nature of the political 

system in question: nations that are vibrant democracies use the same kind of 

justifications as those nations where large portions of the popular are politically 

disenfranchised. For example, while the Chinese space program has no 

immediate counterpart to NaSa’s Commercial technology program, it does 

frequently articulate very similar justifications about its own growing space 

program. In a white paper on the Chinese space program prepared in 2000, the 

foremost rationale of the Chinese space program was laid out as such: 

the Chinese government attaches great importance to the significant role of space activities in implementing the strategy of 

revitalizing the country with science and education and that 

of sustainable development, as well as in economic construction, national security, science and technology development 

and social progress. the development of space activities is 

encouraged and supported by the government as an integral 

part of the state’s comprehensive development strategy.29 

China’s democratic neighbor, Japan, has communicated similar rationales, 

albeit ones that have changed over the decades with the evolution of the 

Japanese economy and industry. If in the 1970s and 1980s the space program 

was rationalized by the need to keep the Japanese economy competitive and 

its industry robust, by the early 2000s the justifications for space exploration 

incorporated a new motive: the security of the Japanese people from natural 

disasters and global environmental degradations. perhaps responding to the 

perception that the Japanese public “is becoming increasingly skeptical of 

28.“History of Spinoff,” http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinhist.html (accessed February 29, 2008). 

29. Information office of the State Council, “White paper on China’s Space activities,” http:// 

english.peopledaily.com.cn/features/spacepaper/spacepaper5.html (accessed February 29, 2008). 
30 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

claims that the space program will produce major economic benefits,” the 

Japan aerospace exploration agency (JaXa) issued a 20-year vision statement 

in 2005.30 In it, the agency emphasized goals that were reiterated by JaXa 

president Keiji tachikawa in an annual message: 

I feel that Japan’s space program can contribute more to the 

safety and security of the Japanese people. I hope that JaXa 

will actively bear responsibility to follow this lofty goal and 

space development leads to greater safety and security for all 

mankind, from our daily lives to emergency situations.31 

tachikawa’s message is emblematic of a general shift in justifications 

characteristic of all the major global space programs, one that equates a concern 

for the welfare of the environment with important social benefits. all national 

space programs—both major and minor—now pay lip service to critical 

environmental issues such as global warming, deforestation, land erosion, 

earthquake prediction, and disaster warning. Such rationales have begun to 

augment and replace Cold War-centered justifications that centered largely 

around prestige and national security. 

the justification tropes, then—whether arguing for survival of the species, 

national pride, national security, economic competitiveness, scientific discovery, 

or benefits to the populace—serve to provide a foundation for which to discuss 

the very possibility of space exploration. because of its extremely high costs 

and attendant high risks, nations have had to frequently and insistently justify 

the existence of space programs; thus, justifications are not simply extraneous 

rhetoric but have become intrinsic to our future visions of space exploration. 

CoNteSted VISIoNS 

each of these four elements that form the core of space exploration 

narratives—the founding fathers, the notion of indigenity, connecting 

spaceflight with national identity, and the need for justifications—are contested 

and mutable. In each case, there are actors who seek to displace or destabilize 

the master narratives. 

perhaps the most rancorous disagreements have been over the founding 

father archetypes and the claims of indigenity. In the former case, the u.S. 

space program is somewhat of an anomaly. a plausible candidate for a founding 

father is the rocketry pioneer robert goddard who designed, built, and 

30.the quote is from Steven berner, Japan’s Space Program:A Fork in the Road? (Santa monica, Ca: 

raNd technical report tr-184, 2005), p. 30. 

31. “message from president of JaXa,” http://www.jaxa.jp/about/president/index_e.html (accessed 

February 29, 2008). 
launched america’s first liquid propellant rocket in 1926.32 despite goddard’s 

quite significant technical achievements in rocket development in the interwar 

years, however, he had little or no influence on the birth of the american space 

program, having passed away in 1945. and although his place in the pantheon 

of original space visionaries is secure, his contributions to spaceflight in the 

american context have been overshadowed by those of Wernher von braun. 

For many reasons, von braun does not fit the typical mold of the founding 

father: he was originally german, he did not “found” the american space 

program, and he had little or no influence on the development of u.S. 

spacecraft. Yet he and his biographers, based upon his undeniably significant 

achievements, have positioned him—some would say very successfully—as one 

of the most iconic, if not the most iconic non-astronaut figure in the history 

of the american space program.33 the fact that rockets designed under von 

braun’s direction launched the first u.S. satellite, the first american into space, 

and the first american to the moon are important touchstones in his legacy; 

arguably, all of these achievements are overshadowed by von braun’s charisma 

and larger-than-life charms as a public figure in the 1950s and 1960s. besides 

the astronauts, no individual in the public eye during that time personified the 

ingenuity, daring, and resourcefulness required to send humans to the moon 

than Wernher von braun. 

Von braun’s legacy has been a contested one. Within the historical 

community, disagreements have raged over his alleged complicity with the 

forced labor at dora during World War II.34 another debate has centered on 

his proper place in the history of the u.S. space program: for many years, von 

braun’s “rocket team” was square and center in the american space narrative 

that began with the capture of V-2 rockets at the end of World War II and 

ended with apollo 11. a group of influential historians invested in maintaining 

von braun’s legacy have ensured the continuing prominence of this narrative 

(often called the “huntsville School” of historiography), one that traces the 

roots of the american space program, particularly the apollo project, to the 

V-2 rocket and its brilliant designers in germany during the interwar years. In 

this narrative, which has had a near-impervious hold on the public perception 

of the american space program, the so-called german rocket team who were 

32. david a. Clary, Rocket Man: Robert H. Goddard and the Birth of the Space Age (New York, NY: 

hyperion, 2003). 

33. For the many sympathetic and often hagiographic biographies of von braun, see erik bergaust, 

Wernher von Braun:The Authoritative and Definitive Biographical Profile of the Father of the Modern 

Space Age (Washington, dC: National Space Institute, 1976); ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick I. 

ordway, III, Wernher von Braun, Crusader for Space (malabar, Fl: Krieger, 1994); bob Ward, Dr. 

Space:The Life of Wernher von Braun (annapolis, md: Naval Institute press, 2005). 

34. michael J. Neufeld, “Wernher von braun, the SS and Concentration Camp labor: Questions 

of moral, political, and Criminal responsibility,” German Studies Review 25, no. 1 (February 

2002): 57-78. 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 31 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

32 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

brought to the united States in the aftermath of World War II played a singular 

and critical role in taking america to space and eventually to the moon.35 

although there has been a stream of recent scholarship highlighting more 

indigenous sources of innovation in the american context—such as the Jet 

propulsion laboratory and reaction motors—there continues to be a large 

divide between historians’ understanding of the role of von braun in the early 

u.S. space program and laypeople’s perception of the same topic.36 

perhaps the most contested aspect of national space history narratives is the 

issue of indigenity. every single space power has made a claim for indigenous 

origins of expertise, technology, and competence, and for every one of these 

claims, there exist counter-claims. In the american case, there are competing 

schools centered on german and more homegrown contributions. Similar 

arguments over german help have raged over the birth of the Soviet space 

program. the “second-rank” space powers all have comparable disputes over their 

stories of origin. We find obvious parallels in claims made for the development 

of atomic energy by various nations. at least one recent scholar of the history 

of atomic energy has begun to question the hermetically sealed nature of these 

nation-centered narratives. Writing on the history of nuclear power, historian 

Itty abraham has noted that “practically no state travelled alone.”37 he adds: 

one of the most enduring tropes of nuclear histories is 

the idea that atomic energy programs are always national 

programs. the close relation between nuclear power and 

national power has led to the assumption that, for reasons of 

security especially, nuclear programs must be uniquely identified with particular countries. official histories and scientists encourage this belief, for obvious parochial reasons, but 

it is rarely true. No atomic program anywhere in the world 

has ever been purely indigenous . . .38 

35. For an erudite analysis of the huntsville School, see roger d. launius,“the historical dimension 

of space exploration: reflections and possibilities,” Space Policy 16 (2000): 23-38. 

36. For von braun-centered works embodying the huntsville School, see, for example, Willy ley, 

Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space (New York: Viking press, 1968); ordway, III and Sharpe, The 

Rocket Team;Wernher von braun, Frederick I. ordway, III, and dave dooling, History of Rocketry 

and Space Travel (New York:thomas Y. Cromwell, 1986); ernst Stuhlinger, Frederick I. ordway, III, 

and Wernher von braun, Crusader for Space, 2 vols. (malabar, Fl: robert e. Krieger, 1994). For 

syntheses that take a more balanced approach to u.S. space history, see t. a. heppenheimer, 

Countdown:A History of Space Flight (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997);William e. burrows, 

This New Ocean:The Story of the First Space Age (New York: random house, 1998). 

37. Itty abraham, Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb: Science, Secrecy, and the Postcolonial State (london: 

Zed books, 1998), p. 9. 

38. abraham,“the ambivalence of Nuclear histories.” See also his “Notes toward a global Nuclear 

history,” Economic and Political Weekly 39 nos. 46-7 (November 20, 2004): 4,997-5,005. 
 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 33 

the available evidence points strongly to similar processes of knowledge 

flows in the evolution of ballistic missiles and space technology.39 every nation 

engaged in this technology has been a proliferator and has benefited from 

proliferation; this process of proliferation already began in the 1920s when 

an informal and international network of spaceflight enthusiasts in europe— 

particularly in germany, austria, France, poland, great britain, and the Soviet 

union—and the united States, generated the first substantive exchange on topics 

related to rocketry and space exploration.40 the development of sophisticated 

german ballistic missiles in the 1930s benefited from this discourse as did parallel 

but less ambitious Soviet efforts to build rockets. In the aftermath of World War 

II, the remainder of the german missile program, the most developed effort at 

that point, then fed into several different postwar missile programs, including 

those of the united States, the Soviet union, France, and great britain. the 

Soviet union in turn passed both german and “indigenous” technology to the 

Chinese while the americans did the same to the Japanese. by the mid-1970s, 

the “space club” included all of the countries, joined in the 1980s by India and 

Israel who depended on flows from the united States and France respectively. 

europe itself—in the form of international agreements—had many cooperative 

efforts that blurred distinctions of ownership, even as it gained the “indigenous” 

capacity for space activity in 1979. 

CoNCluSIoNS 

the public awareness of spaceflight as an endeavor fundamentally 

associated with nations will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future. this 

relationship depends on a number of factors that are unlikely to alter soon; 

these include the perception of a powerful relationship between science and 

technology and nationalism; and an understanding of the high costs of space 

exploration that have impeded non-state actors in investing in such activities. In 

the latter case, the promise of private spaceflight remains only a promise; even 

if the sector develops into a vibrant industry in the next decade or so, private 

spaceflight will represent a very small portion of the overall space projects of 

any given nation. In perception at least, the major space projects such as human 

spaceflight and deep space exploration—executed by federal agencies such as 

NaSa—will dominate. and while the creation, maintenance, and expansion 

of the ISS represents a striking case of international cooperation on a global 

scale, it is too early to say whether the ISS will serve as a harbinger of future 

international cooperation; it might well be remembered as a historical anomaly 

39. For an ahistorical but useful and recent take on space technology transfers, see mike h. ryan, 

“the role of National Culture in the Space-based technology transfer process,” Comparative 

Technology Transfer 2 no. 1 (2003): 31-66. 

40. Siddiqi, Red Rockets’ Glare. 
 

 

 

34 rememberINg the SpaCe age 

rather than as a precedent for future international cooperation. president 

george W. bush’s announcement of a new Vision for Space exploration (VSe) 

that mandates a termination of american activities involving the ISS sometime 

around 2016 suggests that, on a tangible level, the most powerful and capable 

spacefaring nation on the globe is rejecting a global cooperative vision of human 

spaceflight in favor of a unitary national imperative.41 there are many complex 

geopolitical, technological, and cultural reasons for taking this path, but from 

the perspective of public rhetoric and public understanding of the future of 

spaceflight, the VSe has unambiguously reinforced the link between the nation 

and spaceflight. 

I have argued that there are four elements ubiquitous in the public 

conception of any national space program: the iconography of a founding 

father, the claim of indigenity, the link with national identity, and the necessity 

of justifications. It is doubtful that any of these four rhetorical archetypes will 

recede in importance in the near future. barring a fundamental change in the 

link between the projection of national prowess and science and technology, 

there is little chance that we will see the founding father trope disappear or 

claims of indigenity recede. and unless space exploration becomes cheap or 

immensely profitable—a distant possibility—we may not soon see any need 

to reduce or eliminate the need for justifications in considering the topic of 

national space travel. on the other hand, there is a probability that public 

discussions about national space programs will accrue other characteristics, 

including, paradoxically, an appeal to a global imagination. there are already a 

few singular achievements in the history of spaceflight that could be described 

in terms of universal import, i.e., achievements of a national space program 

that have relevance to the people of the earth itself. these undertakings would 

include the launch of Sputnik (the first human-made object in orbit), the 

mission of Yuri gagarin (the first human in space), and the landing of men 

on the moon (the first humans on another planetary body). one might also 

include the flotilla of robotic spacecraft sent out to deep space, to the inner 

and outer planets, and ultimately out of the solar system. on some level, these 

spacecraft represent artifacts that transcend national ownership. 

I believe that significant global firsts and the capability to exit near-earth 

space can be construed as benchmarks for a national space program to rise to 

a new level and claim global significance. until now, only two nations have 

achieved that capacity: the former Soviet union and the united States. the 

41.“president bush announces New Vision for Space exploration program,” http://www.whitehouse. 

gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040114-3.html (accessed February 29, 2008); marcia S. Smith, 

Space Exploration: Issues Concerning the “Vision for Space Exploration,” CrS report for Congress 

rS 21720, revised June 9, 2005, http://opencrs.com/getfile.php?rid=51025 (accessed February 29, 

2008); Carl e. behrens, The International Space Station and the Space Shuttle, CrS report for 

Congress rl33568, revised November 9, 2007, http://opencrs.com/getfile.php?rid=59204. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

SpaCeFlIght IN the NatIoNal ImagINatIoN 35 

language of global significance has been deployed frequently by commentators 

to characterize a few singular achievements—Sputnik, gagarin, and apollo 

being the most obvious ones—since the beginning of the space era in 1957. 

arguably, some other nations or international agencies, including the european 

Space agency (eSa) and Japan, can make a claim to have performed acts with 

comparable significance, particularly in the area of planetary exploration.42 and 

although China has a vibrant and diversified space program, until now it has 

only repeated actions done by others. but as more nations begin to become 

vibrant space powers capable of achieving critical “firsts” in the history of space 

exploration and equally capable of sending their handiwork out into deep space, 

we will probably see a rise in the kind of rhetoric we saw during the times of 

apollo. In that sense, we may be soon witness to an interesting rhetorical clash 

between the national and the global—and at this point, it remains to be seen 

how that tension will play out. 

42. eSa has directed and participated in a number of ambitious and path-breaking deep space 

exploration projects, including missions to halley’s Comet (giotto, launched in 1985), mars 

(mars express,2003),the moon (Smart 1,2003),minor planets (rosetta,2004) and to Saturn’s 

moon titan (huygens, 1997). Similarly, Japan has implemented a modest series of deep space 

missions since the 1980s including missions to halley’s Comet (Sakigake and Suisei, both 1985), 

the moon (hiten in 1990, Kaguya in 2007), the minor planets (hayabusa, 2003), and mars 

(Nozomi,1998).See asif a. Siddiqi, Deep Space Chronicle:A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary 

Probes, 1958-2000 (Washington, dC: NaSa, 2002). 

Chapter 3 

Building Space Capability through european 

regional Collaboration 

John Krige 

On September 26, 2007, the widely distributed daily USA Today 

published a special feature on the dawn of the Space age. It devoted 

more than a full page to the launch of Sputnik and to the conquest of space, 

more than a week before the 50th anniversary of the Soviet achievement. 

USA Today, obviously trying to steal a march on its competitors, also wanted 

to intervene in current debates on american space policy, as the title of the 

feature, “Lost in Space,” made clear. USA Today’s approach was dominated 

by two themes: the U.S. vs. Soviet competition in the space race, of which 

the newspaper gave a blow-by-blow chronological summary, and which 

ended victoriously when Neil armstrong stepped onto the Moon; and the 

frustration of “those who were involved at the beginning and others who 

are key to future explorations”—pioneers and visionaries who were 

concerned that the United States had no long-term and sustainable space 

policy. the feature in USA Today thus provided both an historical and a 

policy-oriented intervention, an attempt to define a past and to use that 

representation of the past to shape the future. 

I do not draw attention to this article because I deem it to be representative; 

indeed, a thorough, comparative analysis of how the launch of Sputnik and its 

aftermath were depicted in the world’s press 50 years later awaits scholarly 

attention and will, I am sure, be most illuminating. It interests me because it 

embodies some of the typical traps that lie in wait for those of us who set out to 

“remember the Space age.” three of these are particularly striking. 

Firstly, USA Today shrunk the content: the Space age is reduced to human 

space flight and the competition for space firsts between two superpowers. While 

this focus is understandable in a popular daily newspaper, it is also regrettable 

It is understandable since human spaceflight is a feature of the conquest of 

space that continues to inspire the public’s imagination. It is regrettable because 

people are not becoming educated about the other dimensions of space (i.e., 

space for science, space for applications both civil and military, and space 

as a means for building high-tech industry and national competitiveness in 

the aerospace sector). public support for human space exploration may be, 

according to roger Launius in the same edition of USA Today, “a mile wide 
38 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

and an inch deep.” But it is surely our task as scholars to criticize this obsession 

with human spaceflight—however important it may be to maintaining NaSa’s 

momentum—and draw the public’s attention to the many other reasons for 

a major technological nation to have a space program. In remembering the 

Space age, we must uncouple the conquest of space from the always-contested 

domain of human space exploration in order to recognize that that conquest has 

multiple dimensions that range from stimulating basic science and engineering 

to national security applications. 

Secondly, in the article in USA Today, the history of the Space age shrinks 

geographically: the commemorative article is entirely americo-centric. even 

though Soviet feats are mentioned, their context is how they impacted the 

United States and provided the challenge that stimulated the U.S. response. 

Such an approach is misleading in many ways. For one thing, it completely 

overlooks the fact that human spaceflight is no longer at the core of superpower 

rivalry and the associated ideologies of leadership and “domination” that went 

along with this competition. On the contrary, human spaceflight is increasingly 

seen as an international, collaborative venture in which america’s partners— 

including its previous Cold war rival—play a critical role. this narrow 

americo-centrism also ignores the fact that some major space efforts, such as 

that typically occurring in Western europe—my concern here—have never 

included their own transport system for human spaceflight, nor attempts to 

compete with the two superpowers in this domain. (the project to develop 

the space plane hermes was a brief but quickly abandoned effort to do just this: 

its rejection reinforces my point.) If we remember the Space age through the 

prism of countries other than the United States, human spaceflight assumes 

an entirely different and far less central significance. the conquest of space is 

also seen to be driven by concerns other than the competition for “leadership” 

between two Cold War rivals. It is time that the american public understand that 

america’s ongoing activity in human spaceflight requires genuine partnership 

in ways that were inconceivable 20 years ago. the article in USA Today gives 

no indication of this context. 

thirdly, in the feature in USA Today, the history of the Space age shrinks 

in time: it is confined to the first decade or so from the launch of Sputnik 

in 1957 to the first steps on the Moon in 1969. this narrowing of temporal 

context is obviously related to the two previous points. Such an approach is 

acceptable as long as one realizes that the events in that period were driven by 

an historically specific agenda that was not respected in other domains of space 

or, indeed, even in the domain of human spaceflight in the U.S. beginning 

in the 1970s. While this may seem trivial on first blush, it is not so when 

we consider that serious policy prescriptions may be based on the assumption 

that the way to redynamize the space program is to reconstruct in the present 

day the situation that prevailed in the late 1950s and 1960s. these arguments 

conclude, in effect, that only competition with a rival superpower (and China is 
BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 39 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

the prime candidate looming over the horizon) can imbue the american space 

program with new vitality. the point I want to stress is simply a variant of the 

one I made earlier: the visionaries and pundits who complain that the United 

States is “lost in space” need to start thinking about how to find useful ways of 

collaborating with other nations who have developed important space programs 

instead of remaining frozen in an obsolete mental framework dominated by the 

paradigm of Cold War rivalry. 

perhaps I have devoted too much time to one newspaper article that was 

never intended to be comprehensive or analytically rich. however, it is a useful 

and accessible source for making a more general point: all historical analysis 

is necessarily partial and selective. efforts to imbue historical accounts with 

universality are not simply methodologically flawed. they also stifle our critical 

capacities while dominating our perception of the past and our definition of 

what the future should look like. When remembering the Space age, we should 

not shy away from admitting the complexity and diversity of the space effort 

nor pretend that the view of the world from Washington is the only view worth 

recording. Our watchwords should be disaggregation and contextualization. We 

should emphasize the heterogeneity of space programs and explore the diversity 

of space policies as they evolved at the national, regional, and global levels. 

Over the past 50 years the conquest of space has followed different rhythms, 

been driven by different motives, and had a different physiognomy inside each 

spacefaring nation and region, as well as between them. that may make for a 

messy story, from which it is difficult to draw general policy implications. So be 

it. Surely one of the most important lessons of history is that we must grasp the 

past in its specificity in order to understand the present and think intelligently 

about the future. 

three dIStINgUIShINg FeatUreS OF the eUrOpeaN 

COLLaBOratIve SpaCe prOgraM 

It is time for me to turn away from these warnings and to focus on the 

european space program, which is the subject of this paper. My central claims 

are three. Firstly, Western european space projects have contributed to building 

a regional capability and identity. that identity is embedded in institutions and 

practices that brought together (mostly) men from separate european nation 

states and had them work in partnership around scientific and technological 

projects that their governments were willing to pursue at a collaborative level. 

the kind of project that was suitable, and the form of collaboration embarked 

upon, usually did not have immediate strategic significance for these national 

governments. european identity was not forged around space tout court, but 

around certain space projects that, it was believed, preserved or even advanced 

the ability both to build europe and to secure key national interests. 
 

40 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

My second main point is that this construction of regional identity was 

possible because of a combination of shared political, technological, and industrial 

objectives that were defined in the 1960s and 1970s. at that time, european 

integration was an important component of foreign policy, the european space 

science and engineering community was small and inexperienced, and european 

firms were novices in space technology and, above all, in systems engineering 

and project management. Space served as a scientific and technological platform 

around which to build europe because of the cost, complexity, and industrial 

challenges it engaged. Integration was a solution to structural weaknesses that 

many, though not all, european nation states believed they could not overcome 

by “going it alone.” 

My third point is that the United States played a key role in constructing and 

consolidating regional capability and identity. this may seem counterintuitive. 

It is obvious that many people in europe, particularly today, regard the United 

States as an overbearing hegemon that unilaterally tries to impose its political, 

technological, commercial, and cultural values on friend and foe alike, resorting 

to force if needed to achieve its objectives. Many in the european space sector 

share that view, or some variant of it, in regard to the current situation. 

however those same people are the first to recognize the crucial role played 

by NaSa and the United States in helping europe get on its feet in the space 

sector in the first couple of decades following Sputnik. Some put this down to 

american generosity and to a sense of shared historical and cultural ties. the 

United States, president eisenhower once said, “was related by culture and 

blood to (the) countries (of) Western europe and in this sense is a product of 

Western europe.” Similarly, for Mcgeorge Bundy, a National Security adviser 

to president Kennedy, the european peoples were “our cousins by history 

and culture, by language and religion.” If here the personal and the cultural 

are stressed, on other occasions the political is the focus. For example, when 

Bundy was asked why he favored the postwar reconstruction of a united and 

“independent” europe—since, after all, “great states do not usually rejoice 

in the emergence of other great powers” —his response was unequivocal: 

“the immediate answer is in the current contest with the Soviet Union.”1

 For 

Washington, a strong united europe built on a solid scientific and technological 

base would bring with it the economic prosperity and political stability essential 

to maintaining democracy among america’s allies. european integration 

would act as a bulwark against communist expansion on the continent and, 

through NatO, help take the burden of the defense of the region off the back 

of the United States. In pursuit of these and related policies, NaSa acted as an 

arm of american diplomacy in the 1960s and 1970s, and, along with the State 

department, played a crucial role in fostering a collaborative european space 

1.	 Cited in John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe 

(Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 2006), pp. 254, 255. 
 

 

 

 

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 41 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

program and, in so doing, contributed to the building of a regional european 

identity. 

In the remainder of this paper, I want to flesh out these claims in more 

detail and lay bare the poles around which the european space program has been 

built. In addition, I want to emphasize the very different shape the program has 

assumed as compared to the american program. the Space age, as I insisted 

earlier, is not all of a piece, and is certainly not to be collapsed into those highly 

visible and exotic features that so often dominate the public debate and the 

public face of the american space program. 

the reLatION OF the CIvIL aNd the MILItary 

Walter Mcdougall has claimed that, when NaSa was launched, the 

separation of military and civilian activities was increasingly artificial in the 

age of scientific warfare and total Cold War. even scientific programs, under 

a civilian agency, were tools of competition in so far as an image of technical 

dynamism was as important as actual weapons. the space program was a 

paramilitary operation in the Cold War, no matter who ran it. all aspects of 

national activity were becoming increasingly politicized, if not militarized.2 

Mcdougall was of course deeply aware of the technological, political, 

industrial, and cultural dimensions of superpower rivalry, In addition, he was 

disturbed by what he saw as the corresponding militarization of every facet of 

american life in an age of what eisenhower called “total cold war.”3 But even 

if we insist on drawing the distinction between the civilian and the military 

more finely than he did, there is no doubt that space was and is fundamental to 

national security, notably during the Cold War. as paul Stares pointed out in 

1985, about two-thirds of all satellites launched in the first 25-odd years after 

Sputnik by the United States and the Soviet Union were for military purposes. 

the fiscal year (Fy) 1984 U.S. military space budget alone was about $10.5 

billion in current dollars—about half of the total american space budget.4 the 

apparatus of the national security state will ensure the future of spaceflight in 

the United States for multiple forms of reconnaissance whether or not there is 

a moonbase or a mission to Mars. In fact, one may go so far as to say that all 

major space programs are, to some extent or another, parasitic on governments 

recognizing the military potential of space. Without that military dimension, 

they would never be willing to invest the billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money 

2.	 Walter a. Mcdougall, . . . the Heavens and the Earth.A Political History of the Space Age (Baltimore, 

Md: Johns hopkins University press, 1985), p.174. 

3.	 Kenneth Osgood’s Total Cold War. Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad 

(Lawrence, KS: University press of Kansas, 2006) described the many dimensions of this phrase. 

4.	 paul B. Stares, The Militarization of Space. U.S. Policy, 1945-1984 (Ithaca, Ny: Cornell University 

press, 1985), p. 14. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

42 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

needed to establish and to maintain a major presence in space and, above all, to 

acquire independent access to space. 

that said, the situation has to be nuanced. Certainly Britain and France 

embarked on space programs in the 1950s and 1960s that owed much to their 

military ambitions (and, in the case of France, to a considerable influx of technical 

personnel from ex-Nazi rocket programs).5 Both countries were medium-sized, 

technologically dynamic powers that sought to maintain their global influence 

as their empires withered. Both sought independent nuclear deterrents and their 

appropriate delivery systems, and both were in a position to deploy engineering 

skills, hardware, and production techniques acquired in laboratories, design 

shops, testing grounds, and industries for both civilian and military purposes. It 

is also true that the earliest experiments in the upper atmosphere with sounding 

rockets were only possible due to the military infrastructure, be it at Woomera 

in South australia for the British, at hammaguir in the Sahara for the French, 

or in Sardinia for the Italians.6 

all the same, as the collaborative european space program began to take 

shape, a distinct effort was made to distance it from the military. One of the 

reasons for this was the personalities and priorities of the main protagonists 

of a joint european effort.7 these were not government officials but cosmic 

ray physicists turned scientific statesmen, one Italian (edoardi amaldi), the 

other French (pierre auger). amaldi and auger were among the founders of 

the european Organization for Nuclear research (CerN), a particle physics 

laboratory established in geneva in 1954. Both firmly believed that the only 

way that european “big” science and technology could compete with the 

United States was if governments pooled their resources (financial, industrial, 

and skilled) in collaborative efforts. Both men had strong support in the highest 

level of national administrations where senior bureaucrats saw promising 

careers in joint european scientific and technological activities. Both deplored 

the militarization of scientific research in Cold War america, and both were 

extremely concerned by the proposals, emanating from the newly-formed 

NatO Science Committee directed by Fred Seitz, that NatO should take the 

initiative and build a european satellite. In short, the first push for a european 

5.	 For Britain, see harrie Massey and M. O. robins, History of British Space Science (Cambridge: 

Cambridge University press,1997).For France,see France durand-de Jongh, De la fusée Véronique 

au lanceur Ariane. Une histoire d’hommes, 1945-1979 (paris: Stock, 1998). 

6.	 For the military significance of early sounding rocket work, see david h. de vorkin, Science 

with a Vengeance. How the Military Created the US Space Sciences after World War II (New york, 

Ny: Springer, 1992). 

7.	 the story is told in detail in John Krige and arturo russo, A History of the European Space Agency, 

1958–1987, vol. 1 The Story of ELDO and ESRO, 1958–1973 (Noordwijk: european Space 

agency Special publication-1235, 2000). For the later period, John Krige, arturo russo, and 

Lorenza Sebesta, A History of the European Space Agency, 1958–1987, vol. 2 The Story of ESA, 

1973–1987 (Noordwijk: european Space agency Special publication-1235, 2000). 
 

 

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 43 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

space effort was made precisely by people who were determined that it should 

be free from military control and independent of military funding. 

these ambitions dovetailed with those of the potential member states 

of any future european space organization. Collaborative programs in the 

military sphere were politically impossible. For the British, to do so would 

mean jeopardizing their special relationship with the United States and the 

privileged access to military technology that that gave them. For the French, 

it would mean diluting sovereignty at the very moment when president de 

gaulle was in no mood to be tied by obligations to european partners that 

might restrict his development of France’s independent strike force (or force de 

frappe). For its part, germany had to tread with extreme caution in all areas of 

potential military significance. the memories of two world wars and the role of 

germany in provoking them were still fresh. Indeed, the “double containment” 

of Soviet communism and german nationalism and militarism was another 

important reason why Washington and its continental allies strongly supported 

the emergence of a supranational, integrated europe. a european space effort 

was not and could not be dictated by military considerations. Its rationale would 

need to lie elsewhere. 

the history of european launchers confirms this point. amaldi and auger 

originally envisioned an organization similar to NaSa for Western europe—an 

organization responsible for developing both launchers and scientific satellites. 

this plan was rejected by many countries that, while happy to be part of a 

collaborative scientific research effort, were not willing to work together to 

build a launcher (baptized europa and built under the auspices of the european 

Launcher development Organization [eLdO]). this was partly due to cost, 

but it was also because small countries like Switzerland, whose global weight 

was intimately associated with its posture of neutrality, deemed launchers as 

being too close to the military end of the civilian-military spectrum for their 

government to participate in developing such technology. 

the military significance of launchers also partly explains the disastrous 

failure of the europa program. this is generally, and rightly, put down to the 

lack of project management in eLdO and the failure to integrate the three 

stages of the rocket being built separately in Britain, France, and germany.8 

however, even if europe had had the requisite project management skills— 

which it did not—the mutual mistrust between the partners and the reluctance 

of government and industry to let engineers from other countries have access 

to domestic missile and rocket technology (believed to be a national strategic 

asset) sabotaged any serious effort at technological integration. europe learned 

the lesson. the successful ariane launcher was not only built under French 

industrial and management leadership. It was also a product of the civilian 

8.	 Stephen B. Johnson, The Secret of Apollo. Systems Management in American and European Space 

Systems (Baltimore, Md: Johns hopkins University press, 2002). 
44 reM eMBerINg the Space age 

Britain’s Blue Streak ballistic missile, designed in 1955 and tested at Woomera test 

range, Australia. It was used as the first-stage of the European satellite launcher, Europa. 

(Google Images) 
 

 

 

 

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 45 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

French National Space agency Centre Nationale des Études Spatiales (CNeS) 

and so financially and formally independent of the French missile program.9 

I could provide multiple examples, but the point is, I hope, clear: space in 

europe was predominantly civil, and whenever that boundary risked being 

blurred, above all in industry, some countries simply did not participate in that 

particular aspect of space activities. 

SCIeNCe aNd appLICatIONS 

Science has been a preferred site for international collaboration, at least in 

times of peace and between traditional allies. yet, contrary to what one might 

think, science could not directly bear the weight of building a strong european 

regional capability in the early years of their space program. 

One of the main reasons for this was that bilateral programs with the 

United States were very attractive and even essential alternatives to multilateral 

programs with european partners. at the Committee on Space research 

(COSpar) meeting in the hague in March 1959, the american delegate 

announced that NaSa was willing to fly experiments by foreign scientists on 

U.S. satellites, even going so far as to help scientists in other countries build an 

entire scientific payload for launching on american Scout rockets. Several 

factors informed NaSa’s policy. It was a tangible expression of the requirement 

specified in the Space act of 1958 that NaSa foster international collaboration. 

It could trade on the longstanding tradition of international scientific exchange 

and mobilize networks and institutions already in place that were familiar with 

working outside national frameworks. It raised no obvious risks to national 

security, nor of technological exchange—useful work could be done with 

relatively simple and inexpensive instruments that perfectly embodied the 

strategy of “clean interfaces” and “no exchange of funds” that quickly became 

the hallmark of NaSa’s international programs.10 Finally, NaSa was particularly 

interested in seeing that a country from the Western bloc be the first to launch 

a satellite after the superpowers had done so, a position consistent with the allpervasive logic of Cold War rivalry that marked every aspect of U.S.–Soviet 

relations in space contained in the earlier Mcdougall reference.11 Seen from 

europe, where the space science community was small, inexperienced, and 

9.	 emmanuel Chadeau, ed., L’Ambition technologique: naissance d’Ariane (paris: rive droite, 1995); 

Claude Carlier et Marcel gilli,Les trente premières années du CNES.L’agence Française de lespace, 

1962 – 1992 (paris: CNeS, 1994). 

10. arnold Wolfe Frutkin, International Cooperation in Space (englewood Cliffs, NJ: prenticehall, 1965). 

11. John Krige,“Building a third Space power:Western european reactions to Sputnik at the dawn 

of the Space age,” in roger d. Launius, John M. Logsdon, and robert W. Smith, Reconsidering 

Sputnik. Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite (Chur: harwood, 2000), pp. 289-307. 
 

46 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

fragmented, NaSa’s offer was a godsend. Indeed, French space scientists are 

unstinting in their praise for NaSa’s generosity and support in these early days 

and recognize that without it their own program could never have taken root 

and been as successful as quickly as it was. But it had a downside from a european 

collaborative perspective. Space science was a fragile platform for integration 

since so much first had to be done through bilateral arrangements with the 

United States. 

the lukewarm enthusiasm in the 1960s for major collaborative space science 

projects had tangible effects. the european Space research Organization 

(eSrO), established along with eLdO, had a pitifully small budget and had 

great difficulty in developing any major scientific satellite program of its own. 

the attempt to build a Large astronomical Satellite that was sufficiently costly 

and complex to serve as an integrative glue collapsed ignominiously.12 the point 

of having a european-based science program at all was vigorously contested 

by the French in the early 1970s when the future of eSrO, or at least its 

mission, hung in the balance. It was only saved by reorienting the organization 

towards application satellites (to the dismay of the scientific founding fathers) 

and at the insistence of the British, who demanded that science be made a 

mandatory component in the new eSa that emerged in 1975. this was a sign 

of the vulnerability of the collaborative science program, not of its strength. at 

the time it was feared that, if science was made optional like all the other major 

programs then being agreed on for eSa, it would simply collapse for lack of 

political and financial support. 

One reason for the assault on science in the early 1970s was a determination 

in europe, led by the French, to make launchers and application satellites the 

backbone of the european space effort. the rationale in paris combined a gaullist 

determination to become independent of the United States with a recognition 

that space not only had important commercial possibilities, but was a crucial 

domain in which one could hope to close the technological and managerial gap 

that has opened up between the two sides of the atlantic. however, France did 

not entirely get its way. germany insisted on building Spacelab in collaboration 

with the United States, and the science program actually became one of eSa’s 

outstanding domains of activity. the fact remains, though, that european 

foreign and industrial policy are central drivers of the regional space effort, 

a point that is so important (and which makes europe so different from the 

United States) that it deserves further elaboration. 

12. John Krige,“the rise and Fall of eSrO’s First Major Scientific project:the Large astronomical 

Satellite (LaS),” in John Krige, ed., Choosing Big Technologies (Chur: harwood, 1993), pp. 1-26. 
 

 

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 47 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

eUrOpeaN SpaCe aS aN INStrUMeNt OF FOreIgN aNd 

INdUStrIaL pOLICy 

european foreign policy is expressed in its space policy. Space industry, 

science and technology provide the material infrastructure that lock governments into formal multilateral agreements. the United Kingdom is the 

exception that proves the rule as far as the integrative urge is concerned. Britain 

emerged from the war much impoverished with respect to the United States, 

but it still remained the leading scientific and technological power in Western 

europe. It was the first country after the U.S. and the Soviet Union to test 

both atomic and hydrogen bombs, it had the first commercial nuclear power 

reactor dedicated to civilian energy production in the free world, and it built 

the first commercial jet passenger aircraft.13 By virtue of this leadership and its 

close alliance with the United States and the Commonwealth, it had little interest in collaborative european space efforts. there was just one brief moment 

when matters were otherwise. In 1960, after some hesitation, prime Minister 

Macmillan decided that the time had come to accept that Britain was no longer a major world power and as a result should draw closer to its neighbors 

across the english Channel. In June 1961, he deposited Britain’s request to join 

the Common Market. While the six existing members of the club debated 

the terms and conditions of British entry, two major Franco-British aerospace 

projects were launched. One was Concorde, the supersonic airliner. the other 

was the europa rocket to be built by eLdO. In January 1963, president de 

gaulle vetoed British entry, arguing that London was not really committed to 

european integration and that its inclusion would do little more than serve as a 

trojan horse for american interests on the Continent. Concorde survived, but 

Britain’s commitment to eSrO and especially eLdO did not. For the British, 

space policy became something to be conducted primarily at a national level 

and through multilateral agreements: they would not be tied into a supranational organization in which their control over programmatic decisions would 

be diminished. the result was predictable: Britain maintains a strong presence in space science, but it is totally absent from rocketry and has a selective 

approach to the development of applications. 

the place of science and technology in german foreign policy is somewhat 

unique since here the european option was an essential path back into scientific 

and technological collaboration with its erstwhile enemies.14 It also relegitimated 

technological projects in sensitive areas such as nuclear energy and space. the 

precedent was set in high-energy physics in 1950 when Isidor I. rabi from 

Columbia University proposed at a United Nations educational, Scientific 

13. david edgerton, Warfare State. Britain 1920-1970 (Cambridge University press, 2006). 

14. Niklas reinke, The History of German Space Policy: Ideas, Influences and Interdependence, 1923-2002 

(paris: Beauchesne, 2007).translated from the german. 
 

 

48 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

and Cultural Organization (UNeSCO) meeting in Florence, Italy, that a new 

european physics laboratory built around big equipment be established and that 

germany be included in this venture. this meeting happened just after the West 

german state had been formed but before it was admitted to UNeSCO, when 

the odor of opprobrium still hung over the german physicists who had stayed 

behind and worked in Nazi germany and when research with accelerators was 

highly restricted by the occupying powers. this change of approach reflected 

a larger change of tack in U.S. foreign policy. germany was no longer to be 

treated as an occupied state and a threat to stability in Western europe, but as a 

scientific, technological, industrial, and economic force to be reintegrated back 

into europe if its potential for the growth and security of the region and the 

free world were to be realized. rabi was party to those debates. For germany, 

membership of CerN gave a new legitimacy to its physics community and 

to research with particle accelerators, in addition to opening the way for its 

reacceptance into the international scientific community.15 

ten years later, germany’s national interests in the space sector were 

served in precisely the same way when it was admitted to eSrO and eLdO. 

the allies imposed tight constraints on german rocketry after the war. Many of 

her rocket scientists and engineers fled the country for fear of reprisals, leaving 

a demoralized, isolated, and restricted community at home. Some hoped to 

return one day to build up their national space effort: von Braun and his team 

are not to be taken as typical of the german engineering community.16 the 

regional european option provided a way back for a nation that had been 

effectively barred from space pursuits for more than a decade. By allowing the 

german space program to grow under the auspices of a supranational regime, 

government, industry, engineers, and scientists could once again embark on 

building the infrastructure for a major space effort at the national, regional, and 

international levels. 

Space policy is not only a matter of foreign policy in europe; it is also 

a matter of industrial policy. european nations are not shy in admitting that 

they work together in space to build a shared industrial infrastructure and the 

pool of scientific and engineering skills that will enable them better to position 

themselves competitively in the global market, notably vis-à-vis the world leader, 

the United States. It must be said that this consideration also has some weight 

in the United States, even though it is given far less prominence both in the 

media and in scholarship. Indeed, as the Cold War moved from confrontation 

to détente, and the two superpowers sought stability in their separate blocs, 

arguments other than superpower rivalry had to be found to maintain a major 

space program that could ensure the future of NaSa after the apollo Moon 

15. Krige, American Hegemony, chapter 3. 

16. Michael J. Neufeld, Von Braun. Dreamer of Space. Engineer of War (New york:alfred Knopf, 2007). 
 

 

 

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 49 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

landings.17 One of those arguments, used by Caspar Weinberger in his famous 

memo to president Nixon in favor of developing the Shuttle, was that it would 

save jobs in the aerospace sector.18 Space policy is tightly linked to industrial 

strength and competitiveness on both sides of the atlantic, even though this is 

more obvious in europe than in the United States. 

It is also more explicit. the europeans have developed the so-called 

principle of fair return in which the proportion of money contributed by a 

government to a collaborative program should be the same as the share of 

technologically significant contracts that flow back to national industry from 

that program. this policy provides smaller nations with one of their most 

important incentives for remaining engaged in space since the industrial leaders 

are “obliged” to include their firms in european-wide consortia to secure 

contracts through eSa. It also explains the major contributions to the european 

space program made by countries that were technologically “lagging” behind 

the rest of europe in the 1970s, specifically Spain as it recovered from the drag 

of the Franco regime. 

the teNSION BetWeeN the regIONaL 

aNd the NatIONaL 

this paper has stressed the importance of space as an instrument for 

building a regional capability in Western europe. that process is not “natural” 

or spontaneous: it requires ongoing work by scientists, engineers, industrialists, 

and politicians. regional agreements require that states dilute their sovereignty, 

industries build transnational consortia, and scientists take deliberate efforts 

to construct multinational, multi-institutional collaborative payloads and 

satellites. In short, the european path is not a necessity for many of the major 

european states: it is an option. that option will be adopted only after careful 

consideration and sometimes heated debate and power struggles between 

interest groups both within nations and between them. 

the economic historian alan Milward has argued, somewhat controversially, that the integration of europe did not occur at major cost to the 

sovereignty of the nation state.19 On the contrary, it was compatible with the 

rescue of the nation state as a major historical actor. For Milward, the european 

option involved the pursuit of national interest through instruments and institutions in which the benefits of integration were believed to outweigh the 

costs. this view has many merits. the application of the principle of fair return 

17. Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest. Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge: harvard 

University press, 2003). 

18. reproduced in roger d. Launius, NASA.A History of the U.S. Civil Space Program (Malabar, Fa: 

Krieger, 1994), reading No. 19. 

19. alan S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: routledge, 1992). 
50 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

nicely illustrates the point. So does the case of postwar germany, for whom, 

as we have seen, the european road was a crucial path back into scientific 

and technological collaboration in sensitive domains. In the early days when 

most national programs were weak, the loss of autonomy required by supranational integration was, at least for the larger powers, a useful way to acquire 

the scientific, technological, and industrial capacity needed for an independent 

national program (that is, if a government eventually decided that it wanted 

one). In this sense, then, Milward is right. But his argument must be relativized to take account of the changing circumstances under which national space 

policies were defined in Western european states with the passage of time and 

the evolving attraction of “going it alone” or working with select partners as 

national space programs matured. 

the ongoing debates over industrial policy illustrate the changing 

equilibrium between the national and the regional. When eSrO established the 

principle of fair return in the 1960s, a coefficient of 0.8 was deemed acceptable. 

today, however, member states demand a coefficient very close to unity, itself 

an expression of the enormous weight that they attach to space as an industrial 

activity in the high-tech sector. Smaller states such as Belgium are particularly 

emphatic about this since they cannot dream of having significant national 

space programs of their own, and they justify their participation in space at the 

political level by the advantages it brings to domestic industry. Larger states see 

matters otherwise. Fair return was important to France, germany, and Italy in 

the 1960s and Spain in the 1970s. By the 1990s, however, a country like France 

had developed such a broad-based strength in all dimensions of space that were 

of interest to it, and its government was so committed to the space effort, that 

it was in a position to go it alone or to work bilaterally with selected partners. 

regional collaboration, with the requirement imposed by the fair return 

principle—that French firms become integrated into transnational consortia, 

sometimes with partners far less experienced than themselves—turned from an 

asset into an albatross, especially if there were firms that could do the same job 

in France itself. put differently, the stronger a nation becomes, the less interest 

it has in collaborating meaningfully with others in supranational projects. the 

political motivations have to override the centrifugal pull of industrial and 

commercial benefits and the control over programmatic matters that a purely 

national or loosely collaborative project allows. regional and international 

collaboration in advanced technology is not a taken-for-granted given: it has to 

be constantly sustained if it is to survive. 
 

I have discussed at length the role and the interests of the United States 

in fostering international collaboration in space with Western europe at 

two previous NaSa conferences.20 I do not want to repeat myself here. the 

central point to bear in mind is that NaSa, in consultation with the State 

department and other arms of the administration have, loosely speaking, two 

modes of interaction with their international partners. One involves sharing: 

the sharing of data, skills, and technology. the other involves denial of these 

self-same assets. the boundary between the two is fluid, and NaSa may often 

be unwilling to share a particularly advanced version of a technology, but be 

quite happy with allowing partners access to an earlier, less sophisticated variant 

(e.g. inertial guidance technology). the boundary also shifts depending on the 

domestic situation in the United States, the availability of the technology from 

other nations, and the strength of potential partners. NaSa’s role, after all, is to 

promote both international collaboration and american space leadership. On 

the face of it, these two goals are contradictory unless the partners are relatively 

weak and pose no threat to american leadership. 

policy fluctuations between sharing and denial have marked NaSaWestern european relations over the last 50 years. In the early 1960s, as I have 

explained, most Western european countries depended on international col

laboration with NaSa to acquire the basic skills required to kick-start key parts 

of their space programs. NaSa gladly collaborated, and the europeans enthu

siastically appreciated their gesture.21 this willingness to work with europe 

was politically easy in science, which was eminently suited to international col

laboration and posed no threat to U.S. leadership; indeed, leadership was made 

manifest in generosity and openness. But it also extended to more sensitive 

areas like rocket technology when, in 1966, NaSa seriously considered offer

ing a wide-ranging package of technological assistance, including cryogenic 

technology, to keep eLdO afloat. the proposals defined at this time inge

niously respected national security constraints, furthered U.S. foreign policy 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 51 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

the UNIted StateS aNd eUrOpeaN INtegratION IN SpaCe 

­

­

­

­

­

20. John Krige, “technology, Foreign policy, and International Cooperation in Space,” in Steven J. 

dick and roger d. Launius, eds., Critical Issues in the History of Space Flight (Washington, dC: 

National aeronautics and Space administration Special publication-2006-4702), pp. 239–260; 

John Krige, “NaSa as an Instrument of U.S. Foreign policy,” in Steven J. dick and roger d. 

Launius, eds., Societal Impact of Spaceflight (National aeronautics and Space administration Special 

publication-2007-4801). 

21. Jacques Blamont,“La creation d’une agence spatiale: les Français à goddard Spaceflight Center, 

en 1962-1963,” and Jean-pierre Causse, “Le programme Fr1,” in hervé Moulin, Les relations 

franco-américaines dans le domaine spatial (1957 – 1975), Quatrième rencontre de l’IFhe sur l’essor 

des recherches spatiales en France, 8-9 décembre 2005, paris, France (paris: Institut Français de 

l’histoire de l’Éspace, in press). 
 

 

 

 

 

52 reMeMBerINg the SpaCe age 

interests in the european theater, and made a substantial contribution to 

european technological development. 

as europe emerged from adolescence to maturity in the space sector 

beginning in the 1970s, the relationships with NaSa became more strained. 

the unilateral cancellation by Washington of america’s contribution to the 

International Solar polar Mission (ISpM) has been recounted too often to bear 

repeating.22 Suffice it to say that it left a bitter taste in europe and damaged U.S.– 

european collaboration in space science for many years. Far more significant 

for the present argument, however, was the (alleged) refusal of NaSa and the 

State department to launch the Franco-german telecommunications satellite, 

Symphonie. the precise details surrounding the negotiations over the request 

for this launch in the early 1970s are still the subject of heated controversy 

and will probably never be resolved.23 NaSa’s interlocutors still believe that 

they imposed no unfair or illegitimate restrictions on providing a launcher for 

Symphonie. the europeans, and the French in particular, insist that matters 

were otherwise and that, as negotiations proceeded, the position in Washington 

became increasingly untenable. all are agreed on one thing: that the conditions 

imposed on launching Symphonie, or more precisely perhaps, european 

willingness to interpret U.S. behavior as a refusal to launch Symphonie, played 

into the hands of engineers in CNeS who insisted that america was not to be 

trusted and that France (and europe) had to have their own launcher to guarantee 

them independent access to space. In other words, politically speaking, ariane 

was a child of Washington’s perceived denial of launch technology to europe 

for its first (experimental?) telecommunications satellite. 

the Symphonie affair, combined with others like ISpM, and the recent 

application of the terms of Itar (International traffic in arms regulations) 

to the export of space technology are embittering many people in europe, 

and undermining the prospects for constructive U.S.–european space 

collaboration.24 Indeed, in several interviews that I had with european 

space scientists, engineers, policymakers, and senior government officials in 

summer 2007, there were repeated complaints about the new constraints on 

international collaboration and technological sharing in the space sector that 

have been put in place since 9/11 and of the disastrous effects that Itar is 

22. roger M. Bonnet and vittorio Manno, International Cooperation in Space: The Example of the 

European Space Agency (Cambridge Ma: harvard University press, 1994). 

23. richard Barnes,“Symphonie Launch Negotiations” and the comment by Bignier in Moulin, Les 

relations franco-américaines. See also arnold Frutkin interview by John Krige,angelina Long, and 

ashok Maharaj, Charlottesville,va, august 19, 2007, (NaSa historical reference Collection, 

history division, NaSa headquarters,Washington dC);andré Lebeau interview, paris, France, 

by John Krige, June 4, 2007, (NaSa historical reference Collection, history division, NaSa 

headquarters,Washington dC.) 

24. david Southwood interview, paris, France, by John Krige, July 16, 2007, (NaSa historical 

reference Collection, history division, NaSa headquarters,Washington dC.) 
BUILdINg SpaCe CapaBILIty thrOUgh 53 

eUrOpeaN regIONaL COLLaBOratION 

having on international space collaboration and the perception of the United 

States in Western europe. 

From the United States’ point of view, dealing with partners involves 

striking a delicate balance between the outward push for scientific and 

technological collaboration and the inward pull of national security concerns— 

the conflict between sharing and denial. Sharing builds alliances and secures 

american access to foreign skills. denial alienates allies, and encourages them 

to develop their own capabilities and to seek partners other than the U.S. these 

dilemmas often pit NaSa and the State department against the department of 

defense and other bodies concerned with national security. the management of 

that tension in the next few years will, I am persuaded, have a major impact on 

the future of the space programs not only in europe, but throughout the world. 

In the meantime, it is ensuring that Western europe’s regional capability and 

identity as an independent player in space is being reinforced. the vulnerable 

child of the 1960s is the mature adult of the 21st century who now seeks genuine 

rather than junior partnership with the United States, along with the mutual 

political respect and technological sharing that that entails. 

 

 

 

Chapter 4 

Imagining an aerospace agency 

in the atomic age 

robert r. MacGregor 

Much has been written about the 184-pound satellite lofted into the 

heavens by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. the story is an 

insidiously seductive one; it is the romantic narrative of a small metal ball 

usurping the assumed technological authority of the United States. the frenzy 

of the media and the swift political backlash seem almost comical in light of the 

diminutive physical size of Sputnik. 

the launch of Sputnik was one of the most disruptive singular events in 

the history of the United States.1 the temptation to label it a discontinuity 

is strong. the year following the Sputnik launch saw the formation of the 

advanced research projects agency (arpa), the creation of the new post of 

Special assistant for Science and technology to the president and its associated 

committee (pSaC), the transformation of the National advisory Committee 

for aeronautics (NaCa) into NaSa, and the National Defense education act 

(NDea). Walter a. McDougall in . . . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History 

of the Space Age traces the roots of technocracy in america to this “spark”: 

Western governments came to embrace the model of statesupported, perpetual technological revolution . . . What had 

intervened to spark this saltation was Sputnik and the space 

technological revolution . . . For in these years the fundamental relationship between the government and the new 

technology changed as never before in history. No longer did 

state and society react to new tools and methods, adjusting, 

regulating, or encouraging their spontaneous development. 

rather, states took upon themselves the primary responsibility for generating new technology.2 

1.	 For a good overview of the Western reaction to Sputnik see rip Bulkeley The Sputniks Crisis 

and Early United States Space Policy:A Critique of the Historiography of Space (London: MacMillan 

academic and professional Ltd., 1991). 

2.	 Walter a. McDougall, . . . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (Baltimore, 

MD:the Johns hopkins University press, 1985), pp. 6-7. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

56 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

McDougall has since revised his original argument by noting that the 

space technological revolution was an “ephemeral episode in the larger history 

of the Cold War, rather than the Cold War having been an episode in the larger 

story of the march of technocracy.”3 this revisionism addresses the eventual 

fate of the space technological revolution. It is the purpose of the current essay 

to revise the story of the birth of that technological revolution. Specifically, 

it will be argued that the conception of the Sputnik launch as a discontinuity 

that ushered in a technocratic revolution in modern america does not fit the 

historical record. the environment in which the Sputnik crisis unfolded in the 

United States was already saturated with preconceived, technocratic notions of 

the relation of science to the state. the crystallization of the new agency that 

would become NaSa was a process that was both simultaneously instigated by 

a singular event and followed in the footsteps of institutional ancestors. the two 

are not mutually exclusive; contingency must be embedded in a framework of 

continuity. the precursor of the space technological revolution was the atomic 

energy Commission (aeC). 

“technocracy” is a contentious term, with definitions running the gamut 

from a literal etymological interpretation as “the control of society or industry 

by technical experts”4 to the idolization of science for propaganda purposes 

by non-scientific bureaucrats.5 an attempt at a precise definition is necessarily 

doomed to failure, but for the purposes of this essay I will adopt McDougall’s 

definition of technocracy as “the institutionalization of technological change 

for state purposes, that is, the state-funded and -managed r&D explosion of 

our time.”6 McDougall’s definition captures the key features relevant to the 

current analysis: massive state funding and intentional control of technological 

development to serve state purposes. there exist a myriad of other possible 

definitions, which remain outside the scope of the present argument.7 

3.	 Walter a. McDougall,“Was Sputnik really a Saltation?” in Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since 

the Soviet Satellite, ed. roger D. Launius, John M. Logsdon, and robert W. Smith (harwood 

academic publishers, 2000), pp. xviii. 

4.	 The Oxford English Dictionary (New York, NY: Oxford University press, 1989). 

5.	 a famous example in space history is Nikita Khrushchev’s shrewd tactical use of spaceflight for 

internal and external political maneuvering. For an overview of Khrushchev’s manipulation 

of the space program, see asif Siddiqi Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge (Gainesville, FL: 

University press of Florida, 2003), especially pp. 409-460. 

6.	 McDougall, . . . the Heavens and the Earth, p. 5. 

7. 	 David Noble in America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism 

(Oxford University press, 1977) inverts the hierarchy and sees this explosion not as statecentric manipulation, but as a “wholesale public subsidization of private enterprise” to serve 

the ends of technocratic corporate managers working as government contractors (p. 322). 

John Kenneth Galbraith in The New Industrial State (Boston, Ma: houghton Mifflin, 1967) 

envisions technocracy as having a decision-making mind of its own within a given institutional 

constellation, the “technostructure,” which operates autonomously from corporate or 

governmental intentions, often to the detriment of the public good. Don price argues in The 
 

 

 

 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 57 

the aeC and NaSa are far and away the canonical american institutional 

examples of technocracy under this definition. the similarities on the surface 

are obvious. Both the aeC and NaSa were characterized by geographically 

dispersed scientific research laboratories operating as scientific fiefdoms in a 

confederate framework.8 Both consolidated to a great extent an entire realm of 

technology in federal, civilian agencies. Unlike other new technologies, such 

as the microcomputer or early aviation, both were handed over wholesale to 

civilian agencies created specifically to oversee them rather than entrusting 

progress to the military or private sector. In introducing the problem the framers 

of the atomic energy act faced, aeC historians richard G. hewlett and Jack 

M. holl noted: “how does one best go about introducing a new technology 

into society? a familiar problem for large manufacturers, the management of 

technological innovation was hardly a common function for federal officials, 

except in the area of regulation . . . in the case of nuclear power, the entire 

technology was confined within the government.”9 this fundamental historical 

similarity, domination and encapsulation of an entire area of technology by a 

civilian government agency, is the basis for the current argument. 

this paper will examine the links between atomic energy and the processes 

in the executive and legislative branches that culminated in the signing into 

law of the National aeronautics and Space act on July 29, 1958. While a 

detailed comparative history of the roles, structures, and functions of NaSa 

and the aeC would immensely contribute to the historical literature, the 

current analysis will focus more narrowly on the way in which the experience 

with atomic energy produced unspoken assumptions and shaped the very 

imagination of politicians of what the new NaSa should and could become 

during the ten-month period from the launch of Sputnik to the passing of the 

National aeronautics and Space act. Specifically, it will be argued that NaSa’s 

rise in the 1960s as an engine of american international prestige was rooted in 

atomic diplomacy, and that certain debates in Congress about the new agency 

Scientific Estate (Belknap press: 1965) that the fusion of political and economic power seen in the 

nuclear and Space age has corrupted market principles by creating corporations solely dependent 

on government subsidies, resulting in a diffusion of political sovereignty that threatens the 

american constitutional order. Finally, no discussion of technocracy in america would be 

complete without mentioning Frederick Winslow taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management 

(New York, NY: harper Brothers, 1911), which called for applying scientific principles to the 

training and management of workers to replace “rule of thumb” factory methods. 

8.	 peter J. Westwick in The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974 (Cambridge, 

Ma:harvard University press,2003) perhaps borrowing from dialectical materialism stresses that 

the systemicity of the labs is central to an understanding of their operation.a single national lab 

cannot exist in isolation; classified journals and conferences and competition for personnel and 

research programs were central issues that defined the individual labs. 

9.	 richard G. hewlett and Jack M. holl Atoms for Peace and War (Berkeley, Ca: University of 

California press, 1989), p. 183. 
 

 

58 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

were largely approached from within a framework of atomic energy, thereby 

limiting the range of discourse and influencing the shape of the new agency. 

While NaSa grew by orders of magnitude in the 1960s, the features that 

specifically identified NaSa as technocratic were frozen into the bureaucracy 

in this formative period. the sudden influx of money after Kennedy’s famous 

decision to set NaSa’s sights on a Moon landing merely inflated NaSa’s existing 

latent potential. 

the rOLe OF preStIGe 

a large debate in the historiography of NaSa centers on the question 

of prestige. Is NaSa’s mission coincident with or even driven by american 

political imperialism? how did national prestige come to be measured by a 

cosmic yardstick? these questions are often posed in light of the two temporal 

sides of the Sputnik rupture. On the one hand, the eisenhower administration 

was seemingly caught unawares of the worldwide impact the launch of Sputnik 

would have on public perceptions of american strength. On the other hand, 

John F. Kennedy would soon after catapult his career on the program to send 

humans to the Moon, a program that “transformed NaSa from a scientific 

research agency into a goal-oriented bureaucracy.”10 

In the fall of 1957, high-level officials extrapolated the Sputnik launch into 

an across-the-board american deficiency in scientific ability. the Democratic 

majority under Senator Lyndon B. Johnson jumped on the opportunity to place 

blame on the republican eisenhower administration and relaunched hearings 

by the preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Committee on armed 

Services in the Senate in late November. General James h. Doolittle provided 

one of the early testimonies.11 In his testimony, Doolittle felt convinced “that 

the rate of russian progress is much more rapid than ours; that, in some areas, 

she has already passed us. If the rate continues, she will pass us in all.”12 

In a meeting of the Office of Defense Mobilization Science advisory 

Committee (SaC) with president eisenhower on October 15, edward h. Land 

explained to the president the reasons for Soviet success:13 

10. Giles alston; Shirley ann Warshaw, ed., Chap. “eisenhower: Leadership in Space policy” in 

Reexamining the Eisenhower Presidency (Westport, Ct: Greenwood, 1993), p. 117. 

11. Doolittle was already famous for his bombing raid on tokyo shortly after the initiation of 

hostilities between the United States and Japan in 1942. he later went on to become Chairman 

of the NaCa board, a position he held at the time of his testimony. 

12. Hearings before the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, 85th 

Congress, 1st and 2nd sessions, pt. 1, p. 111. 

13. at the meeting, I. I. rabi noted “most matters of policy coming before the president have a 

very strong scientific component” and “he didn’t see around the president any personality who 

would help keep the president aware of this point of view.” eisenhower concurred and “said that 

he had felt the need for such assistance time and again.”this discussion led to the suggestion by 
 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 59 

the structure of russian culture and thinking is such that 

they are learning to live the life of science and its application 

. . . Is there a way to tell the country that we should set out 

on a scientific adventure in which all can participate? If this 

can be done, with our concept of freedom and the independent, unfettered man, we can move far ahead. We need a 

scientific community in the american tradition.14 

Whether or not Land had accurately assessed the Soviet mentality towards 

science or of the true implications of the Sputnik launch is of little importance. 

the notable point is the reaction produced in the very highest echelons of 

scientific and military advisory circles. Clearly, the hysteria and “fever” 

that swept the country in the wake of the Sputnik launch was not limited 

to an uninformed public. Indeed, the media and public were simultaneously 

concerned with the integration crisis at Central high School in Little rock, 

arkansas. For those in the government primarily concerned with national 

security, Sputnik produced a larger effect than in the public at large. 

the conception of Sputnik as a discontinuity is linked to the conception 

of scientific prestige as a benchmark for national strength. Since eisenhower 

misjudged the impact Sputnik would have on the perception of the United 

States, so the argument goes, only after the media frenzy and political attacks of 

fall 1957 did the administration recognize the importance of science to national 

prestige in the international sphere. even in the face of Sputnik, eisenhower 

seemingly remained steadfast in his dislike of federal bureaucracy and shied 

away from setting prestige as a goal of space research. On November 7, 1957, 

eisenhower announced the creation of the post of Special assistant to the 

president for Science and technology in a televised address on national security. 

the address summarized american nuclear assets while noting deficiencies in 

science education in america. the speech concluded with a warning against 

runaway spending: 

It misses the whole point to say that we must now increase 

our expenditures of all kinds on military hardware and 

defense—as, for example, to heed demands recently made 

that we restore all personnel cuts made in the armed forces. 

Certainly, we need to feel a high sense of urgency. But this 

James Killian for the creation of a scientific advisory panel to assist the proposed advisor.this 

would become the president’s Science advisory Committee (pSaC), which began meeting in 

November with Dr. Killian as its head. “Detailed (largely verbatim) notes on a meeting of the 

ODM Science advisory Committee with the president on October 15, 1957,” folder 012401, 

NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC. 

14. Ibid. 
 

does not mean that we should mount our charger and try to 

ride off in all directions at once.We must clearly identify the 

exact and critical needs that have to be met. We must then 

apply our resources at that point as fully as the need demands. 

this means selectivity in national expenditures of all kinds.15 

By analyzing metaphor in his speeches and press conferences, Linda t. Krug 

notes eisenhower’s “images created a vision of a nation of scientist-generals 

already hard at work planning how to unlock the secrets of the universe.”16 But 

the conclusion she draws that “eisenhower was the only president who saw the 

space program as a viable entity in and of itself ” is based on the assumption that 

eisenhower never clothed hidden intentions in crowd-pleasing rhetoric.17 Such 

sweeping conclusions about eisenhower’s personal views cannot be drawn from 

televised statements. all presidents must maintain a carefully groomed public 

persona.While eisenhower’s public proclamations often criticized big government, 

policy decisions and internal White house discourse did not match his rhetoric. 

the National Security Council (NSC) engaged the question of prestige 

in relation to the planned american and Soviet satellite launches during the 

International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958. a technological Capabilities 

panel (tCp) was formed in 1954 under James Killian to investigate the satellite 

question and other technical issues deemed vital to national security.18 the 

tCp issued its final report in February 1955 and the NSC, following the 

tCp’s recommendation, concluded in May of that year that the U.S. effort 

(project Vanguard) should be given high priority as “considerable prestige 

and psychological benefits will accrue to the nation which first is successful 

in launching a satellite.”19 the importance of such benefits was paramount to 

15. Dwight D. eisenhower, “radio and television address to the american people on Science in 

National Security,”November 7,1957,http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19571113%20 

Radio%20and%20Television%20Address%20on%20Our%20Future%20Security.htm. 

16. Linda t. Krug, Presidential Perspectives on Space Exploration: Guiding Metaphors from Eisenhower to 

Bush (New York: praeger publishers, 1991), p. 29. 

17. Ibid. 

18. the tCp also drew the famous conclusion that establishing freedom of over-flight in space, 

i.e., sovereignty claims of airspace not extending beyond the atmosphere, was in the long-term 

interests of the U.S. this was motivated by the expectation that the U.S. would have a large 

lead over the U.S.S.r. in electronic satellite reconnaissance capability. For an overview of the 

tCp and its impact on the freedom of space, see McDougall . . . the Heavens and the Earth, ch. 5. 

Dwayne a. Day has recently uncovered documents tracing the origin of this principle to a CIa 

intelligence officer, richard Bissell, and an air Force aide working for the CIa. Dwayne Day, 

“the Central Intelligence agency and Freedom of Space,” paper presented at remembering 

the Space age: 50th anniversary Conference, NaSa history Office and National air & Space 

Museum Division of Space history,Washington, DC, October 22, 2007. 

19.“National Security Council report 5520: Missile and Space programs.” See A Guide to Documents of 

the National Security Council, 1947-1977 ed. paul Kesaris, (University publications of america, 1980). 

60 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 
 

 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 61 

U.S. foreign policy since “the inference of such a demonstration of advanced 

technology and its unmistakable relationship to inter-continental ballistic missile 

technology might have important repercussions on the political determination 

of free world countries to resist Communist threats, especially if the U.S.S.r. 

were to be the first to establish a satellite.”20 

the NSC concluded the U.S. scientific satellite effort should not hinder 

military missile developments and, therefore, should be vested in a separate, 

civilian-run program headed by the National Science Foundation. It is absolutely 

clear that the eisenhower administration intended to use the satellite launch to 

reinforce american scientific prowess in the international arena. 

the fact that prestige was an important element after that fateful October 

4 and during the formative period of NaSa is uncontroversial. In a pSaC 

meeting in March 1958, hans Bethe commented, “it would be a great mistake 

for us to oppose popular enthusiasm even though misguided.21 and in a recently 

declassified Office of research and Intelligence report issued just two weeks 

after Sputnik on October 17, 1957, it was concluded: 

the technologically less advanced—the audience most 

impressed and dazzled by the sputnik [sic]—are often the audience most vulnerable to the attractions of the Soviet system 

. . . It will generate myth, legend and enduring superstition of 

a kind peculiarly difficult to eradicate or modify, which the 

USSr can exploit to its advantage, among backward, ignorant, and apolitical audiences particularly difficult to reach.22 

the report went even further in claiming the United States itself had fanned 

the flames of the fire in three ways: “first by fanfare of its own announcement of 

its satellite plans, second by creating the impression that we considered ourselves 

to have an invulnerable lead in this scientific and technological area, and third 

by the nature of the reaction within the U.S.” 

the importance of science to national prestige in the eisenhower 

administration existed long before Sputnik; it originated in the experience with 

atomic energy. eisenhower had long been an advocate of using atomic energy 

20. Ibid. 

21. pSaC Meeting, March 12, 1958. the transcribed notes of the pSaC are spotty at best, and 

the argumentative logic is nearly incomprehensible. they are reproduced in The Papers of 

the President’s Science Advisory Committee, 1957-1961, microfilm, (University publications of 

america, 1986). 

22. Office of 	research and Intelligence report, “World Opinion and the Soviet Satellite: a 

preliminary evaluation,”declassified 1993,folder 18106,(NaSa historical reference Collection, 

NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC). 
 

 

 

62 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

to further U.S. foreign policy, a fact exemplified by his personal championing 

of the atoms-for-peace program. 

In his December 8, 1953 address to the U.N. General assembly, president 

eisenhower called for the establishment of an “international atomic energy 

agency” to serve as a stockpile of nuclear materials for peaceful uses around the 

world. the proposal was “enunciated by the president almost as a personal hope,” 

with few advisors and only one of the five atomic energy Commissioners, 

Lewis Strauss, aware of the proposal ahead of time.23 the original proposal 

was devoid of details but is significant in that eisenhower displayed a personal 

desire to use science and scientific prestige as a tool of international diplomacy. 

the policy was consciously constructed around the issue of prestige, e.g., the 

amount of uranium to be contributed by the United States was set at a high 

enough figure that the Soviet Union would not be able to match the american 

contribution.24 While the implementation of the plan was slow in arriving, 

the middle of the decade saw tangible, albeit often ineffective, international 

cooperation in atomic technology with the U.S. as the international lynchpin 

and guarantor of atomic security. Science in the eisenhower administration 

was part and parcel of foreign policy. 

the tendency to employ science in the service of international prestige 

was expressed early on in the discussions concerning a new space agency. 

Coincidentally, eisenhower asked James Killian (then president of MIt) to 

become his personal science advisor over breakfast on October 24, the purpose 

of the meeting being Killian’s briefing of eisenhower in preparation for the 

atoms-for-peace award being given to Neils Bohr later that day.25 

In an Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) Memorandum issued in 

January for Secretary of health arthur S. Fleming, the analogy to atomic energy 

was clearly enunciated: “In addition to the military importance of the scientific 

satellite one should not overlook the benefits of adequate emphasis on peaceful 

applications of rocketry just as the atoms-for-peace program has served to divert 

world attention from nuclear weapons.”26 and in a legislative leadership meeting 

on February 4, president eisenhower cautioned against pouring “unlimited 

funds into these costly projects where there was nothing of early value to the 

nation’s security. he recalled the great effort he had made for the atomic peace 

23. hewlett and holl, Atoms for Peace and War, pp. 210-213. 

24. John Krige,“atoms for peace, Scientific Internationalism, and Scientific Intelligence” Osiris 21 

(1996): 164. 

25. James r. Killian, Jr., Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower, (Cambridge, Ma: the MIt press, 

1977), p. 24. 

26.executive Office of the president ODM Memorandum to arthur S.Fleming,“Scientific Satellites,” 

January 23, 1957, folder 012401, NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 
 

 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 63 

Ship but Congress would not authorize it, even though in his opinion it would 

have been a very worthwhile project.”27 

the relation of prestige to spaceflight has trickled down to the present day. 

political pundits still routinely call the value of human spaceflight into question. 

NaSa is frequently attacked as a wolf in sheep’s clothing; that is, NaSa’s stated 

peaceful exploratory goals are often argued to be merely a facade covering 

deeper political and military motives. the origins of this dichotomy can be 

traced directly back to the emphasis placed on prestige during the conception 

of NaSa in the eisenhower administration, which was in turn based on the 

experience of atomic foreign policy. By the time a man-in-space investigatory 

panel was commissioned in 1959 by George Kistiakowsky, then head of the 

pSaC, it was clear that putting humans in space was solely a prestige issue: 

In executive session of the panel, we talked about these 

things and I emphasized the need to spell out in our report 

what cannot be done in space without man. My opinion is 

that that area is relatively small and that, therefore, building 

bigger vehicles than Saturn B has to be thought of as mainly 

a political rather than a scientific enterprise.28 

Indeed, it can be concluded that space represented a welcome new 

opportunity for eisenhower’s continuing desire to demonstrate american 

technological prowess because of a decline in the perception of atomic energy 

as a positive international technology, a decline spurred on by rising fears 

of global nuclear annihilation. Certainly the destructive element of nuclear 

technology had been publicly decried immediately after the hiroshima and 

Nagasaki bombings, but the shift in scale from local (bomber-delivered atomic 

bombs) to global (intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM]-delivered hydrogen 

bombs) damned any hope for an unproblematic public perception of nuclear 

technology. the first hydrogen bomb tests by the United States in 1952 and 

the Soviet Union in 1953 were followed by the irradiation of the Japanese 

fishing boat Lucky Dragon 5 by the Castle Bravo test in March 1954, leading to 

a widespread public concern over the effects of nuclear radiation. 

an illustrative example of the qualitative transformation of atomic energy 

in the public imagination can be drawn from science fiction. Isaac asimov’s 

Foundation trilogy, published between 1951 and 1953, portrayed humanity 

in the far future as a galactic empire in decline. the Foundation, created by a 

27. Supplementary Notes, Legislative Leadership Meeting, February 4, 1958, folder 18106, NaSa 

historical reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC. 

28. George Kistiakowsky A Scientist at the White House: The Private Diary of President Eisenhower’s 

Special Assistant for Science and Technology (Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press, 1976), 

p. 409. 
 

 

64 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

visionary scientist who foresaw the collapse of civilization using new historicalpredictive methods, becomes the sole possessor of knowledge of atomic 

technology and hence the last hope for humanity’s future.29 But by the end of 

the 1950s, post-apocalyptic novels set in nuclear winter ruled the genre: Nevil 

Shute’s On the Beach (1957), pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon (1959), and Walter M. 

Miller, Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959). Space, then, was a natural avenue 

into which the eisenhower administration could expand its policy of scientific 

prestige in the service of the state while avoiding the stigmas becoming 

associated with nuclear technology. 

the NatIONaL aerONaUtICS aND SpaCe aCt OF 1958 

Of special importance to the current analysis are the sections of the National 

aeronautics and Space act of 1958 that were inspired by the atomic energy 

acts of 1946 and 1954. Specifically, these are: the relation of the Department 

of Defense to the new agency, the role of international cooperation, and the 

apportionment of intellectual property. 

When president-elect eisenhower was briefed on aeC activities in 

November 1952, he took special exception to Gordon Dean’s acquiescence to 

the air Force’s demand for atomic-powered plane research in the face of good 

evidence that such a program would not produce a viable aircraft. “Looking 

out the window he declared that this kind of reasoning was wrong. If a civilian 

agency like the Commission thought that a military requirement was untenable 

or wasteful in terms of existing technology, there was an obligation to oppose 

it.”30 this was a prescient moment for it foreshadowed the problem of divvying 

up responsibility between competing civilian and military institutions during 

the formation of NaSa. 

analogies to the atomic energy Commission were widespread throughout 

the legislative creation of the new space agency. During the congressional 

hearings, eilene Galloway, a national defense analyst at the Library of Congress, 

was invited by representative McCormack (the chair of the house committee) 

to write a report on the issues facing Congress in the drafting of the National 

aeronautics and Space act.31 her report was widely read and was reprinted 

in both the Senate and house proceedings and is notable for several reasons. 

First, Galloway drew the immediate conclusion that a comparison to the issues 

29. Special thanks to Dan Bouk for pointing out this poignant example from a trilogy I have read 

four times yet somehow overlooked: Isaac asimov’s Foundation (Gnome press, 1951), Foundation 

and Empire (Gnome press, 1952), and Second Foundation (Gnome press, 1953). 

30. hewlett and holl, Atoms for Peace and War, p. 14. 

31. Galloway also served as special consultant to Lyndon Johnson during the Senate hearings and has 

since become a noted aerospace historian. 
 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 65 

facing the drafters of the atomic energy act of 1946 (informally known as the 

McMahon act) would be fruitful. to Galloway, the similarities were obvious: 

atomic energy and outer space are alike in opening new 

frontiers which are indissolubly linked with the question 

of war and peace. they combine the possibility of peaceful 

uses for the benefit of man and of military uses which can 

destroy civilization. Both are national and international in 

their scope. they involve the relation of science and government, the issue of civilian or military control, and problems 

of organization for the executive branch and the Congress. 

If only their similarities are considered, the legislative task 

would appear to be the easy one of following the pattern of 

our present atomic energy legislation.32 

according to Galloway, the dissimilarities between the two are centered 

around the problem of delineating military and civilian aspects of aerospace 

technology. While the boundaries are reasonably clear in the atomic case 

(bombs versus reactors), nearly every aspect of aerospace technology overlaps the 

two sides of the military-civilian divide. this is perhaps an oversimplification 

in that much effort had gone into the atomic energy act of 1954 to allow 

the development of a civilian atomic energy industry and the civilian-military 

divide in practice was quite problematic. Still, it remains true that, in the case 

of atomic energy, a relatively clear boundary between civilian and military 

applications could be established through strict regulation of nuclear materials. 

In the case of NaSa this was not true, yet still a formal divide was automatically 

assumed to be of paramount importance. In part this was due to concerns of 

needless duplication of effort and bureaucratic infighting over jurisdictional 

matters. however, previous experience with the aeC weighed heavily on 

lawmakers, particularly in the house of representatives, who now saw science 

as intimately tied up with national security and felt a need for such a relationship 

to be codified in law. the administration favored a more informal relationship, 

as had been the case with the NaCa. Both sides weighed heavily on precedent 

to reinforce their arguments. 

the debate surrounding the obligations of the new space agency to the 

Department of Defense and vice versa has long been the center-point of the 

history of the National aeronautics and Space act of 1958. this is for the 

reason that the delineation of the role of military and civilian agencies has 

obvious current political implications, but it remains true that much of the 

contemporary debate also surrounded the issue. the wording of §102(b) of 

32. eilene Galloway, The Problems of Congress in Formulating Outer-space Legislation, (Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government printing Office, March 1958). 
 

66 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

the National aeronautics and Space act established the following criterion by 

which specific projects could be judged to be NaSa- or Defense-centric: 

the Congress declares that the general welfare and security 

of the United States require that adequate provision be made 

for aeronautical and space activities. the Congress further 

declares that 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, except that activities peculiar or primarily associated with the 

development of weapons systems, military operations, or the defense 

of the United States . . . shall be the responsibility of, and shall be 

directed by, the Department of Defense . . .33 

the act also established a National aeronautics and Space Council 

headed by the president and including the Secretary of State, Secretary of 

Defense, NaSa administrator, and the Chairman of the aeC. the inclusion 

of the aeC chairman here is quite curious. In addition, any disputes between 

departments and agencies over jurisdictional matters were to be settled by the 

president under advisement of the council. 

the original Bureau of the Budget draft bill was quite different from 

the arrangement in the aeC, which embodied communication with the 

Department of Defense in its Military Liaison Committee. In his official 

commentary sent to the Bureau of the Budget on the original bill, Strauss 

suggested “the act provide for inter-agency liaison similar to that which has 

operated so satisfactorily in the case of the Military Liaison Committee in the 

atomic energy program.”34 the house bill included such a liaison committee 

and, in addition, another for the aeC. the administration had favored informal 

cooperation in the form of uniformed seats on the advisory in the same style 

as the NaCa had traditionally pursued. the Senate kept the administration’s 

arrangement. In the final compromise bill, the military liaison committee was 

added, while the aeC liaison was dropped. 

an internal Bureau of the Budget memo in May snidely remarked on the 

house bill that “among the trappings of the atomic energy act inserted in this 

bill are sections establishing and prescribing the functions of a Military Liaison 

Committee and an atomic energy Liaison Committee. Both Committees are to 

be headed by chairmen appointed by the president . . . the Department of Defense 

as well as NaCa has opposed this creation of statutory liaison committees, and 

33. National aeronautics and Space act of 1958, public Law 95-568, http://history.nasa.gov/spaceact. 

html. emphasis and ellipses added. 

34. Lewis Strauss to Maurice Stans, Director of the Bureau of the Budget, March 31, 1958, folder 

012405, (NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC). 
 

 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 67 

every effort should be made to secure their elimination in the Senate.”35 the 

inclusion of the liaison committees in the house bill suggests a strong tendency 

to adopt portions of the aeC paradigm wholesale. It is particularly remarkable 

in this case because the civilian-military boundary proposed for NaSa was 

quite different than the model in the aeC. that is, NaSa would by default 

carry on the bulk of aerospace research, but the Department of Defense, by 

sufficiently justifying its need directly to the president, could develop its own 

aerospace projects. this is in stark contrast to the complete monopolization of 

basic atomic research by the aeC, which necessitated a reliable and clear avenue 

of communication to and from the military. 

the differences between NaSa’s and the aeC’s relationships with the 

military deserves elaboration. From the beginning, the aeC was to encompass 

all levels of nuclear research, nuclear materials production, reactor design, 

and bomb construction. this centralization was a result of the realities of 

atomic energy. First, the Manhattan District was already in place during the 

establishment of the aeC and maintaining its internal configuration was 

necessary for the uninterrupted production of atomic weapons. Second, and 

more important, atomic energy as a technology is unique for a material reason: 

the regulation of atomic technology is in large part the regulation of a single 

element and its derivatives. Indeed, the atomic energy act categorically 

transferred “all right, title, and interest within or under the jurisdiction of the 

United States, in or to any fissionable material, now or hereafter produced” to 

the Commission. In effect, all atoms on U.S. territory with 92 or more protons 

were declared to be the property of the federal government. In addition, an 

entire new class of information was created. termed “restricted Data,” this 

wide umbrella automatically “classified at birth” any and “all data concerning 

the manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, the production of fissionable 

material, or the use of fissionable material in the production of power.”36 

regulation of fissionable material was also the assumed primary task of early 

atomic weapons nonproliferation efforts. Containment of atomic technology 

was seen as synonymous with ownership of nuclear materials. 

From the inception of the aeC the production and control of nuclear 

materials was the prime directive of the organization. Fissionable material was 

simultaneously obviously dangerous, necessary for national defense, and could 

be relatively easily collected and controlled. the implication of this material 

reality was tremendous for the bureaucratization of atomic technology in a 

central governmental agency. In the case of aerospace technology, such a clear 

compartmentalization was not a natural outgrowth of the relevant technology. 

35. Letter from alan L. Dean to Wiliam Finan, June 2, 1958, folder 12400, NaSa historical 

reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC. 

36. atomic energy act, 1946. public Law 585, 79th Congress, http://www.osti.gov/atomicenergyact.pdf.
 

 

 

68 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Still, the basic structure of the aeC was to provide a perceived “obvious model” 

for creating an aerospace agency. 

§205 of the National aeronautics and Space act provided engagement 

in “a program of international cooperation . . . and in the peaceful application 

of the results thereof.” the Senate Special Committee had noted in a report 

entitled Reasons for Confusion over Outer Space Legislation and how to Dispel it that 

“the main reason why we must have a civilian agency in the outer space field 

is because of the necessity of negotiating with other nations and the United 

Nations from some non-military posture.”37 

the act specifically authorized the administrator to grant access to NaSa 

employees to aeC restricted data. this violated long-standing aeC policy, 

which based access on aeC classified status. Strauss thus raised the concern that 

the act would allow the president to “disseminate restricted Data to foreign 

governments . . . We think that an extension of this existing authority to the 

proposed agency would be undesirable and unworkable.”38 In his testimony 

before the Senate Special Committee, Strauss stressed his preference for limiting 

international agreements at the outset, and noted that “the history of these new 

agencies, if the atomic energy Commission is a prototype, has been that, in 

the course of time, the basic law is amended by spelling out in greater detail 

the extent to which cooperation with other nations may be carried on.”39 the 

strong ties to the aeC are evident. 

the issue of intellectual property centered on the allocation of patents. the 

house bill patterned itself on the atomic energy act, giving the government 

exclusive ownership of any intellectual property arrived at due to NaSa-related 

work. the american patent Law association lobbied against such a provision, 

for the obvious reason that long-term profits from owning patents was a prime 

incentive for firms bidding on contracts.40 In a letter to William F. Finan, hans 

adler (both were in the Bureau of the Budget) wrote in reference to the patent 

provision in h.r. 12575 (the bill that became the National aeronautics and 

Space act): “this provision is also based on the atomic energy act. however, 

we doubt that the atomic energy act should serve as the proper precedent, 

since inventions in the atomic area have peculiar defense and secrecy aspects 

37. Senate Special Committee on Space and astronautics report, “reasons for Confusion over 

Outer Space Legislation and how to Dispel it” May 11, 1958, folder 012389, NaSa historical 

reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC. 

38. Letter,Lewis Strauss,General Manager of aeC,to Maurice Stans,Director Bureau of the Budget. 

March 31, 1958, folder 012405, NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa headquarters, 

Washington, DC. 

39. hearings Before the Special Committee on Space and astronautics, United States Senate, 85th 

Congress, 2nd session, p. 50. 

40. richard hirsch and Joseph John trento, The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (New 

York: praeger publishers, 1973), p. 26. 
 

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe 69 

which make private ownership difficult.”41 again, we have an example of the 

adoption of policies crafted for atomic energy without reasoned analysis of 

their relevance to an aerospace agency. the final language adopted assigned 

intellectual property to the government, with the administrator having the 

right to waive this right if he so desired. 

It cannot be overstated how formative the experience with atomic energy 

was on the psyche of those determining the shape of NaSa. the belief that 

atomic energy would infuse all aspects of future technology was widely held in 

1950s america, and rocketry was no exception. the realities of chemical reactive 

propulsion dictate a maximum theoretical efficiency (specific impulse) due to 

limited available chemical enthalpy, but the exit velocity of a thermal nuclear 

rocket is limited only by material failure at high temperatures. the aeC, for 

these reasons, launched just such a nuclear rocket research program (rOVer) 

in 1956. Stanislaus Ulam, testifying before the house Select Committee on 

astronautics and Space exploration, reaffirmed that “it is not a question of 

conjecture or optimism, but one might say it is mathematically certain that 

it will be the nuclearly powered vehicle which will hold the stage in the near 

future.”42 With historical actors like Ulam making such statements, it becomes 

clear that the birth of NaSa as an institution must be historically analyzed 

through the lens of the atomic experience. the concept of the stewardship of 

the state over technological affairs had become ingrained in the imagination in 

the atomic era and was adopted without serious protest during the formation of 

NaSa. Indeed, a sharp contrast can be drawn to the violent reaction by private 

interests to the original atomic energy act and the relatively benign reception 

of the National air and Space act. a profound transformation had occurred in 

the intervening years. 

CONCLUSION 

Under the atomic energy Commission, technocracy had been introduced 

to america. Under NaSa, it was wedded to the federal framework. there are 

fundamental differences to the two cases, as in the ability to control nuclear 

material and the need to enforce atomic secrecy through the curtailment of 

granting patents. But throughout the whole of the discussions in both the 

executive and legislative branches during 1957-1958, it remains clear that 

the framers of the new aerospace agency were profoundly affected by their 

experience with atomic energy, specifically the aeC. When conceiving of 

a new agency, bureaucrats and legislators actively reached into the past and 

41. hans adler to William Finan,“Subject:hr 12575.”June 4,1958,folder 12400,(NaSa historical 

reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC). 

42. Hearings Before the Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, 85th Congress, 2nd 

session, p. 602. 
 

 

70 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

cherry-picked elements from their prior experience with atomic energy while 

passively making unconscious assumptions based on the technological realities 

of atomic energy. Often the decisions they arrived at were not appropriate for 

the aerospace case. 

NaSa represented a form of technocracy that divorced military interests 

as completely as possible. In the 1960s, NaSa would become an agency 

mobilized for social change. thomas hughes argues in American Genesis that, 

during the Great Depression, the tennessee Valley authority (tVa) was a push 

for regional social development by progressive politicians via electrification 

and the management of water resources.43 NaSa followed in these footsteps. 

perhaps not so coincidentally one of the original commissioners of the tVa, 

David Lilienthal, would later become the first chairman of the aeC. 

But NaSa was technocracy in an evolved form. It combined three 

trends that had not yet together existed in any american organization: 1) Big 

Science, i.e., the close cooperation of large numbers of scientists and engineers 

in a vertically integrated hierarchy organized for the production of massive 

projects; 2) a mandate that pushed science for social benefits and simultaneously 

minimized obligations to the military; and 3) science in the service of national 

prestige abroad. 

the atomic energy Commission took over the operation of the entire 

american atomic machine, from enrichment to reactor design to bomb testing 

in the South pacific. NaSa, instead, was given a mandate to push the boundaries 

forward in aerospace technology only insofar as they could be peacefully used. 

this was, then, a pivotal transformation in the history of american technocratic 

institutions. Under the presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson, NaSa was a 

juicy target to be expanded, but this was merely opportunism. NaSa’s form 

had already been cemented in 1958, a form which had atomic roots. 

43. thomas p. hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm 

1870-1970 (New York, NY: Viking penguin, 1989), pp. 360-381. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5 

Creating a Memory of the German rocket 

program for the Cold War 

Michael J. Neufeld 

I

n the middle of april 1945, as allied armies swept into what little remained 

of the third reich, american newspapers carried horrifying reports, 

followed by photos of recently liberated concentration camps in central 

Germany. prominent among them was a camp in the city of Nordhausen. 

Several thousand corpses and a few hundred emaciated survivors were found, 

along with a smaller number of dead and dying a few kilometers away at the 

Mittelbau-Dora main camp, which was located next to an amazing underground 

V-weapons plant known as the Mittelwerk. a couple of weeks later, a new wave 

of shock spread through allied populations when official newsreels of the camp 

liberations reached movie theaters, including footage of Bergen-Belsen, 

Buchenwald, and Nordhausen. Some american newspapers explicitly made the 

connection between the horrors of the latter and V-2 missile production.1 

Yet within a year or two, that connection had almost sunk without a trace. 

By the time the U.S. army held a war crimes trial for Nordhausen in 1947, the 

U.S. press almost ignored it as yet another trial. When former project leaders 

Gen. Walter Dornberger and Dr. Wernher von Braun, both by then living in 

the U.S., came to give interviews and publish memoirs in the 1950s about the 

V-2 project and the peenemünde rocket center, they were able to essentially 

omit the underground plant and its concentration-camp prisoners from their 

stories as there was little information in the public domain to challenge such a 

formulation. Other writers, notably Willy Ley—the former German spaceflight 

society member and refugee from the Nazis who more than anyone else founded 

space history in the english-speaking world—also said virtually nothing about 

1.	 “tunnel Factory: Yanks Seize V-2 plant in Mountain,” Washington Post, april 14, 1945; ann 

Stringer, “Dead and Dying Litter Floor of Nazi prison Barracks,” Los Angeles Times, april 15, 

1945;“Germans Forced to Bury Victims,” New York Times, april 15, 1945;“tribune Survey Bares 

Full horror of German atrocities,” Chicago Tribune, april 25, 1945;“Waiting for Death” (photo), 

Los Angeles Times, april 26, 1945; Bosley Crowther, “the Solemn Facts: Our Screen Faces a 

responsibility to Show Newsreels and Similar Films,” New York Times, april 29, 1945; “Camp 

horror Films are exhibited here,” New York Times, May 2, 1945; “Mrs. Luce tells Nazi Slave 

policy,aimed to protect Secret Weapons,” New York Times, May 4, 1945. 
 

 

 

 

 

72 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Two survivors in the Nordhausen-Boelcke Kaserne camp at the time of liberation by 

the U.S. Army in April 1945. The horrors of Nordhausen and the nearby underground 

V-weapons plant were briefly infamous in the Western press. (National Archives) 

these atrocities. It appears likely that Ley knew little about them due to a 

deliberate policy of silence by the ex-peenemünders and the U.S. government. 

the former clearly had strong motivations of self-interest, and the latter wished 

to protect the program of importing engineers, scientists, and technicians from 

Nazi Germany that became best known as project paperclip.2 

Of course, those were not the primary reasons why Ley, von Braun, and 

Dornberger gave interviews and wrote books and articles. these pioneers 

wanted to tell their part in the exciting story of German rocket development 

2.	 On paperclip, see Clarence G. Lasby, Project Paperclip: German Scientists and the Cold War (New 

York: atheneum, 1971); Linda hunt, “U.S. Coverup of Nazi Scientists,” Bulletin of the Atomic 

Scientists (april 1985), pp. 16-24, and Secret Agenda:The United States Government, Nazi Scientists 

and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (New York: St. Martin’s press, 1991);tom Bower, The Paperclip 

Conspiracy:The Battle for the Spoils and Secrets of Nazi Germany (London: Michael Joseph, 1987). 

My assertions about U.S. press coverage of Nordhausen between 1945 and the 1980s are based 

on keyword searches of proquest historical Newspapers.Smithsonian researchers have electronic 

access to seven papers: New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, 

Chicago Tribune,Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Los Angeles Times. 
 

 

CreatING a MeMOrY OF the GerMaN rOCket prOGraM 73 

FOr the COLD War 

from the Weimar amateur groups through the creation of the V-2 and its export 

to the U.S. Ley and von Braun in particular were also trying to sell the public 

something they fervently believed in: spaceflight. however, in the process, they 

were compelled to provide a sanitized history of Nazi rocket activities palatable 

to Western audiences during the Cold War. Because von Braun’s German-led 

engineering team played an important role in american missile development 

in the 1950s, they needed to justify the Germans’ presence and the obvious 

continuities between Nazi and american rocketry, as did the U.S. government, 

which faced episodic Soviet-bloc denunciations over the issue. after Sputnik, 

when the space race with the Soviets became a central public concern, popular 

writers supplemented the pioneering efforts of Ley, von Braun, Dornberger, and 

others with books built on the foundation laid by the three former Germans. 

among the most noteworthy aspects of this early German rocket 

historiography as it developed in the 1960s are: 1) a romanticization of the 

Nazi rocket center at peenemünde as fundamentally aimed at space travel, 

rather than weapons development for hitler—although that was less the case 

for Dornberger, the military commander; 2) a corresponding depiction of the 

peenemünders as apolitical or even anti-Nazi engineers driven by space dreams, 

which was both an exaggeration and a conflation of von Braun’s experience 

with that of his group; and 3) a suppression of almost all information about 

concentration-camp labor and membership in Nazi organizations. these 

tendencies were bolstered by the deeper Cold War memory cultures of the 

United States and West Germany, which promoted an often selective view of 

World War II that neglected the holocaust. as a result, the Mittelwerk and its 

attached Mittelbau-Dora camp virtually fell out of history—at least outside the 

Soviet bloc—until the 1970s, and in the United States, for the most part until 

1984. this paper will examine the phases of the creation of this memory of the 

German rocket program and what social, cultural, and political factors allowed 

it to flourish relatively undisturbed for three decades. 

the postwar history of the German rocket program—and the genre of space 

history in the english-speaking world—began largely with one book, Willy 

Ley’s Rockets. It originally appeared in May 1944 before he had any knowledge 

of the V-2, but it was greatly expanded after the war in multiple editions such 

as Rockets and Space Travel (1947) and Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel (1951). 

From the outset, Ley included not only the origins of rocketry, early space travel 

ideas, and the history of military rockets, but also a memoir of his involvement 

with Weimar rocket activities and the Vfr, the German spaceflight society 

(1927-1934). It was quite natural for him to add the history of the rocket programs 

of Nazi Germany, predominantly the army program and its peenemünde center 

that produced the V-2. his sources included various newspaper and magazine 

articles, notably in the 1947 edition in which he repeated a lot of wild rumors and 

nonsense from the press. however, over time he greatly improved his account, 

based on his personal contacts with Wernher von Braun and later with other 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

74 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

peenemünders. In early December 1946, immediately after the U.S. government 

unveiled project paperclip to the american press and public, von Braun visited 

Ley at his home in Queens, New York, their first encounter since sometime in 

1932 or 1933. they enthusiastically discussed the German project until 2:45 a.m. 

Ley told herbert Schaefer, the only other Weimar rocketeer to emigrate during 

the 1930s, “that I found no reason to regard v.B. as an outspoken anti-Nazi. But 

just as little, if not even less, did I find him to be a Nazi. In my opinion the man 

simply wanted to build rockets. period.” While this judgment contained a lot 

of truth, it would not be the last time that von Braun received a free pass on his 

third reich activities from his fellow space enthusiasts.3 

Ley had fled to the U.S. in 1935 to escape the Nazi crackdown on the private rocket groups and later wrote for the leftist New York tabloid P.M., so this 

willingness to accept von Braun’s account is intriguing and not entirely easy to 

explain.the end-of-war concentration camp revelations were not far in the past. 

Certainly a passionately shared absorption with space travel has everything to do 

with it, but it also seems likely that Ley willingly accepted the assumptions that 

americans brought to the problem of the complicity of scientists, engineers, and 

doctors with Nazi crimes: that it was fairly straightforward to separate the few 

fanatical Nazis from the bulk of mere opportunists who only wanted to work 

in their specialty. Crimes against humanity were ascribed to the SS; technically 

trained people were given almost a free pass unless there was evidence of specific 

involvement and/or Nazi enthusiasm. In the case of the V-2 and its underground 

plant, those assumptions can be seen at work from an early stage in the reports 

of Major robert Staver, who led U.S. army Ordnance’s technical intelligence 

team there; he described the rocketeers as “top-notch engineers” no different than 

allied “scientists” in developing weapons of war. these assumptions also played 

out in project paperclip,where behind a veil of classification,U.S.military agencies 

screened engineers and scientists almost solely on the basis of membership in Nazi 

organizations while explaining away virtually all “problem cases” as opportunism. 

even Wernher von Braun, who had been (admittedly somewhat reluctantly) an SS 

officer, was finally legalized as an immigrant in 1949 on those grounds. But his file, 

like those of the others, remained classified until the 1980s, so he was able to leave 

the potentially damaging fact of his SS membership out of his memoirs and the 

official biographies that the U.S.army and later NaSa distributed.4 

3.	 Willy Ley, Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere (New York: Viking, 1944), 

Rockets and Space Travel (New York:Viking, 1947), Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel (New York: 

Viking, 1951). Compare the peenemünde chapters in the latter two. For von Braun’s visit and 

the quotation: Ley to Schaefer, December 8, 1946, in file 165, box 5, Ley Collection, National 

air and Space Museum archives (original in German, my translation). 

4.	 Staver to Ordnance r&D, June 17, 1945, in Box 87, e.1039a, rG156, National archives 

College park; hunt, Secret Agenda, chaps. 3, 4, 7; Michael J. Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, 

Engineer of War (New York:alfred a. knopf, 2007), pp. 120-122, 234-238, 245, 323-324, 347-348, 

404-406, 428-429. 
 

 

 

 

 

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Willy Ley (right) and Wernher von Braun (middle) with Heinz Haber (left), c. 1954. These 

three were the scientific advisors to Walt Disney’s mid-1950s space television 

series. (National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution) 

Von Braun wrote his first memoir in 1950 for a British Interplanetary 

Society book never came to pass. It eventually appeared in the society’s journal 

in 1956, somewhat rewritten and, in one case at least, bowdlerized. his original 

manuscript made a rather bald statement of amoral opportunism regarding the 

1932 discussions between his Berlin rocket group and the German army, which 

led to his working for the latter as a civilian: “We felt no moral scruples about 

the possible future use of our brainchild. We were interested solely in exploring 

outer space. It was simply a question with us of how the golden cow could be 

milked most successfully.”5 that statement vanished in the published version, 

but it had already appeared in print five years earlier in a lengthy and fascinating 

profile of von Braun in the New Yorker magazine on april 21, 1951. Whether he 

5.	 Wernher von Braun (hereinafter WvB), “Behind the Scenes of rocket Development in 

Germany 1928 through 1945,” ms., 1950, in file 702-20,WvB papers, U.S. Space and rocket 

Center (hereinafter USSrC);WvB,“reminiscences of German rocketry,” Journal of the British 

Interplanetary Society 15 (May-June 1956): 125-145. 
 

 

 

76 reMeMBerING the Space age 

actually said it to the writer, Daniel Lang, during the interview or Lang lifted 

it from the manuscript that von Braun lent him is unclear. But the memoir 

and the profile offered the same fundamental account: von Braun, seized with 

dreams of spaceflight since his teenage years in the 1920s, went along with the 

German army as it offered money for rocketry, then hitler came to power, 

which led to vastly increased resources and the building of peenemünde and 

the V-2. Late in the war, the intervention of higher Nazi powers increased as 

these weapons became of interest to hitler—who von Braun saw a few times— 

leading to heinrich himmler’s attempt to take over the rocket program for 

the SS. after von Braun rebuffed himmler’s initiative, he was arrested by the 

Gestapo with two colleagues in early 1944 for drunken remarks in which they 

stated that they would rather go into space than build weapons. he was only 

rescued because of the intervention of his mentor, General Dornberger. When 

the third reich collapsed a year later, von Braun led his team away from the 

Soviets and surrendered to the americans. he hoped that in the U.S. he would 

eventually realize his space dreams, albeit again in the employ of the military.6 

as an account of the trajectory of his life to that point, the article was reasonably accurate; what he left out was that which not-so-subtly altered the story. 

For example, he did not mention joining the Nazi party in 1937, when the party 

pressed him to do so, although Lang did quote one of von Braun’s U.S. army 

superiors, who dated it to 1940. In fact, von Braun himself told the army in 1947 

that he had joined the party in 1939, so he himself consciously or unconsciously 

falsified the date. Over time, this key indicator of Nazi commitment, or the lack 

of it, drifted in popular accounts, such that his first biographer in english, erik 

Bergaust, dated von Braun’s entry to 1942; the latter made no attempt to correct 

him. Von Braun naturally also suppressed his brief membership in an SS cavalry 

unit and riding club in 1933-34 and his 1940 “readmittance” (as his SS record calls 

it) to the black corps as an officer. his memoir article did discuss the underground 

plant near Nordhausen briefly, but the brutal exploitation of concentration-camp 

workers was blamed solely on SS General hans kammler, thereby holding the 

whole matter at arm’s length. Von Braun left the impression that the underground 

plant was completely separated from peenemünde. the fact that SS prisoners had 

also worked at the rocket center and many other V-2 sites, and that he had been 

inside the Nordhausen facility at least a dozen times, he also suppressed. Given 

his intimate encounters with the Nazi elite, however, it was hard for him to deny 

that his prominent place in that regime, but his arrest by the Nazis allowed him to 

depict himself as ultimately more a victim of the regime than a perpetrator.7 

6.	 Ibid.; Daniel Lang, “a romantic Urge,” in From Hiroshima to the Moon: Chronicles of Life in 

the Atomic Age (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), pp. 175-193, quote on p. 180, originally 

published in New Yorker (april 21, 1951): 69-70, 72, 74, 76-84. 

7.	 “affidavit of Membership in NSDap of prof. Dr. Wernher von Braun,” June 18, 1947, 

accession 70a4398, rG330, National archives College park; WvB NSDap file card, former 
 

 

 

 

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 77 

FOr the COLD War
 

In mid-1952, another memoir appeared under his name, “Why I Chose 

america,” in a periodical aimed at women and families, the American Magazine. 

Ghostwritten by an interviewer with von Braun’s superficial editing, this article 

came in the wake of a sudden increase in his fame. In March, he had finally made 

his space-advocacy breakthrough with the publication of his lead article in a 

space series in Collier’s magazine, which had a circulation of millions. although 

“Why I Chose america” was clearly written less in his voice than that of the 

ghostwriter, it is revealing for how much it makes transparent the context of that 

time, specifically, the era of McCarthyism and the red Scare. It centered his 

alleged decisive moment at the end of the war, when he had to choose between 

east and West—in fact, he was basically in the power of General kammler and 

scarcely in a position to do anything but follow his orders to evacuate southwest 

to get away from the Soviets. It was fortunate that kammler’s orders matched his 

own desires. “Why I Chose america” also makes much of his disillusionment 

with Nazism and with totalitarianism in general, notably as a result of his arrest, 

and it hammers on his americanization, his conversion in el paso to born-again 

Christianity, and his happiness with his new home in huntsville. In short, this 

article made von Braun—a German who could not be naturalized until 1955 

because of his delayed legal entry—into a patriotic Cold-War american.8 

It is not at all clear how much “Why I Chose america” influenced the 

later literature on von Braun and peenemünde. While certainly read by a much 

larger initial audience than his own memoir, which only came out in 1956 in an 

obscure space periodical, the latter was reprinted in a book and taken as a fundamental source by many later journalists and authors. the 1952 piece, on the 

other hand, probably faded away, especially in comparison to the Lang 1951 profile in a much more prominent magazine. In any case, the canonical von Braun 

stories of his rise, success at peenemünde, arrest, and rescue by the U.S. army 

were reinforced in the summer of 1958 when the Sunday newspaper supplement, 

the American Weekly, published his third and longest memoir, also ghostwritten, 

“Space Man—the Story of My Life.” this three-part piece came in the wake 

of Sputnik, and the national hero status he achieved as a result of his prominent 

place in launching the first U.S. satellite, explorer 1. the topic of Nordhausen 

and concentration-camp labor appear again only in the most marginal way. his 

americanization was once again emphasized, a seemingly necessary strategy in 

view of his burdensome past. It is noteworthy that by this time von Braun’s life 

story, at least for that concerning his past in Nazi Germany, had hardened into 

BDC records, microfilm in National archives College park; WvB, “Behind the Scenes...,” 

ms., 1950, in file 702-20, WvB papers, USSrC; WvB, “reminiscences”; Lang, “a romantic 

Urge”; erik Bergaust, Reaching for the Stars (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960), p. 23. 

8. WvB,“Why I Chose america,” The American Magazine 154 (July 1952): 15, 111-112, 114-115. 
 

78 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

a clichéd pattern of anecdotes visible in all media profiles and in the first booklength biographies that appeared in english and German in 1959 and 1960.9 

Several years earlier, General Walter Dornberger published his book, V-2, 

which became the most influential account of the German rocket program 

aside from the specifics of von Braun’s life. Judging by a manuscript in english 

now in the Deutsches Museum’s archive in Munich, Germany, Dornberger 

originally tried writing it for an american audience in a language he then 

scarcely commanded, probably while working for the U.S. air Force in 

Dayton, Ohio, from 1947 to 1950. (he then joined Bell aircraft in Buffalo, 

New York, to work on rocket plane projects, ultimately becoming its vice 

president for engineering.) In 1951, von Braun pointed out his former boss’s 

manuscript to his new German publisher, Otto Bechtle, who was arranging 

for von Braun’s own bad science-fiction novel, Mars Project, to be rewritten 

in German by a popular aviation writer and former Nazi propagandist, Franz 

Ludwig Neher. Neher did the same, and much faster, for Dornberger’s memoir, 

which appeared as V-2: Der Schuss ins All (V-2: The Shot into Space) in the fall 

of 1952. It would be nice to know who invented the subtitle, which so neatly 

captures the reinvention of a Nazi terror weapon as the space rocket it most 

certainly was not, at least before it was launched at White Sands, New Mexico, 

with scientific instruments.10 

although Dornberger was a space enthusiast as well, the book was a straight 

military account of the program, which only mentions the space aspects in 

passing. Neher’s unacknowledged rewrite was a success; V-2 became an instant 

classic.translations appeared in Britain and america in 1954, the latter edited and 

introduced by Willy Ley.11 It entrenched certain stories about the German army 

rocket program, some of which have been almost impossible to dislodge in the 

popular media,such as the claim that the reichswehr only began working on rockets 

because they were not banned in the Versailles treaty. Noteworthy is Dornberger’s 

account of the relationship between the rocket program and the Nazi leadership, 

above all hitler. the former rocket general claimed that because the Führer’s 

doubts early in the war, the program was delayed by two years, making it “too late” 

9.	 WvB, “Space Man—the Story of My Life,” American Weekly (July 20, 1958), 7-9, 22-25; 

(July 27, 1958), 10-13; (august 3, 1958), 12, 14-16; heinz Gartmann, Wernher von Braun 

(Berlin: Colloquium, 1959); Bergaust, Reaching (see above). 

10. On the story of von Braun’s novel see Michael J. Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, 

Engineer of War (New York: knopf, 2007); chaps. 10-11; WvB to Otto Bechtle, March 9, 

1951, in German Corr. 1949-54, Box 43, WvB papers, Library of Congress Manuscript 

Division; Walter Dornberger, Ms., “V 2: around a Great Invention” (1948), NL165/010 

and NL165/011, Deutsches Museum archives, Munich; Walter Dornberger, V-2: Der Schuss 

ins Weltall (esslingen: Bechtle, 1952), reprinted as Peenemünde: Die Geschichte der V-Waffen 

(Frankfurt/Main and Berlin: Ullstein, 1989). Von Braun’s novel was recently published as 

Project Mars: A Technical Tale (Burlington, Canada: apogee, 2006). 

11. Walter Dornberger, V-2 (New York, NY:Viking, 1954). 
 

 

CreatING a MeMOrY OF the GerMaN rOCket prOGraM 79 

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Walter Dornberger’s 1954 memoir, along with the works of Ley and von Braun, 

fundamentally shaped the initial manner in which the German rocket program was 

remembered. (author’s collection) 
 

80 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

to affect the outcome—an argument much in line with the postwar memoirs of 

other German officers, who scapegoated hitler for everything. In Dornberger’s 

influential account—but also in von Braun’s memoirs—their breakthrough with 

hitler only comes on a visit to his Wolf’s Lair in July 1943, when the dictator 

suddenly became a missile enthusiast.to emphasize the story, both Dornberger and 

von Braun omitted a visit they made to hitler at the same place in august 1941 

and underplayed the steps on the road to V-2 mass production made by armaments 

Minister Speer with hitler’s approval in 1942. Blaming the Führer certainly fit the 

mood in the new West German Federal republic, the population of which was 

inclined to focus on German suffering, while blaming a handful of leading Nazis 

for all crimes, above all for the crime of losing the war.12 

With hindsight created by the revelations about the Mittelbau-Dora 

camp in the 1970s and 1980s, the most striking thing about Dornberger’s 

book is that it barely mentions the underground plant and omits any 

reference to concentration-camp labor whatsoever. as someone intimately 

involved in decision-making about slave laborers, and as one who (like von 

Braun) encountered them personally on numerous occasions at Nordhausen, 

peenemünde, and many other construction and production sites of the rocket 

program, Dornberger could only written it that way as a deliberate choice 

to suppress a central feature of the program that was just too dangerous to 

the reputation of the peenemünders to discuss. as a result, he successfully 

falsified history by omission. But of course, in his depiction of himself, von 

Braun, and other leading rocket engineers, he also managed to make them all 

appear as non-Nazis, even as anti-Nazis, by laying emphasis on the meddling of 

himmler’s SS and other National Socialist organs late in the war. Dornberger’s 

own Nazi enthusiasm, and that of several leading members of von Braun’s team, 

like arthur rudolph, ernst Steinhoff, and rudolf hermann, also vanished. 

regarding a conversation that he, von Braun, and others had with himmler 

at the peenemünde officer’s club, Dornberger states: “We engineers were not 

used to political talk and found it difficult.” he claimed they were all repelled 

by himmler’s “inhuman policy of force.” Later in the same chapter, he states: 

“We hardly ever discussed politics in peenemünde. We were out of the world. 

Whenever two people met in the canteen or at mess, their conversation would 

12. On Versailles, see Michael J. 	Neufeld, “the reichswehr, the rocket and the Versailles 

treaty: a popular Myth reexamined.” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 53 (2000), 

163-172. On hitler and the V-2 priority battle, see heinz Dieter hölsken, Die V-Waffen: 

Entstehung—Propaganda—Kriegseinsatz (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-anstalt, 1984); Michael 

J. Neufeld, “hitler, the V-2 and the Battle for priority, 1939-1943,” Journal of Military History 

57 (July 1993), 511-538, and The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic 

Missile Era (New York, NY: the Free press, 1995), chaps. 4-6. On West German memory, see 

robert G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany 

(Berkeley, Ca: University of California press, 2001) and Jeffrey herf, Divided Memory: The 

Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press, 1997). 
 

 

 

 

CreatING a MeMOrY OF the GerMaN rOCket prOGraM 81 

FOr the COLD War 

turn with five minutes to valves, relay contacts, mixers, . . . or some other 

technical detail that was giving us trouble.” In short, he describes them as all 

just apolitical engineers serving their country, which certainly was how they 

wanted to see themselves after the war.13 

Dornberger’s book fed into the space-oriented narrative of German rocketprogram history launched by Ley, but it also helped create a second genre: 

the military-oriented V-weapons literature. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, 

several books were published, mostly in Britain, on British intelligence and 

countermeasures and the V-1 and V-2 campaigns, including air Marshal Sir 

phillip Joubert de la Ferté’s Rocket (1957), Basil Collier’s Battle of the V-Weapons 

1944-45 (1964), and David Irving’s The Mare’s Nest (1965). Irving, who was 

already noticeably pro-German but not yet infamous as a Nazi apologist and 

holocaust denier, provided the most complete account on both allied and 

German sides of the V-weapons campaign in the last two years of the war, but it 

is noteworthy that, although he did much more original research than the others, 

he minimized the Mittelwerk/Nordhausen story about which he certainly 

knew more. Surprisingly, there was more information in a contemporaneous 

american book, James McGovern’s Crossbow and Overcast (1964), which featured 

the transfer of the von Braun group to the U.S. army. But even as McGovern 

reported the horrors discovered in and near Nordhausen in 1945, he followed 

von Braun’s lead in holding the whole thing at arm’s length from the German 

rocketeers by blaming it all on the SS—perhaps not surprisingly, as two of his 

key sources were Dornberger and von Braun.14 

at this point, let’s step back and look at the larger contexts of the american 

memory of National Socialism, the concentration camps, and the holocaust as it 

took shape between 1945 and 1965. although it is not easy to demonstrate that 

these contexts shaped the memory of the peenemünde and the German rocket 

program that Ley, von Braun, and Dornberger created and popular writers 

extended, it is difficult to believe that they did not have some influence. It is 

particularly noteworthy in regard to Mittelbau-Dora that the holocaust was 

little discussed between the end of the main Nuremberg trial in 1946 and the 

eichmann trial in Israel in 1961. Other than the anne Frank story, which was 

presented with an uplifting, universalistic message in the book and movie, the 

13. Dornberger,V-2,187,192,194.this self-image is demolished in a new book by Michael petersen, 

Missiles for the Fatherland, forthcoming with Cambridge University press. petersen demonstrates 

the committed work of the engineers for the Nazi regime and the intimate relations between 

peenemünde and the underground slave-labor Mittelwerk plant. On Dornberger’s pro-Nazi 

political attitudes see his personal notes quoted in Neufeld, The Rocket, 182-183; on the others, 

see the evidence cited in ibid., in Neufeld, Von Braun, and in hunt, Secret Agenda. 

14. phillip Joubert de la Ferté, Rocket (London: hutchinson, 1957); Basil Collier, Battle of the 

V-Weapons 1944-45 (London: hodder and Stoughton, 1964); David Irving, The Mare’s Nest 

(Boston and toronto: Little, Brown, 1965); James McGovern, Crossbow and Overcast (New 

York, NY: William Morrow & Co., 1964), pp. 120-122. 
 

 

82 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

topic was nearly taboo. the Jewish community in the U.S. spoke of the Shoah 

reluctantly, wishing to assimilate into Cold War america. Before raul hilberg 

published his groundbreaking The Destruction of the European Jews in 1961, he 

had a very difficult time finding a publishing house to take it; afterward, his 

book was either ignored or attacked. the american public apparently just was 

not ready to deal with the topic, and the same applied in europe.15 

however, the relationship between the Jewish holocaust and MittelbauDora is not straightforward, as few of the prisoners there were Jewish. the camp 

was filled with Soviet pOWs and polish forced laborers who had somehow 

ended up in SS hands, plus French and Belgian resistance fighters, German 

political prisoners, German criminals, gypsies, and several other groups. 

Jewish prisoners did not arrive in the camp until May 1944 and were rarely 

employed in V-2 production. But at the end of the war, thousands of starving, 

largely Jewish survivors of auschwitz and Gross rosen were dumped into the 

Mittelbau-Dora camp system and constituted a large fraction of the dead and 

dying discovered by the U.S. army in 1945.16 although it can be posed only 

as a counterfactual hypothesis, it seems to me that if the consciousness and 

knowledge of the camps and the holocaust that arose after the late sixties had 

existed in the fifties, it would have been much harder for Dornberger and von 

Braun to sweep the Nordhausen story under the rug. Indeed, in the 1970s, the 

rising attention to the holocaust in the Western world did have an indirect 

effect on the attention paid to Mittelbau-Dora, eroding the received story of 

peenemünde constructed in the 1950s. 

Despite the lack of interest in the worst of Nazi crimes in the late 1940s 

and 1950s, reinforced by the Cold War alliance with the newly constructed 

West Germany, it cannot be said that the american environment was entirely 

friendly to the peenemünders as they told their stories of the German rocket 

program. there were large number of veterans of the war and members of 

ethnic and religious groups who had no reason to like Germans. there were 

many false alarms in the media about the rise of neo-Nazism in the Federal 

republic. In 1960-1961, the West German government became worried about 

an “anti-German wave” in the american public and media as the result of antiSemitic incidents in German cities, as well as William Shirer’s best-selling book 

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the movie Judgment at Nuremberg, and the 

15. peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston/New York: houghton Mifflin, 1999), 

chaps. 4-6; raul hilberg, The Politics of Memory: The Journey of a Holocaust Historian (Chicago, 

IL: Ivan r. Dee, 1996). 

16. On the history of Mittelbau-Dora, the definitive work is Jens-Christian Wagner, Produktion des 

Todes: Das KZ Mittelbau-Dora (Göttingen:Wallstein, 2001). See also andré Sellier, A History of the 

Dora Camp (Chicago, IL: Ivan Dee, 2003). 
 

 

 

 

 

CreatING a MeMOrY OF the GerMaN rOCket prOGraM 83 

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revelations of the eichmann trial. German crimes had scarcely been forgotten, 

although equated for years to Communism under the label totalitarianism.17 

anti-German prejudice bubbled up repeatedly in public comments about 

von Braun, who rapidly became by far the most famous of the rocketeers in 

the 1950s. It certainly explains the heavy handed stress on his americanization 

and his supposed non- or anti-Nazi record in his two ghostwritten memoirs 

and in the first american biography written about him. It even surfaced in the 

heroic movie about him released in august 1960, I Aim at the Stars, an americanGerman coproduction. Von Braun’s most trusted German producer wrote to 

him from hollywood in June 1958 about the process of formulating a story 

treatment: “as you know, they are anxiously trying to show that you were no 

Nazi, although you were a member of the party and built the V-2 for hitler.” 

In the end, the movie script incorporated a hectoring american character 

who pursues von Braun with questions like why he had not been hanged at 

Nuremberg. apparently, the american script writers were just not comfortable 

making him the unalloyed hero of his own heroic “biopic.” even so, the movie 

opened to protest in Munich, London, antwerp, and New York; but it bombed 

basically because it was tedious. Comic Mort Sahl’s punch line became the 

most memorable thing about it: I Aim at the Stars should have been subtitled But 

Sometimes I Hit London.18 

Such public doubts and media fiascos notwithstanding, Wernher von Braun 

had an enviable image in the american, and even more so, in the West German 

press in the late 1950s and early 1960s. hero worship was everywhere, and was 

even prominent in less friendly counties like Britain and France. Von Braun was 

the vindicated prophet of spaceflight, instrumental in launching the first U.S. 

satellite and the first U.S. interplanetary probe, and the most visible symbol of the 

space race with the Soviets—at least until gradually displaced by the astronauts. 

he was cast in the mold of scientific hero, with his Nazi past neatly explained 

away based on the standard accounts. as von Braun and his group of Germans 

had become central to american space efforts (they were transferred to NaSa 

in 1960 to become the core of Marshall Space Flight Center in huntsville, 

alabama) it was easy to conflate von Braun’s biography, and that of a tiny band of 

space true-believers who came with him, with his entire group. Journalists and 

book authors simply glossed over the fact that most of his 120-odd engineers, 

scientists and technicians had been hired or recruited during the third reich and 

previously had nothing to do with rocketry or spaceflight. the set storyline was 

that the dream of spaceflight and landing on the Moon had arisen in the Weimar 

17. Brian C. etheridge,“Die antideutsche Welle:the anti-German Wave in Cold War america and Its 

Implications for the Study of Cultural Diplomacy” in Jessica Gienow-hecht, ed., Decentering the 

United States: New Directions in Culture and International Relations (Berghahn Books: 2007). 

18. Bergaust, Reaching; Mainz to WvB, June 12, 1958, in file 208-7,WvB papers, USSrC; Neufeld, 

Von Braun, 325-326, 346-353. 
84 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

rocket and space societies, but Von Braun & Co. had to take a “detour” via 

military rocket development because that is where the money was. that detour 

continued in work for the U.S. army, but then von Braun began campaigning 

for space travel in the 1950s, and the missiles he had developed became one of the 

foundations of the U.S. space program, leading ultimately to his group’s central 

role in landing a human on the Moon in apollo. Von Braun himself, together 

with close associates like Fred Ordway, went on to write space-history works in 

the 1960s and 1970s that fortified a spaceflight narrative privileging the Germans. 

rip Bulkeley has rightly labeled this the “huntsville school” of history.19 

Detailing how the received version of the peenemünde and von Braun 

story formulated in the 1950s was gradually undermined takes us beyond the 

scope of this paper, but it is instructive to look at a few key points. In the 1960s, 

the east German Communists tried several times to embarrass the United 

States and von Braun by outing his SS officer status and his involvement with 

Mittelbau-Dora. Julius Mader, a popular author who was a covert officer of the 

east German secret police, published Geheimnis von Huntsville: Die wahre Karriere 

des Raketenbarons Wernher von Braun (Secret of Huntsville: The True Career of Rocket 

Baron Wernher von Braun) in 1963, a book that was translated into russian and 

other east-Bloc languages and circulated in nearly a half million copies. Out of 

it sprang a major feature film, Die gefrorenen Blitze (Frozen Lighting), that the east 

German official film studio released in 1967. But the Cold War divide was so 

strong that the book and the movie had very little impact in West Germany and 

none at all in the U.S., where they were almost unknown. Only slightly more 

effective was the east German involvement in the West German war-crimes 

trial in essen from 1967-1970 of three SS men from the Mittelwerk. the chief 

east German lawyer succeeded in getting von Braun called as a witness, but 

NaSa, seeking energetically to protect the rocket engineer, got the testimony 

moved to the German consulate in New Orleans in early 1969 and successfully 

kept most of the press away. During the apollo 11 Moon landing in July of that 

year, the famous columnist Drew pearson wrote that von Braun had been an 

SS member in the context of otherwise praising him, but offered no proof as 

to where he got this information. the rest of the american media completely 

19. On hero-worship in West Germany and even in France, see Neufeld, Von Braun, pp. 323-324, 

408-410. For typical products of the German-centered narrative see ernst klee and Otto 

Merk, The Birth of the Missile: The Secrets of Peenemünde (New York, NY: e. p. Dutton and Co., 

1965) (translation of Damals in Peenemünde); Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway, 

III, A History of Rocketry and Space Travel (New York, NY: thomas Y. Crowell, 1967); Ordway 

and Mitchell r. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (New York, NY: thomas Y. Crowell, 1979). On 

the huntsville school, see rip Bulkeley, The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy 

(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University press, 1991), 204-205. the classic explication of the 

“detour” thesis, based on a reading of the earlier secondary literature and not one scrap of 

archival research, is William Sims Bainbridge’s The Spaceflight Revolution: A Sociological Study 

(New York, NY: Wiley, 1976). 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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ignored it. So entrenched was the apologetic life story that when von Braun 

died eight years later of cancer, his voluminous obituaries never mentioned that 

fact; many did not even bring up his membership in the Nazi party.20 

the essen trial, along with the publication of albert Speer’s memoirs in 

1969 in German and 1970 in english, did contribute to gradually opening up the 

history the Mittelwerk and the Mittelbau-Dora camp system, notably in West 

Germany. a rising consciousness of the history of the holocaust and the camp 

system worked in the background to make it harder as well to retail the old history 

of the German rocket program. When Ordway finally published The Rocket Team 

with Marshall Center writer Mitchell Sharpe in 1979—a narrative of the von 

Braun group dominated by the V-2 story—they could no longer leave out the 

underground plant, even if they did produce a rather one-sided and abbreviated 

treatment. that same year, Dora, the memoir of French resistance fighter Jean 

Michel, appeared in english translation, further opening up the topic, although 

the book had much less influence than the Rocket Team—or at least it did until it 

helped spark an investigation by the newly formed Office of Special Investigations 

(OSI) of the U.S. Department of Justice. In October 1984, it announced that 

one of von Braun’s closest associates, arthur rudolph, had left the country and 

denounced his U.S. citizenship as part of a voluntary agreement to forestall a 

court trial over his denaturalization. he had to admit his early membership in 

the Nazi party and his prominent role in the management of slave labor in the 

Mittelwerk. this announcement provoked a wave of headlines across the U.S. 

and around the world. Suddenly Nordhausen appeared in multiple american 

newspaper articles for the first time since april and May 1945. Shortly afterward, 

thanks to the Freedom of Information act and the work of freelance journalist 

Linda hunt, von Braun’s party and SS record came out when his army security 

files were declassified. the old history of the German rocket program, although 

still entrenched in many quarters, would never be defensible again. When the 

Cold War ended only five years later, making the former east German sites 

of peenemünde and Mittelbau-Dora accessible, it only reinforced the trend. It 

20. Julius Mader, Geheimnis von Huntsville: Die wahre Karriere des Raketenbarons Wernher von Braun 

(Berlin-east: Deutscher Militärverlag, 1963; 2nd ed., 1965; 3rd ed. 1967); paul Maddrell, 

“What We Discovered about the Cold War is What We already knew: Julius Mader and the 

Western Secret Services During the Cold War,” Cold War History 5 (May 2005), 235-258, esp. 

239-242;thomas heimann and Burghard Ciesla,“Die gefrorenen Blitze: Wahrheit und Dichtung: 

FilmGeschichte einer ‘Wunderwaffe’,” in Apropos: Film 2002. Das Jahrbuch der DEFA-Stiftung 

(Berlin: DeFa-Stiftung/Bertz Verlag, 2002), pp.158-180. Neufeld, Von Braun, pp. 404-408, 

428-429, 473; kaul antrag, December 4, 1967, and hueckel to WvB, November 6, 1968, in 

Ger. rep. 299/160, Nordrhein-Westfälisches hauptstaatsarchiv/Zweigarchiv Schloss kalkum; 

pearson,“prime Moon Credit is Von Braun’s,” Washington Post, July 17, 1969;WvB to Gen. Julius 

klein,august 2, 1969, copy provided by eli rosenbaum/OSI. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

86 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

opened the way to a new, more complex and often contradictory public memory 

of the German rocket program in the U.S., Germany, and the Western world.21 

two things predominantly shaped how the V-2 and the third reich rocket 

project was remembered in the first few decades after World War II: the prominence 

of ex-German rocketeers in the United States and their value to the West in the 

Cold War.Willy Ley, an anti-Nazi refugee, rose to fame in the U.S. and elsewhere as 

a science writer in World War II and after, and he offered a space-oriented perspective on German rocket history. then von Braun and Dornberger arrived under 

project paperclip and provided their technical expertise to the United States; von 

Braun in particular then became a national celebrity in the 1950s through space 

promotion in Collier’s and Disney, followed by his central role in launching the first 

U.S. satellite, the first american deep space probe, the first american astronaut, and 

the apollo expeditions to the Moon.Von Braun became a national and Western asset 

in the Cold War struggle with the Soviets, one that the media wanted to protect 

even without official U.S. government efforts to manage his image. Since the 

Nordhausen and Mittelbau-Dora story and von Braun’s SS membership were virtually unknown, in large part due to government secrecy, the received story of the 

German rocket program held up, even in the face of east German attempts to 

undermine it. Nothing so clearly indicates the shaping influence of the Cold War 

than that fact; two competing narratives of von Braun and peenemünde arose on 

either side of the “Iron Curtain,” especially after Mader’s 1963 book, yet even in the 

free press of the West, very little changed. It took the rising consciousness of the 

holocaust and the history of the Nazi camp system to begin to erode the traditional 

narrative. holocaust consciousness also led to the formation of the Nazi-hunting 

Office of Special Investigations in the U.S., which finally broke open the story. 

In conclusion, I would like to appeal to space historians to begin to pay 

closer attention to their own history. Some good historiographic overview articles 

have been written, but not many attempts have been made to write the history 

of space history, notably in its origin phases. this history will tell us much about 

the constitution and mentality of spaceflight movements. More than that, the 

growth of the literature on public and collective memory provides another rich 

field for exploration: how space history, which has been written mostly by space 

enthusiasts and friendly journalists throughout much of its existence, has shaped 

popular memories of rocket development and space travel in the larger publics of 

the West and east—not to mention the rest of the world. Some pioneering work 

21. Bernd ruland, Wernher von Braun: Mein Leben für die Raumfahrt (Offenburg: Burda, 1969), 227-239; 

albert Speer, Erinnerungen (Berlin: propyläen, 1969), translated as Inside the Third Reich (New York: 

Macmillan, 1970); Manfred Bornemann and Martin Broszat,“Das kL Dora-Mittelbau,” in Studien 

zur Geschichte der Konzentrationslager (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-anstalt, 1970) and Bornemann, 

Geheimprojekt Mittelbau (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns, 1971); Ordway and Sharpe, Rocket Team; Jean 

Michel with Louis Nucera, Dora (1975; New York, NY: holt, rinehart and Winston, 1979); hunt, 

“U.S. Coverup” and Secret Agenda; Bower, Paperclip Conspiracy; Neufeld, Von Braun, 474-475; eli 

rosenbaum/OSI interview, July 26, 2006. 
 

 

CreatING a MeMOrY OF the GerMaN rOCket prOGraM 87 

FOr the COLD War 

More than anything else, the 1984 revelation of Arthur Rudolph’s involvement in 

the abuse of concentration-camp labor undermined the traditional narrative of the 

German rocket program. (author’s collection) 

has been done, mostly on the United States, but a rich field of opportunities exists 

for those who are willing to use the tools of social and cultural history and collective memory to delve into the reception of space history, not only its generation. 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 6 

Operation paperclip in 

huntsville, alabama 

Monique Laney 

I

n 1984, arthur rudolph renounced his american citizenship and moved 

back to Germany with his wife 30 years after becoming an american citizen. 

previously, rudolph had enjoyed more than a 20-year career with the U.S. 

army and NaSa from which he retired in 1969. rudolph was one of the 

German rocket engineers who had been brought to the United States following 

World War II under the secret military project that would come to be known 

as “Operation paperclip.” he decided to leave the country after so many years 

because he was being investigated by the OSI, which alleged that rudolph had 

been involved in the horrific and often deadly treatment of forced and slave 

laborers from the Dora concentration camp who had been used to produce V-2 

rockets at Mittelwerk in the last years of the war. Before rudolph passed away 

in 1996, several attempts were made to bring him back into the United States, 

and even today some of his former colleagues and friends want to see his name 

cleared.1 according to one of his former coworkers, huntsville responded to 

the government action against rudolph with “unanimous disgust” and “did its 

best to try to fight it.”2 

1.	 the rudolph case and attempts to have his name cleared have been covered extensively in local and 

national newspapers and magazines since 1984.this case has evoked strong emotions where terms 

such as “witch hunters” and “holocaust deniers” seem to be commonplace in an ongoing battle 

over some form of truth.two authors who have interrogated the case at some length from opposite 

sides of this controversy, reflecting some of the accusatory and at times inflammatory rhetoric, are 

thomas Franklin (pseudonym), An American in Exile:The Story of Arthur Rudolph (huntsville, aL: 

Christopher Kaylor Company, 1987) and Linda hunt, Secret Agenda:The United States Government, 

Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945-1990 (New York, NY: St. Martin’s press, 1991). 

2.	 Charles a. Lundquist interview, huntsville,aL, July 12, 2007. Lundquist was born and raised in 

South Dakota.he was awarded his ph.D.in astrophysics at the University of Kansas in 1954.Due 

to an earlier education deferment, he was then drafted to join the army Ballistic Missile agency 

(aBMa) at redstone arsenal near huntsville, alabama. Lundquist left huntsville in 1962 to 

work for astronomer Fred Whipple until 1973 at the Smithsonian astrophysical Observatory 

(SaO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. he returned to huntsville in 1973 as Director of the Space 

Science Lab at the Marshall Space Flight Center.In 1981,Lundquist took the job of Director and 

later associate Vice president for research at the University of alabama in huntsville (Uah). 

although officially retired, he currently still helps out at the archives at Uah. 
 

90 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

this remark about the unanimity of the community in regards to the 

so-called “rudolph case” gives me pause. Not only does it imply that there 

were no opposing voices in huntsville, but it also contradicts national and 

international discourses about the German rocket engineers that have scrutinized 

these scientists past work in Nazi Germany.3 Such a remark exemplifies a 

counter-narrative, fighting to be heard in light of national narratives while 

simultaneously excluding narratives that contradict its own dominant stance in 

the local community. this “hegemonic counter-narrative” is the impetus for 

my dissertation, which explores the impact of Operation paperclip on narratives 

of the first and second generation Germans, non-German huntsville residents, 

and the local and national media, as well as on debates between laypersons and 

historians negotiating how to evaluate the engineers’ past. 

huntsville, alabama, has been home for most of the German rocket team 

members associated with Wernher von Braun who were brought to the United 

States under the secret military project known as Operation paperclip. those 

who arrived before 1950 were sent to Fort Bliss near el paso, texas, where they 

worked for the U.S. army and shared their expertise in rocketry developed 

while designing and testing V-2 rockets in Germany during World War II. 

after one to two years in Fort Bliss, the men’s dependents were allowed to join 

them. In 1950, the army moved its rocket development program to redstone 

arsenal near huntsville, alabama. this meant that, with few exceptions, most 

members of the German team moved to huntsville with their families, and their 

children would come to consider huntsville their hometown. In 1960, NaSa 

established the Marshall Space Flight Center on redstone arsenal where most 

of the Germans had been transferred under Wernher von Braun’s direction. 

the following analysis is an excerpt of a larger project that investigates 

the impact of Operation paperclip on the German families and their huntsville 

neighbors. the project is based primarily on oral histories because answers 

concerning impact are largely dependent on how and by whom the past is 

told. I have interviewed German and non-German huntsville residents with 

different social and cultural backgrounds who lived in huntsville in the 1950s 

and 1960s. By listening to the ways in which individuals recount the past and 

3.	 I am referring primarily to the many national and international newspaper and magazine 

articles and documentary films reporting on and evaluating the German rocket engineers 

in the United States since their presence was made public in 1946. For some book length 

sources, see tom Bower, The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for the Nazi Scientists (Boston: 

Little, Brown, 1987); Linda hunt, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, 

and Project Paperclip, 1945-1990 (New York, NY: St. Martin’s press, 1991); John Gimbel, 

Science, Technology, and Reparation: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany (Stanford, Ca: 

Stanford University press, 1990); Clarence G. Lasby, Project Paperclip: German Scientists and 

the Cold War (New York, NY: atheneum, 1971); and Michael J. Neufeld, The Rocket and the 

Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (New York, NY: Free press, 1995). 

For examples of sources that reflect a less scrutinizing approach to this history, see footnote 

11 on page 94. 
 

 

OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 91 

evaluate certain events from today’s perspective, one can learn which narratives 

of the past have dominated and which have been marginalized and, with closer 

analysis, the societal discourses that influence the telling of the stories over time 

can be discerned. 

there are many reasons for scholars to use oral histories in their research. 

Sometimes it is a way to humanize the subject matter and give it a sense of 

reality. In other cases, oral histories may be the only source available, thereby 

functioning as evidence in lieu of, or as a supplement to, written documents. 

I use oral history in a different manner. I am interested in the storytelling of 

oral history, (i.e., the struggle over memory). What parts of the past do people 

find important or significant to their lives, and how does that interact with 

the way they talk about events in the past and the present? how are these 

stories affected by the individual’s position in relationship to dominant groups 

in society? What do discrepancies and errors tell us about “the work of desire 

and pain over time?”4 

Because those on the margins of society are often affected very differently 

by changes at the center, listening to their stories allows us to question the logic 

and dynamics of dominant narratives. as pointed out earlier, knowing who 

is speaking from the margin or from the center is not always as clear for this 

project because it is determined by what grouping we focus on as the center. 

For example, while the German rocket engineers and their families were a 

minority group with unique histories and cultural backgrounds in huntsville, 

their perceived “otherness” was based primarily on positive distinctions. Despite 

national and international scrutiny, they do not seem to have lost their status 

as a powerful minority that has adjusted to and blended in easily with the 

white Christian majority of huntsville—making them part of “the center” in 

huntsville. as members of a minority group, their positions were very different 

from those of other minority groups (e.g., members of the african american 

community). however, the idealization of the German rocket team by many 

huntsvillians contrasts with national and international perceptions. So, while 

the German minority is part of the huntsville majority, in regard to the German 

rocket engineers, huntsville’s majority perspective reflects that of a minority 

within the nation and internationally.5 this distinction is particularly important 

for this project because the main issue I grapple with is how narrations of the 

past reflect changing power structures (who is marginalized in reference to 

whom), sometimes reinforcing old structures, and sometimes creating new and 

unexpected alliances. 

4.	 alessandro portelli, The Order Has Been Carried Out: History, Memory and Meaning of a Nazi 

Massacre in Rome, 1st palgrave Macmillan ed. (New York, NY: palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 16. 

5.	 the question of national and international perspectives needs clarification because it depends 

largely on definitions of who speaks for the national or international community. this is a 

weakness of this paper that will be addressed in detail in my larger work. 
 

 

 

92 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

In addition to first and second generation Germans in huntsville, I 

interviewed members of the african american and Jewish communities and 

World War II veterans, as well as former coworkers, neighbors, and friends of the 

German rocket engineers and their families. as the following exploration will 

illustrate, not surprisingly, those who historically wielded little power and had 

practically no voice in the huntsville community have a very different perspective 

on the impact of the Germans on huntsville than those who considered themselves 

to be equals.perhaps less expected is how this marginalized narrative in huntsville 

seems to echo larger national and international narratives. 

When asked about the impact of the German rocket engineers and their 

families on huntsville, practically every interviewee, regardless of personal 

background, mentions music, specifically the huntsville Symphony Orchestra. 

after that, they usually attribute the first Lutheran Church in town and Uah, 

the U.S. Space & rocket Center, Broadway theatre League, and the Ballet 

Company to efforts of the German team. the word “culture” is prominent 

among most of the responses, and those who grew up alongside the children of 

the rocket engineers emphasize how “smart” the children were, often outdoing 

locals in school, which was typically linked directly to the father’s reputation as 

“rocket scientists.”6 

With the space program came significant economic development for 

the formerly small cotton town in Northern alabama that many huntsville 

residents link directly to the arrival of the German rocket experts from Fort Bliss, 

texas, in 1950, despite the simultaneous arrival of many american engineers, 

scientists, and technicians and their families.7 the town’s population increased 

6.	 the term “rocket scientist” is a misnomer used by the media and in popular culture and 

applied to a majority of engineers and technicians who worked on the development of 

rockets with von Braun. It reflects a cultural evaluation of the immense accomplishments 

of the team but is nevertheless incorrect. For an explanation of why a distinction should 

be made between scientists and these engineers, see Michael J. Neufeld’s latest publication, 

Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (New York, NY: alfred a. Knopf in association 

with the National air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 2007): “a Note On the 

Name and On terms.” 

7.	 the notion that the Germans were the main cause for the town’s rapid development is a 

popular myth in huntsville, most likely derived from the German team’s later success and 

prominence. It distorts the fact that the approximately 120 German rocket engineers were 

part of a larger army transfer that included the move of approximately 500 military personnel, 

65 civilian personnel, and 102 General electric (Ge) employees in addition to the German 

specialists. By 1955, employment at redstone arsenal had increased from 699 in June 1949 

to 6,442. For more information, see “Fort Bliss, texas, rocket Office to Be Moved to 

redstone arsenal,” Huntsville Times, November 4, 1949. “Quarters: Of Guided Missile area 

Set up at redstone arsenal,” Huntsville Times, april 16, 1950, “150 redstone Families here, 

Others Coming,” Huntsville Times, July 9, 1950. “Move Scheduled by Ge employes [sic],” 

Huntsville Times, april 3, 1950. helen Brents Joiner and elizabeth C. Jolliff, The Redstone 

Arsenal Complex in Its Second Decade, 1950-1960, ed. historical Division (redstone arsenal, 

aL: U.S. army Missile Command, 1969). 
 

 

 

 

OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 93 

almost tenfold, from 16,437 to 137,802, over the following two decades, adding 

people from other regions of the United States as well as from other countries.8 

Formerly a small cotton mill town that prided itself in being the “watercress 

capital of the world,” huntsville soon became known as “rocket City,” to 

some even “Space Capital of the Universe,” for its new space- and missilerelated industry. today, real estate companies and travel agents like to advertise 

that huntsville has the “highest percentage of engineers and more ph.D.’s per 

capita than any city in the country.”9 huntsville’s main newspaper perceives the 

town as hugely indebted to the German rocket specialists, especially Wernher 

von Braun, who was titled “huntsville’s first citizen” in an article describing 

the ceremonies at huntsville’s courthouse to send him and his family off to 

work for NaSa in Washington, DC, in 1970.10 enforcing the notion that 

the city owes much of its prosperity to the arrival of these immigrants, the 

Von Braun Civic Center was named after the most prominent member of the 

rocket team—a constant reminder of the Germans’ presence in town while 

simultaneously showcasing huntsville’s defiant position towards more critical 

national and international viewpoints. 

While the casual observer or newcomer to huntsville is not likely to 

hear any contradictions to this impressive and positive portrayal, the people 

in the town were not then, nor are they now, unanimous in their assessment 

of the newcomers. For this excerpt of my research, I focus on interviews 

with members of the african-american community. I intend to illustrate the 

significance of social positioning based on racial categorizations in a Jim Crow 

environment for perceptions of the German families’ impact on huntsville. In 

the larger project, I propose that some dominant narratives in huntsville stem 

from power structures based in the history of slavery and Jim Crow, as well 

as in certain forms of anti-Semitism and elitism among those with economic 

power in this once small cotton mill town. the German group clearly fit well 

into these preexisting structures and, as we will see, were sometimes perceived 

as reinforcing them. 

Naturally, the perspectives of individuals evaluating this event are based 

on personal backgrounds and level of contact with members of the German 

group. the most prominent public voices typically heard on this subject 

are either members of the German community, former coworkers, or close 

8.	 these population numbers are for huntsville proper. W. Craig remington and thomas J. 

Kallsen, eds., Historical Atlas of Alabama: Historical Locations by County, vol. 1 (tuscaloosa, aL: 

Department of Geography, College of arts and Sciences, University of alabama, 1997). 

9.	 holly McDonald,“home page:Welcome to huntsville,” Keller Williams realty Web site, http:// 

www.hollymcdonald.com/ (accessed august 22, 2007), and “Welcome to huntsville: It’s a Great 

place to Live,” Inspired Living: Greater Huntsville Relocation Guide (huntsville, aL: price-Witt 

publications LLC, Fall/Winter 2005): 12. 

10. Bill Sloat, “rocket City Launches von Braun,” Huntsville News (February 25, 1970): 1-2. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

94 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

friends of some of the German families.11 My approach counters these mostly 

monolithic accounts and acknowledges British social historian paul thompson’s 

statement that the aim of oral historians is to make history “more democratic” 

by “shifting the focus and opening new areas of enquiry . . . by bringing 

recognition to substantial groups of people who had been ignored” and by 

radically “questioning . . . the fundamental relationship between history and the 

community” because “the self-selected group will rarely be fully representative 

of a community.”12 

When talking about the impact of the Germans on huntsville, the lack 

of voices from the african american community in a southern town is hard 

to ignore. I first became aware of this when reviewing a public forum titled 

“Creating rocket City,” recorded on video in 2003 as a contribution to the 

public library’s celebration of the centennial of the Wright brothers’ first flight.13 

as the title implies, this panel was intended to discuss the city’s development 

since the 1950s. It included one african american speaker, hanson howard, 

who was, according to the organizer, included “for diversity.”14 a camera scan 

over the audience reveals that howard was apparently also the only african 

american person in the room. When I asked him about that, he noted simply, 

“I figured that’s the way it would be . . . You know, it wasn’t a surprise.”15 

11. the following are examples of longer articles or book-length accounts illustrating to what I 

am referring and do not include numerous local newspaper articles. erik Bergaust, Rocket City, 

U.S.A.; from Huntsville, Alabama to the Moon (New York: Macmillan, 1963); placide D. Nicaise, 

Huntsville and the Von Braun Rocket Team:The Real Story, ed. Scientists and Friends (Monterey, 

California: Martin hollmann, 2003); Frederick Ira Ordway, III and Mitchell r. Sharpe, The 

Rocket Team,1st MIt press pbk.ed.(Cambridge,Ma:MIt press,1982);ruth G.von Saurma and 

Walter Wiesman,“the German rocket team:a Chronology of events and accomplishments,” 

The Huntsville Historical Review 23, no. 1 (1996), 20-29; ruth G. von Saurma, “personal 

recollections of huntsville’s rocket and Space highlights, 1949-1980,” The Huntsville Historical 

Review 27, no. 1 (2000), 37-52; ruth G. von Saurma,“Growing up in huntsville,” The Huntsville 

Historical Review 23, no. 1 (1996), 13-19; ernst Stuhlinger, “German rocketeers Find a New 

home in huntsville,” The Huntsville Historical Review 23, no. 1 (1996), 3-12; ernst Stuhlinger, 

“Sputnik 1957—Memories of an Old-timer,” The Huntsville Historical Review 26, no. 1 (1999), 

26-31; ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick Ira Ordway, III, Wernher Von Braun, Crusader for Space: 

A Biographical Memoir, Original ed. (Malabar, FL: Krieger pub., 1994); the Marshall retiree’s 

association, “reminiscence of Space exploration history Fireside Chats, February 17 2000,” 

video available at http://media.eb.uah.edu/NASA_ARCHIVES/farside_chats/index.htm; Bob 

Ward, Dr. Space:The Life of Wernher Von Braun (annapolis, MD: Naval Institute press, 2005). 

12. paul thompson, “the Voice of the past: Oral history,” in The Oral History Reader, ed. alistair 

thomson, robert perks (London, New York: routledge, 1988), 26. 

13. David Lilly, A Century of Flight:‘Creating Rocket City’ (huntsville,aL: huntsville public Library, 2003). 

14. David Lilly, e-mail correspondence, October 10, 2005. 

15. hanson howard interview, huntsville, aL, May 10, 2006. hanson howard is a retired warrant 

officer who moved to huntsville from Maryland with the army in 1960. he was stationed in 

Germany twice, as well as to White Sands, New Mexico, and Vietnam. he currently works 

as Business Counselor at Northeast alabama region Small Business Development Center 

and is executive director of the Service Corps of retired executives. howard requested to be
 

 

 

 

OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 95 

Why is this not a surprise? Why is the african american community not more 

represented in a public forum that discusses the enormous economic, cultural, 

and societal development of huntsville since the army moved its rocketry 

development program to town? this paper intends to shed some light on how 

we might answer these questions. 

While the percentage of african americans in huntsville’s population 

is lower than in many areas in alabama, it has been and is again at about 30 

percent.16 Segregation officially ended in the early 1960s, but the visitor today 

can easily observe that the town still appears to be de facto segregated into 

predominantly black neighborhoods in the northwest and white neighborhoods 

in the southeast parts of the city. however, the dominant perception is that 

huntsville integrated its public facilities rather quickly in comparison to other 

towns in alabama and before the signing of the 1964 Civil rights act.17 

Charles ray, a retired employee of the army’s equal employment 

Opportunity (eeO) office at redstone arsenal and the owner of Nelms 

Funeral home in huntsville was born in Madison County, alabama, in 1936. 

he is an alabama a&M alumni and has lived in the huntsville area most of his 

life. ray explains that racism in the area was less “rabid” due to the relatively 

sent back to redstone arsenal in late 1966 after his tour in Vietnam. he is an alabama a&M 

alum and active in huntsville’s community as a member of a ballet association, a United Way 

volunteer, and president of the board of the american red Cross. 

16. While in 1950 african americans made up 32 percent of huntsville’s population, in 1960 

and 1970 the percentage had declined to 14 percent and 12 percent respectively. this decline 

has been explained by the “lack of in-migration” of african americans from the surrounding 

farmland into the city despite the decline in agriculture in the 1950s and 1960s. While the 

city’s population expanded, it was mainly the white population that grew larger. according 

to the U.S. Census for 2000, the percentage of african americans in huntsville has risen 

back to 30 percent. U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/), “huntsville, alabama: 

Factsheet,” (2000), huntsville-Madison County public Library archives, “Comparative 

Growth rates: huntsville, Madison County, Birmingham, alabama; Source: US Census 

of population 1920-1960,” (file “huntsville population”), huntsville-Madison County 

public Library archives, “General population Characteristics—1970: huntsville and 

Madison County alabama, Source: U.S. Department of Commerce/Bureau of the Census,” 

(huntsville, aL: file “huntsville population”). See also andrew J. Dunar and Stephen p. 

Waring, Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960-1990, NASA Historical 

Series (Washington, DC: National aeronautics and Space administration, NaSa history 

Office, Office of policy and plans, 1999), p. 126. 

17. according to the documentary film, A Civil Rights Journey, one of the town’s historical markers 

received the addition “1962—First City in alabama to begin segregation” to mark huntsville’s 

uniqueness in respect to civil rights in the state of alabama. For information on the Civil rights 

Movement in huntsville, see Dunar and Waring, Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space 

Flight Center, 1960-1990, NASA Historical Series (Washington, DC: National aeronautics and 

Space administration, NaSa history Office, Office of policy and plans, 1999), chapter 4, and 

Sonnie hereford, III, M.D., A Civil Rights Journey, DVD (United States: Sonnie hereford, III, 

1999). For a description of the Jim Crow system in context of alabama 20th century history, see 

Wayne Flynt, Alabama in the Twentieth Century, The Modern South (tuscaloosa, aL: University of 

alabama press, 2004), chapter 7. 
 

 

96 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

low percentage of african americans in the community, which meant that 

“we posed no political or economic threat to whites.” In addition, the rural 

community was not as clearly segregated. 

We . . . lived in an area where there were large farms (that) 

had absentee owners, and they had sharecroppers as well on 

those farms. So, we lived together, had fun together and it 

was awfully inconvenient sometimes . . . for the kids, because 

we had to separate to go to school.18 

While the private sphere of the surrounding rural areas was apparently 

not segregated in the first place, the urban community of huntsville had an 

additional extraordinary incentive to integrate quickly—federal contracts with 

attached mandates to demonstrate equal opportunity employment practices.19 

Michael Smith, a retired professor of political science who was born and raised 

in huntsville and left the area after attending alabama a&M at the age of 20 

in 1968, returned in 1985 to teach at Calhoun Community College in nearby 

Decatur. he explains: “that’s how you got . . . racial integration in the town, 

because we got word from . . . the Kennedys . . . that if they didn’t straighten the 

stuff out, then the government might have to look at these contracts.”20 

While all interviewees note the significant economic impact that came 

with the arrival of German immigrants, the relationship of my african 

american interviewees to the Germans is characterized mostly by memories 

of segregation and its implications. In short, being German meant being white, 

especially in the 1950s when the rocket engineers and their families were trying 

to establish themselves in town. “When Dr. Von Braun . . . and his group 

(came) . . . there were celebrations and welcoming committees and so forth, but 

none of our people were invited to come to participate.”21 

Sonnie hereford, III, a retired family doctor and former civil rights activist, 

was born in Madison County in 1931. he attended alabama a&M before 

moving to Nashville, tennessee, for medical school. after his residency, he 

returned to huntsville to practice medicine until 1993. Since then he has been 

teaching premed and prenursing students at Calhoun Community College. 

18. Charles ray, Jr. interview, huntsville, aL, July 17, 2007. 

19. For a brief history of the efforts to implement civil rights reforms at the Marshall Space Flight 

Center and associated businesses in the huntsville area, see andrew J. Dunar and Stephen 

p. Waring, Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960-1990, NASA 

Historical Series (Washington, DC: National aeronautics and Space administration, NaSa 

history Office, Office of policy and plans, 1999), chapter 4. 

20. Michael Smith interview, huntsville, aL, July 29, 2007. 

21. Sonnie hereford, III interview, huntsville, aL, July 19, 2007. Italics indicate emphasis by 

the speaker. 
 

OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 97 

hereford’s above remark most likely refers to the barbecue party organized by 

the town’s Chamber of Commerce to welcome the newcomers from Fort Bliss, 

texas, as “Special Civic Guests.” the event was announced repeatedly in the 

town’s main newspaper in 1950,22 and it was clearly a well-planned and largescale undertaking: 

Local civic clubs will be asked to cancel their meetings during that week, to meet during the municipal party at the Big 

Spring park . . . elaborate entertainment and reception committees will also be established, to make sure that everyone 

is introduced, and has the opportunity of knowing others 

who will be present . . . Sponsoring Chamber officials are 

hopeful that the barbecue and fellowship will create continued harmonious relations between the various segments of 

the huntsville population.23 

Obviously, the creation of “harmonious relations” did not apply to those 

between the white and black communities of huntsville. When ray explains, 

“We just did not move in the same circles,” he is responding to such insults 

by referring to them as a matter of choice by the ones being excluded—not 

just by those who were actively doing the excluding. In this way, the insult 

is transformed and therefore rendered nonexistent. the need for such a 

transformation speaks to the level of pain these acts of exclusion caused. 

In light of these segregated circumstances that were not unusual during the 

1950s in the United States, it does not surprise that interest in and knowledge of 

the group of Germans was and is relatively low among members of the african 

american community. ray adds, 

I did not know of their . . . direct participation in the affairs 

of huntsville. I’m sure, you know, the financial uplift that 

they brought to huntsville with the program was controlled 

not by Germans, but by the white management at NaSa. 

22. “2,700 attend Newcomer Fete Despite rains,” 	The Huntsville Times, august 10, 1950, 

“Invitations Sent for Civic patry [sic],” Huntsville Times, July 17, 1950, “Newcomer party of 

Welcome Set,” Huntsville Times, July 16, 1950, “Newcomers’ Civic party rescheduled for 

aug. 9,” Huntsville Times, July 26, 1950, “rain Will Not halt Newcomer Outing today,” 

Huntsville Times, august 9, 1950. 

23. “Chamber to hold Barbecue party,” Huntsville Times, July 23, 1950. the guest list included 

not only the German rocket engineers and their families. In fact, they were in the minority. 

Invited were “Incoming scientific personnel at redstone arsenal, the contract companies, 

enlisted men and officers and their families.” Ibid. 
98 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

and that’s essentially what the community dealt with, was 

the white power structure at NaSa.24 

the Germans’ commonality with other white citizens of the area expressed 

itself in other ways as well. Just like most white Southerners of huntsville, the 

newly arrived Germans did not appear to be openly opposed to the system 

of racial segregation. the fact that they had been members of the privileged 

majority in Nazi Germany in a system that segregated and persecuted Jews and 

other minorities made their silence towards the Jim Crow system appear to 

be a continuation of the same tragic callousness towards those constructed as 

racially or otherwise inferior.25 the commonality based on beliefs in being of 

the same race seemed tightly linked to common experiences and histories of 

racial privilege.26 

Smith points towards this important relationship and connects the use 

of slave labor for the production of the V-2 rockets during World War II with 

the slave labor system of the United States in the seemingly not so distant past, 

offering one explanation for why the German rocket engineers’ past seems to 

be overlooked by many in huntsville: 

and, so these people love von Braun and will not hear about 

the Mittelwerks . . . (in) huntsville . . . I don’t hear any 

24. ray interview, July 17, 2007. 

25. Germans who were adults during the Nazi period in Germany may not have all known to 

what extent the persecution of Jews was being carried out, but there is no doubt they saw 

and would have often been part of the treatment of Jews and other minorities as second class 

citizens or worse. Very few tried to intervene. robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and 

Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford and New York: Oxford University press, 2001). 

26. the term “race” is a highly contested and socially constructed term. Which race a person is 

associated with or applies to himself or herself depends on factors such as location and historical 

context.as in many other countries, racism and racialization have a long standing history in the 

United States and in Germany. For the relationship of racism and racialization between europe 

and the United States, see, for example, David theo Goldberg, Racist Culture: Philosophy and the 

Politics of Meaning (Cambridge, Ma, Oxford, UK: Blackwell publishers Inc., 1993) and Stefan 

Kuhl, The Nazi Connection: Eugenics,American Racism, and German National Socialism (New York, 

NY: Oxford University press, 1994). For the United States specifically, see: Michael Omi and 

howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States (London: routledge, 1994); edward W. 

Said, Orientalism (London:penguin, 1978); Kimberlé Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary peller, 

Kendall thomas (eds.), Critical Race Theory (New York, NY: the New press, 1995); Lipsitz, 

The Possessive Investment In Whiteness, (philadelphia, pa: temple University press, 1998). For 

Germany specifically, see: tina Campt, Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, 

Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich (ann arbor, MI: University of Michigan press, 2004); 

heide Fehrenbach, Race After Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America 

(princeton, NJ: princeton University press, 2005); Friedrichsmeyer, Sarah, Lennox, Sara, 

Zantop, Susanne, The Imperialist Imagination: German Colonialism and Its Legacy (ann arbor, 

MI: University of Michigan press, 1998); Uli Linke, German Bodies: Race and Representation 

after Hitler (New York, NY: routledge, 1999). 
 

 

OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 99 

particular outrage over the fact that it might be true . . . again, 

huntsville is in no position . . . because . . . you had slavery 

right here . . . and many of the same people are still here today 

. . . and even if they’re not, they’re from other parts of the 

South . . . and you have the same immorality.27 

Smith emphasizes the slave labor system of the South, even though the 

system was not limited to this area of the United States. this may be his 

interpretation of the Jim Crow system that was implemented only in the 

Southern States and is generally seen as having continued the racist ideals of the 

earlier slave labor system. the mentality of those who enforced and complied 

with the Jim Crow system is, therefore, similar to that of those who enforced 

and complied with the previous slave labor system. this implies that white 

Northerners had potentially acquired a different mindset since the slave labor 

system ended while white Southerners had not. Whether that is a fair assertion 

or not, Smith’s comment is significant because of the connection he makes 

between German and american histories of cruelties committed against those 

perceived as racial minorities. 

Sonnie hereford describes how white people in huntsville dealt with 

segregation, which seems remarkably similar to attitudes of the majority of 

Germans towards the plight of Jewish people and other minorities during the 

third reich. 

Many Caucasians here . . . were just nonchalant. I mean with 

some of them, they knew that the black people were being 

mistreated, but they weren’t trying to do anything about it, 

and then there were some of them doing the mistreating. You 

know what I mean. and there were a few that wanted to 

work with us to try to change it.28 

Of course, what made the Germans different from other white people in 

town was their newcomer status and foreignness. that status apparently came 

with expectations on behalf of african american residents that were quickly 

disappointed. 

Well, we were hoping that . . . they might join us in our fight 

for freedom . . . But I guess we were naïve . . . We were 

thinking . . . since they were encountering some resistance . . . 

maybe they’ll join with us and all of us will fight . . . But . . . I 

27. Smith interview, July 29, 2007. 

28. hereford interview, July 19, 2007. 
100 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

don’t recall any . . . of the people from the German community actually helping us.29 

the resistance some of the Germans may have encountered when they 

first arrived in huntsville obviously did not make them feel as much solidarity 

with the african american minority as apparently expected.30 the expectation on behalf of african american residents in huntsville may have been the 

result of reports from Germany during the first years of the allied occupation.31 

While the economic situation was still very dire for most Germans in Germany, 

and the allied Occupation was still in full force immediately after the war, 

many Germans reportedly treated african american soldiers quite cordially. 

they were presumably responding to experiences with african american soldiers who were generous and friendly despite their position of relative power 

as occupying soldiers. the Germans’ friendliness was surprising for many 

african american soldiers, who had heard horrific stories about German racism and who were still segregated in their military units as well as at home. the 

German response was therefore reported as an unusual experience in african 

american magazines and newspapers around the country, which may have left 

the impression that Germans generally have a more favorable attitude towards 

african americans and, therefore, more sympathy for their plight.32 

29. Ibid. 

30. Most of my German interviewees noted that they found very little antagonism,let alone resistance 

to their arrival in huntsville. this perception has been confirmed by other interviewees who 

were residents in huntsville at the time. I was told of a few incidents of outright animosity but 

also that those sentiments seemed to dissipate quickly. I will address this phenomenon in more 

detail in the larger project. 

31. Sentiments towards black soldiers in Germany were indeed very different after World War 

II, in contrast to World War I when nationalists interpreted France’s use of black soldiers 

to occupy Germany as an added insult. after World War II, German attitudes towards 

african americans varied and again became the focus of negative attention with the rise of 

interracial children born to african american soldiers and German women. however, the 

general impression seemed to be that Germany was less racist towards african american 

soldiers. For a discussion of the impact of the american occupation on sentiments towards 

american soldiers in the years immediately following the Second World War, see, John 

Gimbel, A German Community under American Occupation: Marburg 1945-52 (Stanford, Ca: 

Stanford University press, 1961). Maria höhn describes changing German attitudes towards 

african-american soldiers following the war in GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American 

Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel hill, NC: University of North Carolina press, 

2002). heide Fehrenbach and Yara-Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria have both published 

important research on the treatment of interracial children born in postwar Germany. 

heide Fehrenbach, Race after Hitler: Black occupation children in postwar Germany and America 

(princeton, NJ: princeton University press, 2005); Yara-Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria, 

Zwischen Fürsorge und Ausgrenzung: Afrodeutsche “Besatzungskinder” im Nachkriegsdeutschland 

(Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2002). 

32. this perception was apparently still prevalent in the late 1950s. recalling his service in 

Germany in 1958, General Colin powell once stated that “[for] black GIs, especially those 
OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 101 

the disappointed expectations of solidarity and active support from 

Germans for the causes of african americans in huntsville points to an 

important fact: being German in the United States had a very different meaning 

than that of being German in Germany, especially after World War II.33 the 

Germans who came to huntsville in 1950 and, therefore, to the United 

States very shortly after the war would not have experienced the German 

occupation of Germany to the same extent and have had the opportunity to 

bond with african american soldiers. In addition, instead of experiencing the 

allied Occupation that had provoked strong feelings of humiliation by many 

Germans in the postwar years, the German rocket engineers and their families 

encountered very little difficulty in huntsville, blended well with the white 

majority, and were generally welcomed with open arms by a community that 

appreciated the prosperity and cultural influence they brought to town. 

In some ways, the German families seemed to make matters even worse 

for the african american community. even though strangers to the town, they 

had more privileges than some of the town’s longstanding residents. hereford 

explains: 

I think some people in my community were maybe jealous 

. . . because . . . they were permitted to go to the theatres and 

the concerts and to the sports arena, and we were not . . . and 

they were permitted to go to the restaurants and the hotels 

and motels and what have you, and we were not . . . I think 

there was maybe some animosity . . . 34 

out of the South, Germany was a breath of freedom—they could go where they wanted, 

eat where they wanted, and date whom they wanted, just like other people.” Maria höhn, 

GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel hill, NC: 

University of North Carolina press, 2002), p. 13. 

33. For the meaning of being German in the United States, I refer to works on German 

immigrants to the United States, such as Wolfgang J. helbich and Walter D. Kamphoefner, 

German-American Immigration and Ethnicity in Comparative Perspective, (Madison, WI: Max 

Kade Institute for German-american Studies, University of Wisconsin, 2004) and russell a. 

Kazal, Becoming Old Stock: The Paradox of German-American Identity (princeton, NJ: princeton 

University press, 2004). the post-World War II period of German immigration has not 

yet been analyzed thoroughly, with an important exception that focuses on the postwar 

emigration from Germany to the United States and Canada. For examples, see alexander 

Freund, Aufbrüche nach dem Zusammenbruch: Die Deutsche Nordamerika-Auswanderung Nach 

dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Göttingen: V & r Unipress, 2004), two articles by the same author: 

“Dealing with the past abroad: German Immigrants’ Vergangenheitsbewältigung and their 

relations with Jews in North america since 1945,” GHI Bulletin, Fall 2002, 31:51-63, and 

“German immigrants and the Nazi past,” Inroads, Summer 2004, 15:106 (12), as well as an 

unpublished dissertation by helmut Buehler, “the Invisible German Immigrants of the 21st 

Century: assimilation, acculturation, americanization” (ed. Dissertation, University of 

San Francisco, 2005). 

34. hereford interview, July 19, 2007. 
102 Societal Impact of Spaceflight

102 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

the Germans were not only perceived as not supportive of african 

american causes or simply privileged in comparison; as Smith explains, they 

also appeared to actively engage in undermining african-american institutions, 

such as alabama a&M, by supporting the Jim Crow system of dual education: 

this is one of the negative things they’ve done—they were 

(the ones) who helped found the University of alabama here 

in huntsville. and I say negative because there was already a 

state supported school in huntsville and it’s called alabama 

a&M. and so you now have this clash, this friction, this 

tension, between the new white school and the old black 

school, both state supported. So, that’s one of the things 

the Germans also did. Von Braun. So, in other words, von 

Braun may have brought his european ethnocentrism . . . 

from Germany to huntsville. and it was nothing out of the 

ordinary for him to . . . advocate the opening of a Jim Crow 

school. So, the Germans were not advocates of racial integration, as far as I know.35 

Von Braun was indeed instrumental in getting substantial funding for the 

University of alabama, huntsville, which was founded before desegregation in 

1961.36 Instead of pointing to von Braun, Clyde Foster offers another explanation 

35. Smith interview, July 29, 2007. For more information about the dual system of education in 

alabama, see the higher education desegregation case known as John F. Knight, Jr., and alease 

S. Sims, et al. vs. the State of alabama, et al., Civil action No. CV 83-M-1676, “which began 

in Montgomery in 1981.” the case was “concerned with eliminating vestiges of historical, 

state enforced, racial segregation and other forms of official racial discrimination against 

african americans in alabama’s system of public universities.” Both alabama a&M and Uah 

among others were defendants in this case. For a detailed historical overview of the “history of 

discrimination against african americans in higher education” in alabama, see Opinion 1 Fed. 

Supp.,Vols. 781-835 787, F. Supp. 1030, Knight v. State of ala., (N.D.aL 1991).after approving 

multiple remedial decrees, the court ordered the case closed in December 2006. Information 

about the case and full-text pDF files of the opinions are available at: http://knightsims.com/index. 

html (accessed January 5, 2008). 

36. Uah existed as an extension of the University of alabama in varying forms since 1950. In 1961, 

von Braun intervened in the town’s education politics by addressing the alabama legislature, 

requesting funds to build and equip a research institute on the Uah campus. the alabama 

legislature approved $3 million in revenue bonds for the University. See “alabama a&M 

University: historical Sketch,” Office of Information & public relations, http://www.aamu.edu/ 

portal/page/portal/images/AAMUHistory.pdf (accessed December 10, 2007) and “If you really 

investigate Uah’s history, how it all started and when and why, you might decide that the whole 

thing goes back to 1943 and the day pat richardson was hit in the neck by a softball,” phillip 

Gentry, University relations, http://urnet.uah.edu/News/pdf/UAHhistory.pdf (accessed December 

11, 2007). For accounts of von Braun’s role in the expansion of Uah, see Ben Graves,“panelist 

#7,” in A Century of Flight:‘Creating Rocket City’ by David Lilly (huntsville,aL: 2003) and Bob 

Ward, Dr. Space:The Life of Wernher Von Braun, pp. 170-171. 
OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 103 

for what happened in this case. Foster was born in 1931 and moved to the 

huntsville area in 1950 from Birmingham, alabama, to attend alabama a&M. 

he worked for aBMa since 1957 and transitioned to NaSa in 1960, along with 

most of the German rocket engineers. as the former mayor of nearby triana, 

an all-black community west of redstone arsenal, Foster was instrumental 

in getting running water and a sewage system to the community, as well as 

building houses and creating job opportunities for community members. 

Similar to Smith, Foster was appalled that huntsville already had a 

university that was “a hundred and seventy-five years of age (yet) they come 

in and start a Uah.”37 however, he also describes the difficulties in convincing 

the existing institution to implement an apparently much-needed engineering 

degree. he says, 

that’s one of the things I tried to get a&M at that particular 

time to take advantage of . . . I couldn’t get (th)em interested. 

they (were) hard to convince back in the sixties, to get them 

to understand what’s at hand, and what would be available. 

I guess they d(id)n’t wanna rock the boat. a lot of it . . . had 

been caused by what segregation had done . . . 38 

What Foster is referring to are the effects of systemic racism that often 

led to what he calls “acting like Uncle tom.” the effects of racism had put 

african americans at an immense disadvantage long before they could even 

think about attending college, let alone try to compete for the new jobs coming 

to town with the Germans. hereford describes the school he attended: “We 

had no library. We had . . . no lunch room . . . no chemistry lab or biology lab, 

and I wanted to be a physician. and so I went to school (in huntsville) for twelve 

years and we had none of those things.”39 

Foster describes the effects of this lack of educational opportunities on 

income opportunities available to the black community. referring to the 

technical skills needed to be part of the booming space industry he states, 

. . . we didn’t have a population with the prerequisites that 

would be needed to do this type of work . . . at that time 

(we) only . . . had barbershop(s), funeral home(s), beauty 

salon (s), (and) café(s). Depending on what city, there might 

have been some small type . . . hotel. 

37. according to its Web site, alabama a&M University opened in May 1875, which means that it 

had existed for 86 years when von Braun lobbied for Uah. 

38. Clyde Foster interview, triana, aL, July 19, 2007. 

39. hereford interview, July 19, 2007. 
104 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

So, while the Germans seemed to have brought a lot of jobs to the town, 

being able to take advantage of that was not a matter of equal opportunity. Foster 

summarizes his experience as an african american man in 1950s huntsville 

as follows: 

to have been born . . . in one of the most difficult times to 

be born and to compete, here in alabama, confronted with 

all of the segregation, George Wallace, and on the other 

hand you’ve got Dr. Wernher von Braun with the team from 

Germany from the University of Berlin! and how do you 

wanna compete?40 

CONCLUDING reMarKS 

In my larger project, the impact of the German families on huntsville’s 

african american and other communities will be addressed in more detail. 

In this brief exploration, however, I hope to have provided some possible 

explanations for why hanson howard was not surprised to be the only african 

american in the room for a forum about the “creation of rocket city.” perhaps 

more importantly, I hope to have illustrated the significance of who is telling 

stories of the past, which includes the individual’s relationship to dominant and 

normative groups in the past and the present. 

It should be clear now that the assertion that huntsville is “unanimous” 

on anything related to its German members’ past is an overstatement. While 

sentiments towards the Germans in huntsville were apparently always more 

positive than people not familiar with the town might expect, especially for the 

time shortly after World War II, they were and are certainly not unanimous. 

the notion of unanimity is not unique, but it creates a distorted picture, 

perpetuating injustices of the past. troublesome and uncomfortable as it might 

be for those involved, it seems plausible that common experiences and histories 

of racial privilege have allowed the incoming Germans and white huntsville 

residents to form a bond of complicity. as most of the Germans remained 

mainly silent about racial segregation in the South, most white huntsville 

residents did not, and do not, raise questions about the Germans’ past in Nazi 

Germany. Many members of both groups see themselves as victims of systems 

they view as beyond their control and seem to find explanations declaring the 

inevitability of their compliance satisfactory. In this way, the individuals are 

cleared from responsibility.41 

40. Foster interview, July 19, 2007. 

41. this is clearly a very complicated issue with many more aspects than I can discuss here. For 

the longer project, I will analyze individual’s comments on this subject in detail, placing 

them in their appropriate historical and national context. 
OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 105 

as Germans in the United States, the German rocket engineers and 

their families did not have to contend with the same issues as Germans in 

postwar Germany who were forced to confront the past as a nation for decades. 

however, in the United States, these immigrants were and are confronted 

with the histories of other immigrants, including refugees from Germany who 

had fled Nazi Germany during and after the war, as well as Germans of the 

following generations, like myself, who came to the United States at a later 

point in time and who are accustomed to a more honest approach to dealing 

with the German past.42 When discussing the rocket engineers’ significance to 

the nation, we cannot afford to distort history to such an extent that we ignore 

the histories of other immigrants or of those who were already part of the 

american fabric. the controversies provoked by the rudolph case alluded to at 

the beginning of this chapter make that abundantly clear. 

By discussing the impact of historical events on members of the huntsville 

community not typically consulted, I aim to disturb the notion of unanimity 

and create a more complex and complete picture. I believe this is as important 

for narratives about the “creation of the rocket city” as it is to the “history of 

rocketry” and, therefore, “space history” that should include the impact of 

the changes on different social groups of the huntsville community just as 

much as the use and abuse of forced laborers from concentration camps for the 

production of Saturn V’s forerunners and its implications. 

this is a first attempt to listen to those often unheard voices within 

the huntsville community as they tell the story of their German neighbors. 

however, listening to these voices alone would be a distortion as well, which 

is why I will continue the interview-based research weaving these and other 

voices into the fabric of my dissertation. 

as stated earlier, the main issue with which I grapple is how narrations 

of the past reflect changing power structures and sometimes create new and 

unexpected alliances. In this case, it seems that despite their marginalization 

in huntsville, voices from the african-american community may be more 

reflective of the larger national community, which often contrasts with the 

common idealization of the German rocket engineers in huntsville. how these 

and other voices in huntsville contest each other and interact with national 

narratives will be at the center of my dissertation where I take the concept of 

42. For references on how Germans in Germany have been grappling with the Nazi past, see, for 

example, Michael Kohlstruck, Zwischen Erinnerung und Geschichte: Der Nationalsozialismus und 

die jungen Deutschen (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1997); Claudia Fröhlich and Michael Kohlstruck, 

Engagierte Demokraten:Vergangenheitspolitik in kritischer Absicht (Münster:Westfälisches Dampfboot, 

1999); Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity 

(Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press 1997); Jens Fabian pyper. “Uns Hat Keiner Gefragt”: 

Positionen der dritten Generation zur Bedeutung des Holocaust (Berlin: philo, 2002); and philipp 

Gassert and alan e. Steinweis, Coping With the Nazi Past:West German Debates on Nazism and 

Generational Conflict, 1955-1975 (New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2006). 
 

106 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

impact a step further. I argue that national histories, memories, and identities 

that immigrants bring with them become intertwined with those of their host 

society, inevitably leading to a struggle over meaning. For the Germans in 

huntsville, this struggle was very different than for immigrants considered 

racially and culturally different or economically less desirable from those in 

positions of power in the 1950s in the United States.43 

there are, of course, other reasons for this group’s very unique experience, 

which I will continue to interrogate as I pursue this project. I will close with the 

possibly most poignant comment on the interrelated nature of the histories of 

Germany and the United States I have encountered at this point. as he describes 

his visits of concentration camps in Germany, Charles ray notes: “(h)ell, that 

could have been here, ‘cause we have a tendency not to question power.”44 

ON SOUrCeS 

the video A Century of Flight: Creating Rocket City (2003) referred to in 

this paper is available at the huntsville-Madison County library in huntsville, 

alabama. the transcript is in my possession. 

the oral histories from which excerpts are used in this paper were 

collected based on snowball sampling during the summer of 2007 when 

I had the opportunity to speak to eight members of the african-american 

community of huntsville. I have written permission to use the interviewees’ 

names for research reports and to store the transcripts for future researchers 

at an interested and reputable archive or academic library when my project is 

completed. Currently, the audio files and transcripts are in my possession. 

the lack of women’s voices in this paper is an obvious weakness. I have 

made a deliberate effort to talk to african american women but have so far 

been unsuccessful. I am aware that this may have multiple historical reasons 

that challenge my project as I continue to seek interviewees. 

43. this is not to say that this aspect has changed drastically for immigrants today.the spectrum of 

literature on immigration to the United States is vast. here are just a few examples describing 

experiences of other immigrants to the United States in the postwar period. this selection 

illustrates the significance of professional occupation to the immigrant experience, which I will 

address for the German rocket engineers in my dissertation. Chaterine Cheiza Choy, Empire of 

Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Durham and London: Duke University 

press, 2003), evelyn Nakano Glenn, Issei, Nissei,War Bride:Three Generations of Japanese American 

Women in Domestic Service (philadelphia, pa: temple University press, 1986), David Guitiérrez, 

Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley, Ca: 

University of California press, 1995), pierrette hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers 

Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Berkeley, Ca: University of California press, 

2001), Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy 

of Race (Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press, 1998), and reed Ueda, Postwar Immigrant 

America:A Social History (Boston, Ma: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s press, 1994). 

44. Smith interview, July 29, 2007. 
OperatION paperCLIp IN hUNtSVILLe, aLaBaMa 107 

I also asked my German and african american interview partners 

specifically about women and men who had worked for the German families 

as nannies, domestics, gardeners, or in any other service capacity around the 

house but, unfortunately, most seem to have passed away by now. 

 

Chapter 7 

the Great Leap Upward:
 

China’s human Spaceflight program and 


Chinese National Identity
 

James r. hansen 

I

n late September 2007, the Chinese National tourism administration posted 

an article on its Web site entitled, “China to build largest aeronautics theme 

park.” to be located near the new Wenchang Satellite Launching Center on the 

island province of hainan, the announced aeronautics theme park will cover a 

total area of 61 mu (over 1,000 acres), and, in addition to a “space gate” (Tai 

Kong Zhi), “simulated space hall,” and aeronautics museum, will feature “a 

vacation center for aeronautics experts,” an “entertainment zone,” a “commercial zone where people can buy souvenirs,” and an “aeronautics leisure center.” 

In the center of the park will stand a giant viewing tower from which the thousands of expected visitors may view what officials of the China Space technology 

Group (the prC organization that is working jointly with the hainan provincial government to build the park) call China’s “spectacular satellite launching 

process.” those spectators who cannot all fit onto the tower may watch the 

launches from bleachers on a huge floating platform just off the island in the 

South China Sea capable of holding over 3,000 people. 

at the end of its press release, China’s National tourism administration 

(CNta) declared that Wenchang will be the world’s largest aeronautics theme 

park,significantly larger than the visitor’s center at the U.S.Kennedy Space Center. 

Its operation will “promote international technological cooperation in the space 

field and greatly boost the tourist industry in hainan.” picking up on the story, 

one american news service ran the headline,“Watch Out Disneyland, China May 

Be Jumping ahead of You”—a valid comparison considering that the original 

Disneyland in California was built on 320 acres (compared to 1,004 for the hainan 

park) and the original plot of epcot at Disneyworld in Florida only 600 acres. 

the same day of the article about Wenchang, the CNta released another 

story whose subject was seemingly so different from the first that it might have 

confused many Western analysts trying to understand the conflicting forces of 

modernity and traditionalism at work in today’s China. entitled “Sacrificial 

ceremony to Confucius opens in Shandong,” the story covered a grand sacrificial 

ceremony marking the 2,558th birthday of Confucius, which was taking place 

in the hometown of “China’s most honored ancient philosopher.” at the local 
110 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Confucian temple, “a descendant of the great man” lit a fire signifying the root 

of Chinese culture, and a 3,000-year-old sacrificial dance—one recently 

honored by the Beijing government as part of China’s “National Intangible 

heritage”—was “nobly performed.” With 3,000 people in attendance (the same 

number who will be able to watch a rocket launch at Wenchang from the 

floating platform), including dozens of representatives from hong Kong, Macao, 

and taiwan, 500 middle-school students delighted the crowd by reading aloud 

from Confucius’s Analects. 

these two stories placed together in one’s mind offer a curious starting 

point for an exploration into the nature of Chinese national identity in the 

early 21st century and how that nascent identity may be bolstering today’s 

burgeoning Chinese human spaceflight program. a principal question 

addressed at “remembering the Space age: 50th anniversary Conference,” 

held in Washington, DC, in October 2007 was, “Has the Space Age fostered a new 

global identity, or has it reinforced distinct national identities?” the argument made by 

this author at that conference was that anyone in the West trying to make sense 

of the Chinese “nation,” or even what it means to be “Chinese,” must begin by 

working to sort out all the ethnic, racial, and national self-identities that exist 

within this vast and vastly complicated land. 

On its Web site, the CNta rushes to point out that China is a “happy 

family” composed of 56 different “nationalities”: the han, Manchu, Mongol, 

Uygur, Zhuang, tibetan, and so on, and that in today’s China at least four 

different Chinese “nations” coexist. the first is composed of all people’s 

republic of China citizens. the second is the “han” nation, as han peoples 

account for more than 90 percent of the country’s population—and are always 

the first “nationality” to appear on any Chinese list. the third consists of the 

prC plus hong Kong, Macao, and contested taiwan. the fourth consists of 

overseas Chinese who retain some feeling of dual nationality. Understanding 

what these different national self-identities represent, where they came from, 

how they have interacted with communist ideology and doctrine, and how 

they might still connect to Confucianism or other aspects of the “National 

Intangible heritage”—not to mention how they overlap, harmonize, or rub 

each other the wrong way, let alone relate to China’s ambitions in space—more 

than merits, it requires, some very significant expertise in the social, cultural, 

and political history of China. 

any investigation into the character of the national identity in China 

today must begin by becoming familiar with the ideas and interpretations 

expressed in three recent books on the subject: China’s Quest for National Identity 

(Cornell University press, 1993), an anthology edited by Lowell Dittmer and 

Samuel S. Kim; Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, 

and International Relations (Cambridge University press, 1999), by Yongnian 

Zheng; and A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism 

(Stanford University press, 2004), by Suisheng Zhao. 
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China’s Quest for National Identity offers ten quality articles from 1993 on 

the meanings—and lack of meanings—of “national identity” in China from the 

early dynasties of ancient times through the imperial and colonial periods to the 

present day. In the book’s final chapter, its editors Lowell Dittmer (a professor of 

political science at Berkeley) and Samuel Kim (a Senior research Scholar at the 

east asian Institute of Columbia University) explore the question: “Whither 

China’s Quest for National Identity?” In a nutshell, Dittmer and Kim conclude 

that post-tiananmen China faced an “unprecedented national identity crisis,” 

the basic dilemma for which was what to do about its “apparent inability to 

completely embrace or reject socialism.”1 Not a word in the book, published 

ten years before the first Chinese astronaut went into space in Shenzhou V, 

mentioned Chinese missile development or its fledgling human spaceflight 

program. Doubtless to say, such a book would do so today. 

the 1999 book Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, 

Identity, and International Relations, by Yongnian Zheng, a research Fellow in 

the east asian Institute of the National University of Singapore, presents a very 

different picture of China’s New Nationalism” than that portrayed by most 

Western intelligence analysts.2 Zheng, following the lead of edward W. Said’s 

classic 1978 study Orientalism, a masterpiece of comparative literature studies 

and deconstruction, places his emphasis on how fundamental misperceptions 

occur when Westerners attempt to understand non-Western cultures.3 It was 

in order to emphasize the internal forces of nationalism in China, rather than 

those forces imperfectly or inappropriately perceived in the West, that Zheng 

entitled his book, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China. 

Western perceptions deeply distort what the recent rise of nationalist 

feeling in China is all about, Zheng argues. Many of the misperceptions tie 

into such geopolitical and strategic notions as the “China threat” and “China 

containment,” which derive from the West observing rapid economic growth, 

an increase in military spending, military modernization, growing anti-West 

sentiment, assertiveness in foreign behavior, and the rise of the New Nationalism, 

and then interpreting these developments solely from the “outside,” relying on 

analysts who have never even visited China. Following Zheng’s thesis, such 

misperceptions come directly into play when Western observers consider an 

1.	 Samuel S. Jim and Lowell Ditmer, “Whither China’s Quest for National Identity?” in China’s 

Quest for National Identity (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University press, 1993), p. 287. 

2.	 a good look into U.S. intelligence approaches to understanding what has been going on in 

the Chinese space program can be made on the Web site http://GlobalSecurity.org/space/world/ 

china.index.html. In particular, see the following: Office of the State Council, “White paper on 

China’s Space activities,” November 2000; Mark a. Stokes, “China’s Strategic Modernization 

Implications for the United States,” U.S. army Strategic Studies Institute, September 1999; 

and J. Barry patterson, “China’s Space program and Its Implications for the United States,”air 

University, Maxwell aFB,aL,april 19, 1995. 

3.	 edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York, NY: pantheon Books, 1978). 
112 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

event like China’s January 2007 ground-to-space missile destruction of one of 

its weather satellites. Many in Western intelligence saw the act as clear enough 

proof that Chinese nationalism is aggressive and a destabilizing force for 

international peace and security, though not seeing a similar american missile 

strike (from a U.S. warship) in mid-February 2008 to destroy an american 

satellite loaded with toxic fuel as anything that need greatly bother the Chinese.4 

though it is outside the scope of this essay to cover the arguments made by the 

United States and China for and against the two anti-satellite (aSat) events, 

a few of the ironies associated with them may be registered in the form of the 

following questions: how could China warn against and then strongly criticize 

the U.S. missile attack of February 2008 without mentioning its own antisatellite missile test of the previous year? Conversely, why didn’t Beijing use 

the U.S. interception to justify ex post facto the unannounced destruction of its 

own defunct satellite in January 2007? By what truly legitimate arguments can 

China (or russia, for that matter) call for a complete ban on space weapons and 

then be involved in testing such weapons? how can the United States expect 

other countries such as China (and russia) to stay away from the development 

of space weapons technology while simultaneously opposing treaties and other 

measures to restrict space weapons? 

professor Zheng’s insights into China’s “New Nationalism” may offer 

some help in promoting a better understanding of what is going on inside 

China today, technologically and otherwise. Understood from within China’s 

society and culture rather than from without, China’s New Nationalism should 

be seen, in Zheng’s view, not as aggressive but as an understandable voice of 

4.	 the Chinese aSat missile in 2007 was a medium-range ballistic missile launched from Xichang 

Satellite Launch Center, China’s major launch complex, located in Sichuan province in south 

central China. the target destroyed was an eight-year-old Chinese weather satellite in orbit 

some 535 miles above earth. as a number of Western commentators emphasized at the time, 

this apparently successful aSat test was a major space “first”—for the first time in history a 

missile launched from the ground destroyed a satellite, suggesting that the Chinese could now, at 

least theoretically, shoot down spy satellites operated by the United States or other nations. (In a 

1985 test, the U.S. shot down one of its satellites with a missile fired from a fighter aircraft.) For 

representative U.S. and British immediate reactions to the Chinese anti-satellite missile test in 

January 2007, see Marc Kaufman and Dafna Linzer,“China Criticized for anti-Satellite Missile 

test; Destruction of aging Satellite Illustrates Vulnerability of U.S. Space assets,” Washington 

Post, January 19, 2007, a01; Jon Kyl, “China’s anti-Satellite Weapons and american National 

Security,” heritage Foundation Lecture No. 99, January 29, 2007, accessed at http://www.heritage. 

org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl990.cfm; and “Chinese missile destroys satellite in space,” January 

21, 2007,accessed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news.For Chinese reaction to the U.S. destruction 

of its satellite in February 2008, see David Byers and Jane Macartney, “China and russia cry 

foul over satellite,” February 21, 2008, accessed at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ 

us_and_americas/article3408155.ece; “China Warns U.S. on Satellite Missile test,” February 26, 

2008, accessed at http://www.redorbit.com/modules/news/tools.php and thom Shanker, “Satellite 

is destroyed but questions remain,” International Herald Tribune, February 21, 2008, accessed at 

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/21/america/satellite.php. 
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frustration over an “unjustified” international order, with many in China 

seeing Western interests around the world as anything but benign and Western 

states as anything but innocent in their intentions toward China. In the past 

decade Chinese leadership has worked hard to better integrate their country 

into the international community. admittedly, China’s January 2007 aSat test 

appeared to contradict Beijing’s oft-stated opposition to the “weaponization” of 

space, but, following Zheng’s thesis, one should not leap to the conclusion that 

China’s insistence on testing a missile defense system is a “reckless move” driven 

predominantly by China’s “traditional Sino-centrism” or by its “dangerously 

aggressive aspirations” for great power status.5 For the past several years, the 

Chinese have chafed at what they have seen as efforts by the United States to 

exclude it from full membership in the world’s elite space club. So by early 

2007, Beijing set out to establish a club of its own—as the primary “space 

benefactor” to the developing world. 

Some of this came quickly to fruition. In May 2007, the Chinese launched 

a communications satellite for Nigeria.6 For the central african country, Beijing 

not only designed, built, and launched the satellite but also provided a large loan 

to help pay the bill. China also signed a satellite contract with another big oil 

producer, Venezuela, and also began to develop an earth-observation satellite 

system—and alternative to GpS—in association with Bangladesh, Indonesia, 

pakistan, peru, thailand, and Iran.7 In the next several years, most observers of 

the prC believe that China could launch as many as 100 satellites, not only to 

create a digital navigational system but also to help deliver television to rural areas, 

improve mapping and weather monitoring, and facilitate scientific research. 

the Chinese have also chafed at not being allowed to participate in the 

U.S.-led ISS, a feeling of prejudice against China that became abundantly clear 

to NaSa administrator Michael Griffin and other members of his NaSa 

entourage when they made an official visit to China in September 2006. 

Following an agreement between president hu Jintao and president George 

W. Bush and U.S. acceptance of a special invitation from Dr. Laiyun Sun, 

5.	 Initially declining to confirm or deny that any aSat test had happened, Beijing eventually made 

an official declaration that “the test was not directed at any country and does not constitute 

a threat to any country. . . . China has always advocated the peaceful use of space, opposes the 

weaponization of space . . ., and has never participated and will never participate in any arms 

race in outer space.” Naturally,Western observers refused to accept that China’s destruction of its 

weather satellite did not have any military associations driven by strategic objectives. 

6. associated press,“China Launches Satellite for Nigeria,” May 14, 2007, accessed at http://www. 

space.com/missionlaunches/070514_china_nigcomsat1.html. 

7. See Zhao huanxin (China Daily), “China to develop Venezuela satellite,” November 3, 2005, 

accessed at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-11/03/content_490429.htm; “Venezuela 

to increase oil sales to China,” august 17, 2006, accessed at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/ 

doc/2006-08/17/content_666707.htm; and “China signs 16 international space cooperation 

agreements, memorandums in five years,” October 12, 2006, accessed at http://english.peopledaily. 

com.cn/200610/12/eng20061012_311154.html. 
114 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

administrator of China’s National Space administration, administrator Griffin 

and a small group of NaSa officials traveled to China for a historic 5-day visit. 

Nothing concrete resulted from the exchange of pleasantries, but the visit was 

nonetheless a milestone in the history of space diplomacy as Griffin was the 

most senior U.S. space official ever to go to China.8 

In Beijing and Shanghai, the NaSa delegation met with officials of the 

China National Space administration (CNSa), Chinese academy of Space 

technology, Chinese academy of Sciences, Center for Space Science and applied 

research, Shangai Institute of technical physics, and China Meteorological 

administration. they met for talks with China’s Chief Minister for Science 

and technology, who asked, very frankly, if China could participate in the ISS 

program, an overture the NaSa folks were ready always to politely but quickly 

sidestep. “the tone of our meetings in China was at all times very cordial, very 

polite, very welcoming,” recalls former astronaut and NaSa chief scientist 

Shannon Lucid, who made the trip. “But there was always the undercurrent that 

China really wanted to be part of the ISS. at just about every press conference, 

we would be asked why China couldn’t be part of ISS. administrator Griffin 

always handled that very well, explaining that you could not have cooperation 

on something like the ISS unless everything was open and above-board. You 

absolutely needed that for safety reasons.”9 

the Chinese space programs officials who asked that question were 

clearly not part of the Chinese military, which is in charge of the country’s 

human spaceflight program. In fact, upon arrival in China, the NaSa party 

was informed by its hosts that it would be able to visit the Jiuquan Satellite 

Launch Center but while there would be able to tour a few launching pads 

but would not be given a tour of any of the buildings where spacecraft were 

tested and prepared for launching. Given the time and trouble of traveling all 

the way out to the remote site in the high Gobi Desert just to see launch pads, 

Griffin informed the Chinese that the NaSa delegation did not care to make 

the trip. What he and the NaSa group hoped to see, Griffin later told Western 

reporters, were engineering facilities and to be in a position to have “eye-level” 

discussions with fellow engineers.10 

Nonetheless, the NaSa officials returned home with a much enhanced 

appreciation for China’s commitment to space exploration. according to former 

astronaut and NaSa chief scientist Shannon Lucid, the enthusiasm of the 

Chinese people for space exploration, experienced up close and personally, is 

8.	 See “transcript, NaSa administrator Michael Griffin press Conference, Shanghai, China, 

September 27, 2006,” accessed at http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/griffin_china.html. 

9.	 Shannon Lucid, houston,tX, telephone interview with author, June 13, 2007, transcript, 1. 

10. See Warren e. Leary, “NaSa Chief, on First China trip, Says Joint Spaceflight Is Unlikely,” 

New York Times, September 28, 2006, accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/science/ 

space/28nasa.html. 
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highly impressive. their enthusiasm seems authentic—and no mere invention of 

the communist state. In Shannon Lucid’s view, space exploration has developed 

into “the foremost symbol” of what the Chinese wish for their society to 

become. “right now space exploration is probably more important symbolically 

to the Chinese than it is to the american people,” says Lucid. “Of course, it was 

symbolically very important to us back in the 1950s and 1960s, because of the 

Cold War. It will become more important to americans symbolically in the 

future if some other country starts to prove that it is better at it than us.”11 

Lucid, who was born in Shanghai in 1943 to a Christian missionary couple, 

has returned to China as an adult no less than three times and expresses her 

thoughts about the feelings of the Chinese people about their space program 

with greater familiarity of Chinese culture and history than most Westerners: 

“the Chinese are very proud of their space program. as a people, they are 

very connected to their long history and feel that being a leader in space is 

part of their legacy, as the Chinese were the ones to invent rockets centuries 

ago.” In 1997, Lucid and fellow U.S. astronaut Jerry ross accepted a Chinese 

invitation to attend to an international congress on science fiction literature 

held in Beijing. “the Chinese were really into science fiction,” Lucid recalls. 

“I thought at the time, this is what it must have been like in Germany in 

the 1920s when so many of their people got caught up in science fiction and 

an enthusiasm for rockets and space, or in the United States and the Soviet 

Union back in the 1950s.” In Lucid’s view, China is a dynamic and dramatically 

changing society whose people are very much looking forward to its future: 

“When you see Shanghai, wow! It is so modern with all its shops and big new 

buildings! It is so modern—absolutely amazing! You think to yourself, ‘this is 

a communist country?! there is all this modern building going on, such a great 

hustle and bustle. there is such vitality among the Chinese.’”12 

NaSa administrator Griffin returned from the China trip so impressed 

by what the Chinese were doing that before long he issued what arguably 

will become his most memorable, and certainly controversial, statement. at a 

Washington, DC, luncheon at the Mayflower hotel on September 17, 2007, 

Griffin remarked that China would likely be on the Moon with human explorers 

before the U.S. ever manages it again. What Griffin said precisely—or not very 

precisely, at least in terms of his first sentence—was: 

I personally believe that China will be back on the Moon 

before we are. I think when that happens,americans will not 

like it, but they will just have to not like it. I think we will see, 

as we have seen with China’s introductory manned spaceflights 

11. Lucid to author, transcript, p. 2. 

12. Ibid, transcript, pp. 1-3. 
116 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

so far, we will see again that nations look up to other nations 

that appear to be at the top of the technical pyramid, and they 

want to do deals with those nations. It’s one of the things that 

made us the world’s greatest economic power. So I think we’ll 

be instructed in that lesson in the coming years. 

Griffin concluded, “I hope that americans will take that instruction privately and 

react to it by investing in those things that are the leading edge of what’s possible.”13 

Whether there was a political design behind Griffin’s seemingly impromptu 

comment was immediately debated. Some commentators thought what the 

NaSa administrator said was a good thing, because it could possibly spur the 

United States into a more aggressive stance on space exploration—read “Mars.” 

Others felt Griffin’s comment to be highly lamentable. One representative of 

the U.S.’s burgeoning private space industry offered a strongly negative opinion: “those who have given up have already failed. It’s clearly time for new 

leadership if (Griffin) believes what he said. to suggest that a program that 

plans to outspend China by more than 10 to 1 can’t beat their space program 

hands-down practically defines pathetic.”14 More considered opinions regarded 

Griffin’s assessment to be totally genuine, not cynical, and stemming not just 

from the early momentum of Chinese achievements in space or its grand statements of space ambitions but from what Griffin and company personally heard 

and saw on their historic visit to China a year earlier. 

a third book fundamental to understanding the evolution of the Chinese 

national identity, and placing the contemporary Chinese space program into a 

deeper and richer cultural perspective, is A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics 

of Modern Chinese Nationalism (2004), by Suisheng Zhao, the executive Director 

at the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at the University of Denver’s Graduate 

School of International Studies. Zhao’s thesis is that Chinese leadership in the 

1990s abandoned Marxism for “pragmatic nationalism,” which author Zhao 

13. Griffin’s speech was reproduced in its entirety under the title “america Will Not Like It,” New 

Atlantis No. 18 (Fall 2007): 128-30. 

14. See comment from Stephen Metschan from September 17, 2007, published at http://www. 

spacepolitics.com/2007/09/17/griffin-china-will-beat-us-to-the-moon/. Metschan is associated with 

DIreCt v2.0, an alternative approach to launching missions planned under NaSa’s VSe 

program. the idea behind the DIreCt is to replace the separate ares-I Crew Launch 

Vehicle (CLV) and ares-V Cargo Launch Vehicle (CaLV) with one single “Jupiter” launcher 

capable of performing both roles. Metschan is also founder and president of TeamVision 

Corp, developer of the FrameworkCT, a new class of business intelligence software focused 

on improving the early decision-making process in large and complex organizations. prior 

to founding teamVision, Metschan worked for Boeing on advanced engineering projects 

for NaSa for over ten years. his primary focus was on the integration of analysis, design, 

manufacturing, finance, and marketing teams into a cohesive team framework to enhance 

the understanding of problems and their solutions for advanced space vehicle systems. he 

earned a B.S in mechanical engineering in 1989 from the University of portland. 
 

 

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prOGraM aND ChINeSe NatIONaL IDeNtItY 

defines as a commitment to “avoid dogmatic constraints and [rather] adopt 

whatever approach proves most effective in making China strong.”15 

Specifically, Zhao demonstrates how the policies of the past two Chinese 

presidents, Ziang Zemin, and hu Jintao, employed nationalism with “great 

diplomatic prudence,” not just as an instrument by which the Chinese 

Communist party could preserve its rule but also as the most effective way 

to assemble domestic support from the many disparate divisions in Chinese 

necessary prerequisite to the building of an effective modern state.16 Zhao’s 

book endorses “pragmatic nationalism” as an effective approach to Chinese 

governance and foreign policy, one that promotes economic development and 

is bringing a better life to the masses of Chinese people while at the same time 

avoiding major confrontations with the West. 

Not that there are no alternative “nationalisms” in play in today’s China. 

Zhao also identifies “liberal nationalism,” whose spokesmen since the end of the 

Cold War have been pressing for greater public participation in the political process, challenging authoritarian rule (such as at tiananmen Square), and explicitly 

calling for the adoption of liberal democratic ideas as the best means of promoting 

China’s renewal. Zhao also shows how there is a still a strong strand of “nativism” 

in China, which calls for a return to self-reliance and Chinese tradition and traces 

the roots of China’s weakness to the impact of imperialism on China’s self-esteem 

as well as to the subversion of indigenous Chinese values, such as Confucian ethics. Finally, there is “anti-traditionalism,” a very different sense of nationalism that 

holds that China’s very traditions, such as a Confucian hierarchy and an inwardlooking culture, constitute the main source of its weakness. anti-traditionalists 

call for the complete rejection of these backward traditions and the rapid adoption 

of foreign culture and Western models of economic and political development. 

the anti-traditionalist strand also calls for China to accommodate a “progressive” internationalist system. Starting in the 1980s, anti-traditionalists called on 

the Chinese people to rejuvenate their nation by assimilating Western culture, 

adopting Western models of modernization, and adjusting to the capitalist world 

system. to achieve this goal, they demanded a fundamental change in the Chinese 

mindset, toward one supporting “the spirit of science and technology.”17 

What can Western observers of the Chinese space program really learn from 

this literature on Chinese national identity? how might it help us comprehend 

the conjunction between China today building the world’s largest aeronautics 

theme park at Wenchang while simultaneously celebrating the 2,558th birthday 

of Confucius at Shandong? 

15. Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (Stanford 

University press, 2004), p. xxx. 

16. Ibid, p. xxx. 

17. Ibid. p. xxx. 
 

 

118 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

regrettably, none of the books examined in this essay said much of 

anything about China’s space program. Given that Zhao’s book was published 

in 2004, one might think that at least his book would have done so. In an 

e-mail to professor “Sam” Zhao at the University of Denver, I asked how 

he would apply the thesis of his book to the recent history of China’s space 

program, particularly its recent achievements and present ambitions for human 

spaceflight. Zhao answered my inquiry: “China develops its space program 

because it sees the program as reflecting its comprehensive national strength 

and is an indication of China’s growing levels of science and technology. the 

human spaceflight program will enhance China’s international prestige and 

status and increase the ninjiu li, or ‘cohesiveness,’ of the Chinese people and 

the nationalist credential of the government domestically. also, it will position 

China in the future competition for outer space resources.”18 

although interesting and concise, Zhao’s response was not very satisfying, as 

there must be more to deconstruct about the political,social,and cultural meanings 

of the Chinese human spaceflight program than his response suggested—certainly 

much more given how space exploration has been capturing the popular imagination in China since their first human spaceflight in Shenzhou V in 2003. 

In a provocative 1997 book entitled Space and the American Imagination 

(Smithsonian Institution press), american University political science professor 

howard McCurdy delved deeply into the relationship of american space 

exploration to the larger U.S. popular culture. adopting a cultural studies type 

approach, McCurdy showed how visions of the inevitability of human space 

exploration arising from ideas and imagery in popular science and science fiction 

connected in powerful ways to preexisting mythologies in american culture, most 

notably the myth of “the frontier.”this public perception of space exploration as it 

boiled and bubbled in the 1950s and 1960s influenced the decisions of american 

policymakers to pursue exploration, and to pursue it via human spaceflight, which 

was the predominant vision to capture the popular imagination, rather than going 

with the often cheaper, perhaps more scientifically justifiable and technologically 

sophisticated unmanned programs.Without this tight linkage between reality and 

imagination, McCurdy concluded, the apollo lunar landings would surely not 

have even been tried, let alone accomplished so quickly. 

What was true for the american experience in terms of dynamic linkages between reality and imagination must also be true, in similar yet distinct 

fashions, for other national cultures. another outstanding example of such a 

study into the culture of spaceflight rests in the scholarship of historian Michael 

Neufeld, particularly his 1990 article in the journal Technology and Culture, 

“Weimar Culture and Futuristic technology: the rocketry and Spaceflight 

Fad in Germany, 1923-1933,” which analyzed how the enthusiasms of German 

18. e-mail, Suisheng “Sam” Zhao to author, June 2, 2007. 
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science fiction writing, notably that of Max Valier (someone who did not truly 

even understand the principles of rocketry) ultimately led to the rocket being 

forged into a weapon of war.19 Just previous to Neufeld’s work, historian Walter 

McDougall in his 1985 book pulitzer prize-winning book . . . the Heavens and 

the Earth: The Politics of the Space Age (New York: alfred a. Knopf) explored 

the critically important associations between literary and social movements in 

tsarist russia and the Soviet Union and subsequent technological developments related to rockets and spaceflight. recent excellent studies of the cultural 

context of the roots of the russian space program have also been made by 

James andrews20 and Slava Gerovitch.21 Given the fertility of such studies for 

our understanding of the history of spaceflight within the national cultures of 

the Soviet Union, Germany, and america, one must ask, how would a similar analysis of Chinese culture inform our understanding of the meaning of 

space exploration to the Chinese? to date, very few books and articles on the 

Chinese space program offer anything like the penetrating insights that have 

been provided for the United States, Germany, and russia.22 

Similarly, just as there is no way to fathom what the U.S. space program has 

meant to american society over the past half century without understanding what 

americans have wanted from their heroes—“space” heroes and otherwise— 

there is also no way to understand what the Chinese are after in space without 

understanding the iconography that has developed around their y’uhángyuán 

or “universe navigators.” If the particular types of heroic iconography that 

have come to surround China’s first space traveler, Shenzhou V’s Yang Liwei, 

is any sort of reliable indicator, Chinese society by 2003 was well on its way 

toward successfully mixing a rising sense of pragmatic nationalism, communist 

ideology, traditional Confucian values, and drive for economic and high-tech 

industrial competitiveness into an effective recipe for an expansive program of 

human spaceflight. 23 evidently the Chinese space program has been tapping into 

19. Technology and Culture, Vol. 31, No. 4 (October 1990): 725-52. 

20. See James t.andrews, The Bolshevik State,Public Science, and the Popular Imagination in Soviet Russia,

1917–1934, and Visions of Space Flight: K. E.Tsiolkovskii, Russian Popular Culture, and the Roots

of Soviet Cosmonautics 1857-1957, published in 2003 and 2007, respectively, both by texas a&M

University press. 

21. See Slava Gerovitch, “‘New Soviet Man’ Inside Machine: human engineering, Spacecraft 

Design, and the Construction of Communism,” OSIRIS, vol. 22 (2007): 135-5, and “Love-hate 

for Man-Machine Metaphors in Soviet physiology: From pavlov to ‘physiological Cybernetics,’” 

Science in Context, vol. 15, no. 2 (2002): 339-374. 

22. the most complete treatment of the Chinese space program can be found in Brian harvey, 

China’s Space Program: From Conception to Manned Spaceflight (Chichester, U.K.: Springer, 2004), 

but the book suffers from its lack of historical and cultural perspective. 

23. On the Chinese enthusiasm for their first countryman to make a spaceflight, see my article,“the 

taikonaut as Icon: the Cultural and political Significance of Yang Liwei, China’s First Space 

traveler,” in The Societal Impact of Spaceflight (NaSa Special publication-2007-4801, 2007), eds.
 

120 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

sources of popular support for human space exploration that belong not just to 

the predominant strand described by Suisheng Zhao as “pragmatic nationalism” 

but also into the other strands of nationalism with currency in China today, 

including liberal nationalism, anti-traditionalism, and even nativism. 

If true, it will be no wonder if many thousands of Chinese tourists will 

soon be sitting on floating bleachers out in the South China Sea watching 

rockets lift off from their new Chinese Disneyland, perhaps taking Yang Liwei 

or his fellow “taikonauts” to humankind’s next landing on the Moon, as NaSa 

administrator Michael Griffin has warned. 

Unfortunately, many Western observers—especially in the defense intelligence community—persist in understanding Chinese developments from 

without instead of probing deeper into China, as today’s top scholars on the 

modern Chinese identity would have them, from within the remarkably rich and 

infinitely complicated character of Chinese society—past, present, and future. 

pOStSCrIpt 

august 6, 2008: “Spaceman Yang to launch torch relay in Beijing,” by Chen 

Jia, China Daily, accessed on September 11, 2008, at http://www.chinadaily.com. 

cn/olympics/torch/2008-08/06/content_6907463.htm. 

“Yang Liwei,China’s first astronaut,will run the opening leg of the Olympic torch 

relay in Beijing, which starts at 8 am today at the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden 

City. Basketball star Yao Ming, who some media said would run the first leg, will 

be the ninth torchbearer.“Yang helped China realize its dream to travel in space, 

and now we are living another dream of hosting the Games,” Sun Xuecai, deputy 

director of the Beijing sports administration, told a news conference tuesday. 

September 9, 2008: “the New red Scare—avoiding a Space race With 

China,” by Loretta hidalgo Whitesides, in Wired, accessed on September 11, 

2008, at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/the-new-red-sca.html. 

“In the wake of the pageantry and sheer enormity of the Beijing Olympics, 

China is getting ready for its next beautifully scripted display of power and 

prestige: Its first space walk will be televised live by mid-October. the mission 

will carry three crew members, two of whom will move into the newly created 

eVa (extra-vehicular activity) airlock at the top of the Soyuz-like vehicle. One 

of these crew members will wear a newly designed Chinese eVa space suit, of 

which the country is very proud.” 

Steve J.Dick and roger D.Launius, pp. 103-117.a slightly different version of my essay appeared 

as “Great hero Yang,” in Air/Space Smithsonian(Feb/March 2007), and can be accessed at http:// 

www.airspacemag.com/issues/2007/february-march/great_hero_yang.php?page=1. 
 

 

Chapter 8 

“the ‘right’ Stuff: the reagan revolution 

and the U.S. Space program” 

andrew J. Butrica 

this paper addresses two questions related to the overall theme of “National 

and Global Dimensions of the Space age”: 1) has the Space age fostered a 

new global identity or has it reinforced distinct national identities? and 2) how does 

space history connect with national histories and the histories of transnational or 

global phenomena? the evolution of the U.S. space program, I argue, is a direct 

outgrowth of the impact of ideology, specifically the conservative ideology of the 

so-called New right. Because of the connection to this ideological agenda, space 

history has become linked with national history. 

the intellectual origins of this paper began many years ago as an 

investigation into the influence of ideology on technology.1 the ideology 

was the internationalist, pacifist, feminist, religious, and other beliefs of the 

Saint-Simonians. Named after its founder, Claude henri de rouvroy, le comte 

de Saint-Simon, the Saint-Simonians belonged to a French movement that 

flourished from roughly 1830 to 1870. Many of its members were engineering 

graduates of the prestigious École polytechnique employed by the French state 

in a number of technical positions. they and the Saint-Simonian bankers 

sought to use transport technologies—such as canals and railways—to achieve 

a number of their ideological goals, one of which was to bridge the divide 

between the Christian and Moslem worlds using, among other means, a canal 

linking the Mediterranean and red seas.2 

In this study of the conservative space agenda, I suggest how the reagan 

administration—as the triumph of the New right—projected into space the 

conservative political agenda that elected it into office. america’s turn to the 

right took place over several decades, and its intellectual origins can be traced 

back to the 1950s at the start of the Cold War. as historian George h. Nash 

1.	 recently, this question was taken up by paul Forman in his “the primacy of Science in 

Modernity, of technology in postmodernity, and of Ideology in the history of technology,” 

History and Technology 23, 1 (March 2007): 1-152. 

2.	 this research was the subject of the paper “Saint-Simonian engineers: an aspect of French 

engineering history” presented at the history of Science Society meeting in philadelphia, 

pennsylvania in October 1982. 
122 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

wrote in 1976: “In 1945 no articulate, coordinated, self-consciously conservative 

intellectual force existed in the United States. there were, at best, scattered 

voices of protest, profoundly pessimistic about the future of the country.”3 

the emergence of the so-called New right began in earnest during the 

1960s, in parallel with—and to a large degree in response to—the rise of the 

New Left. the presidential candidacies of Barry Goldwater and George Wallace 

embodied the movement,4 which was propelled by a zealous, if not obsessive, 

anticommunism belief; support for business and defense interests over social 

issues; and downright antipathy for the Great Society program—considered 

the epitome of the “welfare state” and “big government”—and the so-called 

“rights revolution,” which sought equal protection under the law for african 

and hispanic americans, women, gays, and the disabled. rather than address 

a range of social concerns, the New right wanted to deregulate commerce, 

cut the size of government, and reduce corporate and individual taxes.5 they 

believed in the positive benefits of technological progress and scorned the 

prevalent notion of limits to growth.6 

the impact of ideology on the space program’s evolution already has been 

taken up by roger Launius and howard McCurdy in their milestone work on 

presidential leadership, Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership in which 

they wrote that, of all the factors influencing the space program, “ideology 

(was) the most important.” Indeed, “From the beginning of the space age in 

1957, the ideological debate over the program has revolved around the expense 

3.	 Nash,The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America:Since 1945,1st ed.(New York:Basic Books, 

1976), p. xv. 

4.	 phyllis Schlafly, “a Choice, Not an echo,” in Conservatism in America since 1930: A Reader by 

Gregory L. Schneider, (New York: New York University press, 2003), pp. 231-237. Schlafly 

discusses Goldwater’s candidacy as the embodiment of conservative philosophy from the 

perspective of 1964. 

5.	 For my discussion of these political events,I have relied mainly on William C.Berman’s America’s 

Right Turn, 2nd ed. (Baltimore:the Johns hopkins University press, 1998), pp. 2-3, 6-8, 21, & 

39, as well as Mary C. Brennan’s Turning Right in the Sixties:The Conservative Capture of the GOP 

(Chapel hill:University of North Carolina press, 1995);Dan t.Carter, The Politics of Rage:George 

Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York: 

Simon and Schuster, 1995); Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative 

Counterrevolution (Baton rouge: Louisiana State University press, 1997); and Godfrey hodgson, 

The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America (Boston: 

houghton Mifflin, 1996). 

6.	 paul Neurath, From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back: Problems of Limits to Growth, Population 

Control, and Migrations (armonk, New York: M. e. Sharpe, 1994) reviews the limits to growth 

debate from the 18th century to the present, including the Club of rome,and has a bibliography 

of the literature. robert McCutcheon, Limits to a Modern World:A Study of the Limits to Growth 

Debate (London: Butterworths, 1979) provides a contemporary overview of the debate. 
 

 

“the ‘rIGht’ StUFF: the reaGaN revOLUtION 123 

aND the U.S. SpaCe prOGraM” 

and direction of the enterprise, particularly the emphasis placed on human 

spaceflight initiatives as opposed to scientific objectives.”7 

according to Launius and McCurdy, during the 1950s conservatives 

endorsed a limited civilian space program focused on scientific research. 

With the launch of Sputnik, liberals clamored for an aggressive space program 

featuring human spaceflight with sizable federal expenditures and management 

in the form of NaSa. Liberals also pushed the need to garner national prestige— 

something eschewed by conservatives—by taking on the Soviet Union in a 

space race. these ideological divisions began to shift as richard Nixon entered 

the White house. By approving the Space Shuttle project, Nixon accepted the 

liberal space agenda of expensive spaceflight; however, he and his cabinet also 

saw the Shuttle’s potential for conducting various military missions consistent 

with the conservative agenda.8 

In addition, I argue, conservatives during the first years of the reagan 

presidency envisioned the Shuttle as the principal technology for realizing their 

goals in space, namely, the commercialization and militarization of space. In 

many ways, it was tailor-made for their purposes. the Shuttle’s technological 

limitations as an earth-orbiting vehicle suited it ideally for an agenda that 

emphasized exploiting space rather than exploring it, especially regarding space 

applications (business and defense) in near-earth space. all of the conservative 

space policy initiatives focused more on space applications than on exploration. 

Furthermore, the decision to place military and intelligence payloads on the 

Shuttle blurred the line between civilian and military missions, raising the 

question as to whether NaSa—after a brief hiatus in fulfillment of Nixon’s 

strategy of détente—was again in the service of the Cold War. 

as conservative support shifted toward the space program, Launius and 

McCurdy explain, liberal support moved away from it. this “sea change in 

ideological attitudes toward space . . . drew its strength from the confluence of 

. . . the changing nature of american liberalism and the conservative embrace 

of frontier mythology.” president John Kennedy made liberal use of the frontier 

analogy in his speeches, especially as a rationale for the ambitious apollo project 

and the space race with the Soviet Union.9 Once liberal interest in the Cold War 

7.	 Launius and McCurdy, “epilogue,” in Launius and McCurdy, eds., Spaceflight and the Myth of 

Presidential Leadership (Urbana: University of Illinois press, 1997), p. 235. James a. M. Muncy 

also made the point that, while space has been a partisan issue,“space has always risen and fallen 

on the waves of ideology.” Muncy,“after the Deluge:What the GOp takeover Could Mean for 

Space,” Space News 4, 51 (December 19-25, 1994): 4. 

8.	 Launius and McCurdy,“epilogue,” pp. 235-238. 

9.	 One must not forget, too, the extensive references to “frontiers” and pioneering in Kennedy’s 

July 15, 1960, acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention in Los angeles. 

the “New Frontier” slogan morphed into a label for his administration’s domestic and 

foreign programs. “address of Senator John F. Kennedy accepting the Democratic party 

Nomination for the presidency of the United States,” Memorial Coliseum, Los angeles, July
124 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

waned,so did the necessity of dominating “this new sea.”Liberals also increasingly 

rejected the frontier myth and its implied associations with exploitation and 

oppression.Conservatives lacked these misgivings about the frontier and embraced 

the economic benefits and material progress associated with the frontier myth.10 

however, the impact of conservative ideology on the space program was 

far more pervasive than that described by Launius and McCurdy. the conservatives’ own comparison of the space program under the reagan administration 

with that of the Kennedy years was not without grounds. at the very least, 

the numerous new space initiatives undertaken by the reagan administration 

made this a major turning point in U.S. space history at least on a par with that 

of the Kennedy-Johnson era. 

perhaps the most unforgettable reagan space program was the Strategic 

Defense Initiative (SDI), a space-based antiballistic missile defense system. 

With homage to president Kennedy and the apollo effort, reagan committed 

the nation to building a space station by the decade’s end. Less memorable was 

the National aero-Space plane (NaSp), commonly confused with the Orient 

express. the Orient express would have been the nation’s fastest aircraft 

capable of flying from Washington to tokyo in two hours, while the NaSp 

would have been the world’s first single-stage-to-orbit spaceship. the most 

influential and lasting of the reagan space initiatives was the formulation of the 

first national policy to foster the commercial use of space. as a result, the role 

of the private sector in space grew tremendously following the end of the Cold 

War, providing the aerospace industry with a respite from the defense cuts that 

came in the immediate ending of formal hostilities. 

In addition to president Kennedy’s space and frontier rhetoric, conservatives 

also embraced the Kennedy era’s enthusiasm for large-scale space ventures 

overseen by NaSa. One of the principal prophets of this conservative space 

agenda was Newt Gingrich. elected to the house of representatives from 

Georgia for the first time in 1978, Gingrich began formulating his ideas about 

the future, space, and technology in late 1982 and early 1983 as the economy 

began to turn around and a mood of optimism spread among conservatives and 

the public in general.11 his ideas about space and technology are less important 

as reflections of his personal thinking than as a mirror held up to reflect the 

thoughts of a number of like-minded individuals who also viewed space as a 

new frontier for planting the flag of conservative ideas. Like the fabled frontier 

15, 1960, John F. Kennedy presidential Library and Museum, historical resources, http:// 

www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/JFK+PrePres/Ad 

dress+of+Senator+John+F.+Kennedy+Accepting+the+Democratic+Party+Nomination+for+the+Pre 

sidency+of+t.htm (accessed November 12, 2007). 

10. Launius and McCurdy,“epilogue,” pp. 238. 

11. James a. M. Muncy interview,Washington, DC, January 12, 1999, tape recording and transcript, 

NaSa historical reference Collection, NaSa headquarters,Washington, DC.
“the ‘rIGht’ StUFF: the reaGaN revOLUtION 125 

aND the U.S. SpaCe prOGraM” 

of the Old West, space was where new resources and new business opportunities 

abounded, and where there were no limits save those of the imagination. 

another spokesperson for the conservative space agenda, James a. M. Muncy, 

Chairman of the Space Frontier Foundation, explained that “space is a natural 

extension of the earth’s frontiers, and that opening space to human enterprise 

and settlement is a unique american response to some liberals’ calls for limits 

to growth as a rationale for ever-more-powerful statism.”12 

Implicit in Gingrich’s writings is an enthusiasm for technological progress 

that went hand in hand with an intrinsic disdain for the idea of limits to growth 

and the associated notions of a future of lowered expectations and the need for 

state control and planning, all of which Gingrich attributed to liberalism.13 

In Gingrich’s mind, which drew upon both futurology and science fiction, 

technology would take the lead in solving certain social issues. “Breakthroughs 

in computers, biology, and space,” he declared, “make possible new jobs, new 

opportunities, and new hope on a scale unimagined since Christopher Columbus 

discovered a new world.”14 technology and space were a fundamental part of the 

american ethos, the frontier spirit. In this future world driven by the frontier 

spirit and technological progress, the handicapped would no longer depend 

on welfare, having found gainful (tax revenue-generating) employment thanks 

to new technologies—“compassionate high tech”—and scientific discoveries. 

essentially, the compassionate high tech position held that the benefit of 

investing in commercial and military space technology (in fulfillment of the 

conservative space agenda) would “trickle down” to earth and lighten, if not 

resolve, the need for social welfare in a technology-oriented version of what 

came to be known as “trickle down economics.”15 

In order to turn this futuristic vision into reality, Gingrich proposed 

raising NaSa’s budget to its historic apollo-era high and endorsed (as president 

reagan did) both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. NaSa’s 

budget was way too small, he argued; the agency’s annual budget would run 

the Defense Department for only 11 days or health and human Services for 

only 8 days. Over 30 corporations—including such NaSa contractors as rCa, 

General electric, IBM, Westinghouse, and Western electric—were larger 

than NaSa. Gingrich saw nothing inconsistent with being a conservative and 

12. Muncy, “after the Deluge: What the GOp takeover Could Mean for Space,” opinion piece 

written for Space News, published as Muncy, “after the republican Deluge,” Space News, 4, 51 

(December 19-25, 1994): 4, fax copy, folder 644, box 22, X-33 archive, record Group 255, 

National archives and records administration, Suitland, Maryland (hereafter, X-33 archive). 

13. Newt Gingrich and James a. M. Muncy,“Space:the New Frontier,” in Future 21: Directions for 

America in the 21st Century, eds. paul M.Weyrich and Connaught Marshner, (Greenwich, CN: 

Devin-adair, 1984), p. 61. 

14. Gingrich and Muncy, 62; Gingrich, Window of Opportunity: A Blueprint for the Future (New 

York, NY: tom Doherty associates, Inc., 1984), ix; Muncy, interview, 67. 

15. Gingrich, 1, 7-9, 10, 27, 46, 49-50, 52, & 65-66. 
126 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

favoring such large-scale federal expenditures. “Conservatives are not against a 

strong Government,” he explained. “Conservatives are against big, bureaucratic 

welfare states.”16 

the large, expensive, bureaucratic programs started by the reagan 

administration were consistent with the conservative space agenda, the two main 

pillars of which were the commercialization and the militarization of space. all 

of the reagan administration’s major space initiatives—from SDI to the Space 

Station Freedom and the NaSp, with the exception of the commercialization 

of space per se—exemplified the expensive, large-scale, long-term projects 

that characterized the Cold War era. Furthermore, the commercialization and 

militarization of space were intimately interrelated in conservative thinking, 

creating a space-based mirror-image twin of the writings of alfred t. Mahan 

(1840-1914)—a famous naval strategist and professor at the Naval War College. 

Mahan stressed the interconnection between the commercial exploitation 

of the oceans and the military advantages of dominating the seas. he based his 

beliefs on studies of the role played by control of the sea, or the absence thereof, 

in the course of history up to the Napoleonic wars. he concluded that control 

of the seas was the chief basis of “the power and prosperity of nations.” as with 

the New right and traditional republican thinking, encouraging commerce 

was a fundamental priority. In addition, Mahan saw no difference between 

“national interest” and “national commerce.”17 the use of private security 

forces in Iraq is yet another step in conservatives’ continuing linkage of military 

and commercial interests. 

Mahan’s ideas appeared in print as turner’s frontier was closing and as the 

seas (and overseas interests) promised to serve the United States as a new imperial 

frontier. Mahan sought to extend the commercial and military influence of the 

United States in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, especially at the 

Isthmus of panama where a French company was planning to build a canal. 

Mahan’s message that military dominance of the seas was essential to assuring 

both the nation’s military and commercial strength became the foundational 

philosophy on which the conservative space military agenda was built. Maxwell 

W. hunter, II and Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham, two of the principal architects 

and proponents of SDI, consciously followed in Mahan’s intellectual foot steps 

by arguing for the construction of a space-based global defense system to bring 

16. Gingrich, 53-54; Gingrich and Muncy, 62. 

17. On Mahan and his theories, see robert Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters 

(annapolis, MD: Naval Institute press, 1977); William edmund Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power, 

rev. ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma press, 1980); and Mahan, The Influence of Sea 

Power on History, 1660-1783 (Boston, Ma: Little, Brown, 1897), reprinted (New York, NY: 

Dover publications, 1987). 
 

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aND the U.S. SpaCe prOGraM” 

about a pax americana similar to the oceanic pax Britannica, in which national 

security and commercial interests were intertwined and mutually serving.18 

the conservative military strategy in space also took as its starting point 

the rejection of the conduct of the Cold War instituted by the administration of 

president richard Nixon. the two cardinal facets of Nixon’s Cold War policy 

that reagan and the conservatives rejected were détente and the 1972 antiballistic 

Missile treaty (SaLt I). Instead, president reagan chose to heighten the 

struggle against what he termed “the evil empire.” reagan also spoke against 

the reigning defense philosophy known as mutual assured destruction (MaD). 

the MaD strategy, simply stated, was that each party would be able to wreak 

destruction on the other, even if an initial strike substantially reduced the missile 

and nuclear forces of one side. essentially, each side became the hostage of the 

other. reagan’s stance against MaD combined with ongoing studies of highenergy lasers and satellite weaponry to become SDI. 

the military use of space was not new but rather a constant over the 

course of the Cold War. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. military relied on 

satellites for reconnaissance (photographic, electronic, and oceanic), early 

warning of offensive missile launches, detection of nuclear explosions, 

communication, navigation, weather, and geodetic information. One might 

even say that, at least at one point in the conflict, all space efforts served a Cold 

War agenda. the apollo program represented the Cold War at one level. 

Following the flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, on May 25, 1961, 

president Kennedy initiated the space race, a new Cold War battleground. he 

warned that the United States had to challenge the Soviet Union’s space feats 

“if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between 

freedom and tyranny.”19 the Cold War and the nation’s civilian space programs 

were now joined. this was truly total warfare that conscripted civilians and 

civilian agencies into a global struggle. 

During this war, the construction of defensive systems served as a 

bargaining chip in treaty negotiations with treaties helping to limit the 

seemingly boundless search for, and construction of, new weapons. SDI was no 

exception; however, it took military space policy in a new direction by proposing 

to place defensive weapons in space. In contrast, earlier space strategies had 

18. erik K. pratt, Selling Strategic Defense: Interests, Ideologies, and the Arms Race (Boulder, CO: Lynne 

rienner publishers, 1990), p. 96. See also, Graham, High Frontier: A New National Strategy 

(Washington:the heritage Foundation, 1982); Graham, The Non-Nuclear Defense of Cities:The 

High Frontier Space-Based Defense Against ICBM Attack (Cambridge, Ma:abt Books, 1983). 

19. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961 (Washington, DC: 

Government printing Office, 1962), 403-404. asif a. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The 

Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974, NaSa Special publication-4408 (Washington: 

NaSa, 2000), shows that Soviet military officers soon lost interest in civilian space projects 

following Sputnik. they felt that civilian projects hurt their attempts to fund military 

rocketry programs essential to the Cold War. 
 

 

 

128 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

positioned defensive weapons on the ground until their use in space to “kill” 

enemy satellites. another new direction taken by military space policy was the 

idea that, instead of protecting just the country’s military defenses—as had 

been the case of earlier space weaponry—SDI would protect the entire 

population, both military and civilian. the first ground-based aSat systems, 

which dated back to 1958,20 involved launching a killer satellite atop a booster 

rocket to match the orbit of the target, then track it and detonate the killer 

satellite near the target. aSat was not a designation for a single weapon system, 

but rather a generic term covering anything that could be used to attack, disable, 

or destroy a satellite from earth or (in the case of SDI) from space. the 1972 

anti-Ballistic Missile (aBM) treaty did not ban aSat systems as neither side 

wanted to give up a space weapon that both sides were developing. 

after a hiatus resulting from a combination of budgetary, political, and 

technical factors, the Soviet Union resumed aSat testing in February 1976.21 

the resumption of testing galvanized the Ford administration into authorizing the 

development of an aSat system,and president Jimmy Carter continued the aSat 

project while seeking to revive existing arms control negotiations.22 the U.S. and 

the Soviet Union once more were engaged in a space race with the Soviet Union 

again in the lead. SDI functioned as a continuation of this space race. 

part of the concern over the Soviet anti-satellite program was that country’s 

progress in developing directed energy weapons using lasers and particle beams, 

which potentially could serve to arm aSat weapons.23 the United States was 

not without its own particle-beam and laser weapon research, which started 

under arpa’s project Defender virtually from the time of the agency’s creation. 

Laser weapons received increased interest following the invention of the gasdynamic laser in the late 1960s.24 

these developments in laser weapons and antiballistic missile systems, 

critics of MaD, and opponents of the 1972 aBM treaty all came together under 

the rubric of SDI. according to historian Donald Baucom, the first appearance 

of the space-based battle station concept in the open literature was in a 1978 

issue of Aviation Week.

25 the most likely source was Lockheed Corporation’s 

20. paul B. Stares, The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University 

press, 1985), pp. 107, 109-110, 117-131, 135-136 & 145-146. 

21. Stares, pp. 107, 109-110, 117-131, 135-136 & 145-146. 

22. pratt, 53; Donald r. Baucom, The Origins of SDI, 1944-1983 (Lawrence, KS: University press of 

Kansas, 1992), p. 76. 

23. Clarence a. robinson, Jr., “Soviets push for Beam Weapon,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 

106, 18 (May 2, 1977): 16-23. 

24. J. London and h. pike, “Fire in the Sky: U.S. Space Laser Development from 1968,” Iaa-97­

Iaa.2.3.06, pp. 1-3, paper read at the 48th International astronautical Congress, October 6-10, 

1997,turin, photocopy, folder 40, box 2, X-33 archive; pratt, 16-18; Baucom, 15-17. 

25. robinson, 42-43, 45, 48-49, 51-52; Baucom, 118. 
 

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aND the U.S. SpaCe prOGraM” 

Maxwell W. hunter, II.26 hunter was a key figure in promoting what became 

SDI; indeed, he, along with three others, formed the so-called Gang of Four 

that pushed the concept in Congress. 

the other major figure was retired Lt. Gen. Danny Graham, who had 

advised ronald reagan on national security matters during his gubernatorial 

and presidential campaigns. after reagan’s election, using project high Frontier, 

help from members of the president’s kitchen cabinet, and funding from the 

conservative heritage Foundation,27 Graham pushed his own version of a spacebased defense system. Graham felt that by redirecting the arms race to space— 

where he believed the United States held the technological advantage—the 

country would achieve a “technological end run” around the Soviets and once 

again establish U.S. strategic superiority.28 Once more, a belief in the positive 

benefits of technological progress drove the conservative agenda in space. 

reagan was disposed favorably toward antiballistic missile defense and 

against MaD, as he made clear several times, even as early as his 1976 bid for 

the republican nomination.29 the process that led to reagan’s call for creation 

of a space-based defense was slow and took many turns over the year and a half 

between the initial September 1981 meeting in Meese’s office and reagan’s socalled Star Wars speech. that story has been told in some detail elsewhere.30 

Despite the number of unconventional facets of SDI, it served as a bargaining 

chip in arms negotiations, namely in regards to the Nuclear and Space talks 

(NSt) in Geneva, not unlike the role of Nixon’s Safeguard in SaLt I talks. 

through this diplomatic dialogue, which started in March 1985, the United 

States hoped to legitimize SDI and push its claims that the Soviet Union had 

violated the 1972 aBM treaty. For its part, the U.S.S.r. denounced SDI as an 

impediment to arms control, and at the reykjavik October 1986 summit talks, 

the Soviet Union proposed that both sides observe the aBM treaty for another 

ten years, including the restriction on testing space-based ballistic missile 

defense systems outside the laboratory. the United States refused. In 1987, the 

Soviets “decoupled” the SDI from treaty negotiations; ending the program 

was no longer a prerequisite to an agreement. During September 1987 talks in 

26. Baucom, 119;hunter,“Strategic Dynamics and Space-Laser Weaponry,”manuscript,October 31, 

1977, file 338, box 13, X-33 archive. 

27. Graham, Confessions of a Cold Warrior:An Autobiography (Fairfax,va: preview press, 1995), 118-120; 

Baucom, 145-146 & 150; Berman, 67-68; David vogel, Fluctuating Fortunes:The Political Power of 

Business in America (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1989), 224-225; Dilys M. hill and phil Williams, 

“the reagan presidency: Style and Substance,” 11 in hill,raymond a.Moore,and Williams, eds., 

The Reagan Presidency:An Incomplete Revolution? (New York, NY: St. Martin’s press, 1990). 

28. pratt, 96; Baucom, 164. 

29. pratt, 102, 103 & 104; Baucom, 130. 

30. See, for example, Baucom; Graham, Confessions; pratt; Stares; and edward reiss, The Strategic 

Defense Initiative (New York, NY: Cambridge University press, 1992). 
130 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Geneva, the U.S.S.r. further modified its position to allow some antiballistic 

missile research in space. talks later that year in Washington, DC, cemented 

a new relationship between the two countries, and on January 15, 1988, the 

Soviet Union presented a draft Strategic arms reduction treaty (Start) 

protocol, which committed both countries to abide by the 1972 aBM treaty 

for ten years and froze the number of launchers.31 

the 1972 aBM treaty lasted for more than ten years until president 

George W. Bush, who was always critical of the treaty, took the next step and 

announced in December 2001 that the country was withdrawing from the 

treaty—a major goal of the conservative space agenda—effectively terminating 

the treaty on June 13, 2002.32 additionally, in recognition of the national 

priority that Bush gave to missile defense, Defense Secretary Donald rumsfeld 

announced the elevation of the effort to agency status and its new designation, 

the Missile Defense agency, on January 4, 2002.33 With that bureaucratic boost, 

the conservative space agenda seemed alive and well. 

the other major element of the conservative space agenda was the 

commercialization of space. as political scientist W. D. Kay has pointed out: 

“for the first several months of his presidency, ronald reagan did not appear 

to even have a science policy of any sort, let alone a plan for the U.S. space 

program.”34 that changed after the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 

april 1981, when “the general feeling within the White house after Columbia 

was that anything was possible.”35 the Space Shuttle, Kay added, “appeared 

to provide the reagan White house with the final ingredient—the requisite 

technology—that it needed to integrate the U.S. space program into its larger 

political and economic goals.”36 

Indeed, the Space Shuttle stoked the reagan administration’s fires of 

enthusiasm for commercializing space, among other projects. the commercialization of space under the reagan administration was an entirely new space initiative and was one of the two key pillars of the conservative space agenda along 

with the militarization of space. reagan’s commercial space policy grew out 

of an examination of military space policy carried out at the highest level, the 

31. John C. Lonnquest and David F.Winkler, To Defend and Deter:The Legacy of the United States Cold 

War Missile Program,USaCerL Special report 97/01 (Champaign,IL:U.S.army Construction 

engineering research Laboratories, 1996), 129-130; reiss, 89-90. 

32. U.S.Department of State, Fact Sheet,“aBM treaty Fact Sheet,”December 13, 2001, http://www. 

state.gov/t/ac/rls/fs/2001/6848.htm (accessed November 13, 2007). 

33. “BMDO’s Name Changed to Missile Defense agency,” Aerospace Daily, January 7, 2002, article 

196406, [electronic edition]. 

34. W. D. Kay, Defining NASA: The Historical Debate over the Agency’s Mission (albany, NY: State 

University of New York press, 2005), p. 125. 

35. Kay, 128-129. 

36. Kay, 127. 
“the ‘rIGht’ StUFF: the reaGaN revOLUtION 131 

aND the U.S. SpaCe prOGraM” 

National Security Council, by order of the president in august 1981. a Senior 

Interagency Group, known as SIG (Space), came together under the direction of 

the president’s Science advisor, George Keyworth, and the National Security 

Council. It addressed a range of issues, such as launch vehicle needs, the adequacy of existing space policy for national security requirements, Space Shuttle 

responsibilities and capabilities, and potential new legislation.37 the study led to 

the issuance of the National Space policy (National Security Decision Directive 

42) on July 4, 1982, which for the first time ever included business in space 

policy and marked the start of a national policy on space commerce. 

the economic benefits of space (such as telecommunications, weather 

forecasting, remote sensing, and navigation) were not new; however, this was 

the first time in the history of the U.S. space program that a high-level official 

document made a direct reference to the american business community. the 

new National Space policy thus marked a dramatic redefinition of space policy 

not seen since the launch of Sputnik in 1957.38 Specifically, it laid out four 

goals to be accomplished in space; the third and fourth of which called for 

“obtain[ing] economic and scientific benefits through the exploitation of space” 

and for “expand[ing] United States private-sector investment and involvement 

in civil space and space-related activities.”39 

the release of the 1982 National Space policy revealed its indebtedness 

to the Space Shuttle. National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 42 called 

for making the Space Shuttle available to all commercial users, provided only 

that national security conflicts did not result. On July 4, 1982, the same date 

as the new space policy, president reagan spoke before an audience of some 

fifty thousand people at edwards air Force Base, with american flags flying 

in the background, as the Space Shuttle Columbia landed.40 this was the Space 

Shuttle’s final test mission and the beginning of its operational status. It also was 

the first mission to carry a pentagon payload and the first “Get away Special” 

experiments conducted for a NaSa business customer.41 the Space Shuttle was 

now fully in the service of the conservative space agenda. 

37. “National Space policy,” July 4, 1982, folder 386, box 15, X-33 archive. 

38. Kay, 127. 

39. Christopher Simpson, National Security Directives of the Reagan and Bush Administrations: The 

Declassified History of US Political and Military Policy, 1981-1991 (Boulder, CO:Westview press, 

1995), 136-143 (classified version) and 144-150 (unclassified version); Kay, 128. 

40. Lyn ragsdale, “politics Not Science:the U.S. Space program in the reagan and Bush Years,” 

Launius and McCurdy, eds., Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership (Urbana, IL: 

University of Illinois press, 1997), p. 133. 

41. Judy a. rumerman 	and Stephen J. Garber, Chronology of Space Shuttle Flights, 1981-2000, 

hhr-70 (Washington, DC: NaSa, October 2000), p. 5. 
132 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

the Space Shuttle’s dual commercial-military purpose was renewed by 

a subsequent National Security Decision Directive issued on May 16, 1983,42 

with the central objective of encouraging the U.S. commercial launch industry. 

that policy made the Space Shuttle available to all domestic and foreign users, 

whether governmental or commercial, for “routine, cost-effective access to 

space.” It also promoted the commercial use of expendable rockets by making 

government ranges available for commercial launches at prices “consistent 

with the goal of encouraging” commercial launches and by encouraging 

competition “within the U.S. private sector by providing equitable treatment 

for all commercial launch operators.”43 

the special National policy on the Commercial Use of Space released 

on July 20, 1984, reflected the opinions that White house senior officials had 

heard from representatives from a range of companies interested in conducting 

business in space, such as Federal express, McDonnell Douglas astronautics, 

Grumman aerospace, General Dynamics, and rockwell International. It set 

out a series of initiatives that included research and development tax credits, a 

ten percent investment tax credit, accelerated cost recovery, timely assignment 

of radio frequencies, and protection of proprietary information.44 

On November 18, 1983, president reagan designated the Department of 

transportation (DOt) as the lead agency to “promote and encourage commercial 

eLv [expendable launch vehicle] operations in the same manner that other 

private United States commercial enterprises are promoted by United States 

agencies.” rather than emulate the regulatory agencies scorned by the New 

right, hampering commerce and inflating consumer prices, the DOt would 

“make recommendations . . . concerning administrative measures to streamline 

federal government procedures for licensing of commercial” launches (by the 

DOt). the agency also would “identify federal statutes, treaties, regulations and 

policies which may have an adverse impact on eLv commercialization efforts 

and recommend appropriate changes to affected agencies and, as appropriate, to 

the president.”45 here was a regulatory mandate to encourage industry. Space 

commercialization was becoming a model of the reagan revolution, and the 

conservative space agenda. 

42. Letter, rosalind a. Knapp to David a. Stockman, December 12, 1983, folder 696, box 23, X-33 

archive. 

43. Draft National Security Decision Directive,april 22, 1983, folder 696, box 23, X-33 archive. 

44. Craig L. Fuller to richard G. Darman et al., note and attachment,“Space Commercialization,” 

august 2, 1983,and agenda, Space Commercialization Meeting,august 3, 1983, folder 696, box 

23, X-33 archive. 

45. “executive Order: Commercial expendable Launch vehicle activities,” attached to Michael J. 

horowitz to robert Kimmitt,December 12,1983,and rosalind a.Knapp to David a.Stockman, 

December 12, 1983, folder 696, box 23, X-33 archive. 
“the ‘rIGht’ StUFF: the reaGaN revOLUtION 133 

aND the U.S. SpaCe prOGraM” 

Congress subsequently gave the DOt’s new role a legal basis with the 

passage of the Space Launch Commercialization act, h.r. 3942 (Senate bill 

S.560), better known as the Commercial Space Launch act of 1984. Members 

of Congress felt that the designation of a lead agency was insufficient because 

it lacked “legislative authority. the result could inhibit decision-making 

and interagency coordination and allow the present inefficient approaches to 

commercial launch approvals to persist.”46 acting on the authority of both the 

act and a presidential executive Order, Secretary of transportation elizabeth 

hanford Dole established the Office of Commercial Space transportation 

(OCSt), which issued launch licenses and in general regulated the new launchfor-hire industry. NaSa itself recapitulated the reagan administration’s 

evolving commercial space policy by issuing its own Commercial Space policy47 

and creating its own Office of Commercial programs in 1984.48 

as a result of the new projects that the reagan presidency started in 

conscious fulfillment of the conservative agenda, the United States ended up 

with a space program that was, at least in the eyes of the New right, “politically 

correct.” the malfunctioning hubble Space telescope and other issues 

suggested fundamental flaws in the way NaSa operated, while the Challenger 

accident (coupled with the military’s grounded expendable launchers) and the 

subsequent reevaluation of the space program brought on by the end of the 

Cold War signaled a turning point in U.S. space history. the conservative space 

agenda shifted accordingly. although from society’s perspective the changes 

that followed Challenger were neither as profound nor as pervasive as those 

wrought by Sputnik, the space program was never the same. 

Conservatives now abandoned the Shuttle, which they held up as a symbol 

of everything wrong with NaSa, and called for basic changes to NaSa 

management. the chief institutional voice for these changes was vice president 

Dan Quayle, who acted as head of the recently (1988) reestablished National 

Space Council. Quayle wanted to “shake up” NaSa, which he believed was 

“to a great extent, still living off the glory it had earned in the 1960s.” he 

complained that NaSa projects were “too unimaginative, too expensive, too 

46 U.S. house of representatives, Commercial Space Launch Act, 98th Congress, 2d session, report 

98-816 (Washington, DC: GpO, 1984), 9. 

47. “NaSa Commercial Space policy,” October 1984, ii & v, “Summary of policy Initiatives,” and 

“research and Development Initiatives,” folder 386, box 15, X-33 archive. 

48. NaSa	 Special announcement, “establishment of the Office of Commercial programs,” 

September 11, 1984; NaSa News press release 87-126, “assistant administrator Gillam to 

retire from NaSa,” august 19, 1987; “NaSa Commercial Space policy,” October 1984, 

“Summary of policy Initiatives;” and Isaac t. Gillam Iv, “encouraging the Commercial Use of 

Space and NaSa’s Office of Commercial programs,” NASA Tech Briefs,n.v.(Spring 1985): 14-15, 

all in folder 383, box 15, X-33 archive; John M. Cassanto, “CCDS Shock Waves,” Space News, 

January 24-30, 1994, 21. 
 

 

 

 

 

134 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

big, and too slow.”49 he, like many other NaSa reformers, wanted the agency 

to undertake “faster, cheaper, smaller” projects. If NaSa shifted from large, 

prolonged, expensive projects to smaller, faster, cheaper projects, critics argued, 

the agency would be able to accomplish more science for less money. Quayle 

pushed NaSa to undertake “faster, cheaper, smaller” projects in imitation of the 

management style of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. the favored 

management style of the New right became the de rigueur management style of 

NaSa under Quayle and the agency’s new administrator, Dan Goldin.50 

the Space Shuttle was a programmatic relic of the Cold War; it embodied 

the expensive, large-scale, long-term projects that characterized the Cold War era, 

which conservatives had embraced unabashedly. Now it was out of place in the 

fiscally conservative post-Cold War environment that favored cheaper, smaller, 

short-term projects. although NaSa was expected to conform to the management 

style born in the “black” world of national security secrecy, conservatives persisted 

in burdening the country with expensive, large-scale, long-term projects, the 

embodiment of which now became the Space exploration Initiative (SeI), a 

grandiose plan to return to the Moon and then land astronauts on Mars.51 With 

the return to power of conservatives under George W.Bush,the Space exploration 

Initiative returned from the dead as the “vision for Space exploration.”52 

as we consider the “National and Global Dimensions of the Space age,” 

we need to keep in mind how ideology—and in particular the conservative 

space agenda—has so profoundly shaped the U.S. space program and how we 

think about it. the changes brought about may appear to be the outcome of a 

rational policymaking process, but are laden with the values of the New right. 

General acceptance of this conservative space agenda, of course, is assured by the 

nation’s ongoing turn to the right. this ideological agenda, therefore, reflects 

the country’s own turn to the right, and that conservative bent has shaped and 

molded the distinct national identity of the United States and its space program. 

49. Dan Quayle, Standing Firm:A Vice-Presidential Memoir (New York, NY: harperCollins publishers, 

1994), pp. 179 & 180. 

50. Butrica,Single Stage to Orbit:Politics,Space Technology, and the Quest for Reusable Rocketry (Baltimore: 

Johns hopkins University press, 2003), pp. 134-137 & 150-151; and the general discussion 

in howard e. McCurdy, Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program 

(Baltimore, MD: Johns hopkins University press, 2001), passim. 

51. the most recent and complete scholarly treatment of the Space exploration Initiative is 

thor hogan, Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative (Washington, DC: 

NaSa, august 2007). 

52. White house, Office of the press Secretary, “president Bush announces New vision for Space 

exploration program,” January 14, 2004, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/ 

20040114-3.html (accessed November 13, 2007). 
 

 

Chapter 9 

Great (Unfulfilled) expectations: 


to Boldly Go Where No Social Scientist 


or historian has Gone Before1
 

Jonathan Coopersmith 

the start of the Space age, its morphing into the space race, and president 

John F. Kennedy’s launch of project apollo excited not only engineers and 

scientists but also social scientists and historians. Neil armstrong’s words,“One 

small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” embodied not only the justified 

pride of a spectacular technological accomplishment but also the bold hopes of 

the american academy of arts and Sciences (aaaS) to harness the space 

program to apply the social sciences for the benefit of society and government. 

For the aaaS, its “ultimate goal . . . would be to develop a system for the 

continuing monitoring of important effects of space efforts,together with a reporting 

of these effects in appropriate terms to the appropriate agency.”2 the participating 

historians had goals no less impressive. MIt professor Bruce Mazlish declared “In 

short, we are really attempting to set up a new branch of comparative history: the 

study of comparative or analogous social inventions and their impact on society.”3 

this paper examines this NaSa-funded aaaS project in the mid-1960s 

to understand why such lofty goals existed, what the project accomplished, and 

where the humanities and social sciences stand in relation to the space program 

some four decades later. 

aaaS prOJeCt 

Like the american president who set the apollo program in motion, this 

effort had a Massachusetts origin. In February 1962, the aaaS established the 

Committee on Space efforts and Society, which bid on and received a $181,000 

2.	 earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 151. 

3.	 Bruce Mazlish,“historical analogy:the railroad and the Space program and their Impact on 

Society”, in Bruce Mazlish, ed. The Railroad and the Space Program. An Exploration in Historical 

Analogy (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1965), p. 12. 

1 I would like to thank Steven Dick, roger Launius, and peter Stearns for looking at early versions 

of this paper. 
 

 

136 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

NaSa grant for the “Conduct of a study of long-range national problems 

related to the development of the NaSa program”4

 in april 1962. 

according to its charter, the Boston-based aaaS was established in 1780,“to 

cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, 

dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”5 Conducting 

such a project with significant societal implications fit fully with its activities.Indeed, 

its president paul Freund considered this project “a major academy study.”6 

the aaaS proposal to NaSa asked 

From the standpoint of NaSa objectives how can the 

resources of the nation be mobilized for the achievement 

of national goals developing out of advances in scientific 

knowledge and engineering capabilities, and what will be 

the predictable impact of enterprises so conceived on various 

sectors of our society? What will be the reciprocal impact 

back on NaSa? Basically, the effort will be to develop a 

system by which the feedback indicators to NaSa may be 

improved and to assist in making the NaSa experience and 

achievements most meaningful in the public interest.7 

Based upon an original proposal of two years, the aaaS project ultimately 

consumed four years and $45,000 more than expected.8 this was one of several 

efforts funded by NaSa as part of its 1958 mandate to study the “potential 

benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved” in 

the space program.9 Overall, in its first decade NaSa spent nearly $35 million 

on 365 contracts to study the impact of the space program. Most of these 

contracts studied technology transfer and economic impacts.10 

4.	 earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space efforts and Society,” Records of the Academy

(American Academy of Arts and Sciences), 1962/1963, 141. 

5.	 accessed at http://www.amacad.org/about.aspx (downloaded august 7, 2007). 

6.	 paul a. Freund,“president’s report,” Records of the Academy (American Academy of Arts and Sciences), 

1964/1965, 7. 

7.	 Stevenson, op. cit., p. 141. 

8.	 earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1965/1966, 22. 

9.	 “Introduction,” in raymond a. Bauer with richard S. rosenbloom and Laure Sharp and the 

assistance of Others, Second-Order Consequences.A Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology 

(Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1969), p. 2. among other efforts were Lincoln p. Bloomfield, ed., 

Outer Space: Prospects for Man and Society (englewood Cliffs, NJ,:the american assembly, 1962) 

and Lillian Levy, ed., Space: Its Impact on Man and Society (New York, NY:W.W. Norton & Co., 

1965). Levy was a journalist who joined the NaSa Office of public affairs. 

10. Mary a. holman, The Political Economy of the Space Program (palo alto: pacific Books, 1974), pp. 

171-74. See also,t. Stephen Cheston, “Space Social Science,” in Johnson Space Center’s Space
Great (UNFULFILLeD) expeCtatIONS: tO BOLDLY GO Where NO 137
 

SOCIaL SCIeNtISt aND hIStOrIaN have GONe BeFOre
 

Bruce Mazlish circa 1974 (Courtesy Calvin Campbell/MIT) 
138 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

these contracts reflected the goal of NaSa administrator James e. Webb 

to harness and maximize the results of space spending to benefit all aspects of 

american society, including regional economic development and education. 

Webb’s interest, however, was not universally shared within NaSa, whose 

managers and engineers saw these goals as unnecessary externalities deflecting 

them from spaceflight.11 

the first major study was a one-year project completed by the Brookings 

Institute in November 1960. to gather information, Brookings organized a 

two-day conference that included one historian, Melvin Kranzberg, a leading 

force in the creation of the history of technology as an academic discipline and a 

strong advocate of institutionalizing history in NaSa.12 In the summer of 1962, 

NaSa funded an eight-week summer study of fifteen areas of space research at 

the State University of Iowa. If order of appearance indicated priority, then the 

lowest area was the social implications of the space program.13 

these previous studies were more predictions, estimates, and recommendations than actual research.14 the Brookings report called on NaSa to 

establish an in-house capability of at least three senior social scientists. their 

responsibilities would range from selecting research priorities and assessing 

ongoing projects to distributing the findings and assisting in their application at 

NaSa. the report stated “one of the most pressing and continuing research 

challenges” would be to “develop effective methods to detect incipient implications of space activities and to insure that their consequences are understood.”15 

What made the aaaS project different were its underlying goals and three 

publications. While the primary goal “briefly stated, is to examine the impact 

of space science and technology on american life,” there was another motive: 

Educators’ Handbook, OMB/NaSa report Number S677. January 1983, http://www1.jsc.nasa. 

gov/er/seh/social.html (downloaded august 2, 2007). 

11.W. henry Lambright, Powering Apollo. James E.Webb of NASA (Baltimore, MD: Johns hopkins 

University press, 1995), pp. 99-100. 

12. Donald N. Michael, “proposed studies on the implications of peaceful space activities for 

human affairs” (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1960), viii. reprinted as a report 

of the Committee on Science and astronautics of the U.S. house of representatives, 

87th Congress, 1st Session, March 24, 1961. For Kranzberg’s role, see roger D. Launius, 

“NaSa history and the Challenge of Keeping the Contemporary past,” Public Historian 21, 

3 (Summer 1999), pp. 63-64. 

13. “Some Social Implications of the Space program,” in National academy of Sciences-National 

research Council, A Review of Space Research (Washington, DC: National academy of Sciences, 

1962), 16-1-32. 

14. Committee on Space efforts and Society, “Space efforts and Society: a Statement of Mission 

and Work,” (Boston: aaaS, January 1963), reprinted in raymond a. Bauer with richard S. 

rosenbloom and Laure Sharp and the assistance of others, Second-Order Consequences. A 

Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1969), p. 211. 

15. Michael, op. cit., pp. 3-4. 
Great (UNFULFILLeD) expeCtatIONS: tO BOLDLY GO Where NO 139 

SOCIaL SCIeNtISt aND hIStOrIaN have GONe BeFOre 

 

to encourage an enterprise of the size and importance of 

NaSa to incorporate in it a mechanism that would enable it 

to guide its actions with respect to optimizing its second-order 

social effects.to this end, our program has been designed to 

demonstrate that effective and meaningful behavioral science 

research could be done in this complex area.16 

the chair of the aaaS committee was earl p. Stevenson, the recently 

retired president and chairman of arthur D. Little, but he played only a nominal 

role.17 the real driving force was raymond a. Bauer. Bauer (1916-1977), 

described by the New York Times as “a pioneer in the application of behavioral 

sciences,” was a prolific and widely enquiring social psychologist at the harvard 

Graduate School of Business administration who wrote and edited over 20 

books, ranging from interviews with Soviet refugees in the 1950s to analyses of 

advertising in the 1970s.18 

Bauer’s interest in the space program began with a 1960 survey of the 

opinions of business executives about the space program and collaboration with 

the Brookings report.19 In a 1964 talk, his interest grew because 

the point to be made is that the space program because of 

its highly visible nature, and the developing concern for its 

second-order consequences, has played a unique and valuable role that has turned our attention to problems we ought 

to have been studying in any event. It seems to me highly 

probable that just as the program of space exploration is the 

leading edge of the advance of much of the new technology 

(or at least serves as the symbol of this advance), in the same 

way it may serve a very valuable catalytic function in getting 

us to run our affairs better.20 

16. “report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy of Arts and 

Sciences), 1963/1964, 149, 155. 

17 . “earl p. Stevenson, 84; ex-Director and head Of arthur Little, Inc.,” New York Times, July 

5, 1978, B2. 

18. “raymond Bauer, 60; Business professor taught at harvard,” New York Times, July 11, 1977, 22; 

see also Ithiel de Sola pool, “In Memoriam,” PS 10, 4 (autumn, 1977), 516-518, and Florence 

Bartoshesky, “raymond a. Bauer:a list of his works,” Accounting, Organizations and Society 6, 3 

(1981), 263-270. 

19. raymond a. Bauer,“executives probe Space,” Harvard Business Review 38 (Sep-Oct 1960), 6-14. 

20.“Space programs:the Joint responsibility of Business and Government,” 27,april 9, 1964. Box 

5, file 42, Series II-B. hBS research and Writing records – Writings, 1941-1978. raymond a. 

Bauer papers, harvard Business School archives, Baker Library, harvard Business School. 
140 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Raymond A. Bauer (Courtesy Harvard College Library) 
Great (UNFULFILLeD) expeCtatIONS: tO BOLDLY GO Where NO 141 

SOCIaL SCIeNtISt aND hIStOrIaN have GONe BeFOre 

In the summer of 1962, the committee held a summer conference to 

determine the most significant areas of study, which the aaaS and NaSa 

then approved. throughout the contract, the aaaS remained in “continuous 

conferring” with NaSa.21 In March 1963, the committee dissolved itself, and 

in april the aaaS Council created a smaller Committee on Space to supervise 

a study group that would conduct and organize the actual research.22 the 

members were almost all from the Boston area with harvard and MIt faculty 

monopolizing the committee and study group. 

the committee discovered an unexpected challenge in convincing academics to conduct space-oriented research. Its 1962 request to sociologists for 

research proposals to “apply social science insight and imagination to the problem of massive technological innovation and the space program” received a poor 

response. Describing projects in language and concepts familiar to potential 

researchers seemed a necessary step.23 the problem was not just faculty: four 

years later, administrator Webb would turn “almost bitter about the response of 

the nation’s university presidents” to NaSa’s Sustaining University program, 

his effort to remake higher education into a more service-oriented, interdisciplinary enterprise.24 

By 1965, the Committee considered its work “substantially completed.” 

another goal—stimulating research—had been accomplished with the harvard 

Business School studying “technology transfer” and the National planning 

association developing “indicators of trends in social and political change” or 

“social indicators.”25 publication, however, lagged. 

Four volumes were planned; MIt press published only three. the 

fourth, apparently a summary of committee activities, never appeared due to 

“insurmountable” problems of “choice and format.”26 the three published 

volumes were: 1) Bruce Mazlish, ed. The Railroad and the Space Program. An 

21. “Introduction,” in raymond a. Bauer with richard S. rosenbloom and Laure Sharp and the 

assistance of others, Second-Order Consequences. A Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology 

(Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1969), p. 9. 

22.earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 141-142. 

23. “the profession: reports and Opinion,” American Sociological Review 27, 4. (august 1962), 595; 

Committee on Space efforts and Society,“Space efforts and Society:a Statement of Mission and 

Work,” (Boston, Ma:aaaS, January 1963), reprinted in Bauer et al., op. cit., p. 212). 

24.W. henry Lambright, op. cit., pp. 136-139. 

25.earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1964/1965, 18. 

26.earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1965/1966, 22; raymond a. Bauer, “preface,” in raymond a. Bauer with 

richard S. rosenbloom and Laure Sharp and the assistance of others, Second-Order Consequences. 

A Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1969), p. ix.this 

may explain the change of editor, too. 
 

142 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Exploration in Historical Analogy (1965); 2) raymond a. Bauer, ed., Social 

Indicators (1966); and 3) raymond a. Bauer with richard S. rosenbloom 

and Laure Sharp—and the assistance of Others, Second-Order Consequences. A 

Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology (1969).27 

the Committee on Space divided its mandate into three categories: 1) 

Studies on the anticipation of the effects of Space efforts; 2) Studies on the 

Detection of Such effects; and 3) Studies on the evaluation and Feedback of 

Information about effects.28 

although its goal “should be to develop devices for anticipating, detecting, 

evaluating and acting (on)” the inevitable consequences of technical change, 

the committee claimed limits of time and money necessitated a focus on the 

first two kinds of devices.29 Deciding that the development of the railroad 

provided the most fruitful historical approach to analyzing “what the social 

consequences of the space program might be,” the committee commissioned 

eight papers under the guidance of Bruce Mazlish, a study group member, in 

anticipation that “In all of these studies an effort will be made to move from 

the impact of the railroad in the specific area under consideration to an analogy 

with the possible space impact today in similar areas.”30 In this, the Committee 

on Space would be disappointed. 

StUDIeS ON the aNtICIpatION OF the 

eFFeCtS OF SpaCe eFFOrtS 

For an effort whose first product was historical analogies, historians were 

curiously absent. the Committee on Space had two social psychologists and a 

political scientist, among others, but no historians. according to Bruce Mazlish, 

no historians attended the 1962 summer workshop, nor did the members of the 

Committee play an active role in choosing the historians or integrating their efforts 

into the larger project.31 history seems to have been an afterthought that was added 

27.this volume was originally intended to be edited by robert N. rapaport, and entitled Social 

Change: Space Impact on Communities and Social Groups. the different title may have been an 

attempt to appeal a larger audience (raymond a. Bauer, op. cit., p. 19). 

28.earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 150. 

29. Committee on Space efforts and Society, “Space efforts and Society: a Statement of Mission 

and Work,” (Boston: aaaS, January 1963), reprinted in raymond a. Bauer with richard S. 

rosenbloom and Laure Sharp and the assistance of others, Second-Order Consequences. A 

Methodological Essay on the Impact of Technology (Cambridge: MIt press, 1969), p. 193. 

30. earl p. Steveson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 150-51. emphasis in original. 

31.Mazlish interview;July 11, 2007. Only recently did the aaaS hire its first archivist; consequently, 

its records are not accessible. 
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SOCIaL SCIeNtISt aND hIStOrIaN have GONe BeFOre 

because of its potential value or possibly because the committee realized that the 

historians could provide a product for NaSa faster than the social scientists. 

Mazlish became involved because he was a Fellow at the aaaS, where 

he would eventually meet Bauer. a professor at MIt since 1955, Mazlish had 

an interest in methodological problems and helped found the journal History 

and Theory in 1960. Bauer asked Mazlish to develop the theme of historical 

analogies.32 Mazlish found the authors, including some of the foremost historians 

of technology, business, and economics. In an interesting action—or inaction— 

the writers did not meet to discuss their work due to limited funding. 33 

the papers represented the usual range of collected works: some taken 

from previous writings, some transitional new work, and some interesting 

expostulations. however, the aaaS’s hope for major analogous comparisons was 

not realized. the papers instead focused on the railroad with a few paragraphs 

at most about the space program bolted on the end, which, as reviewer Kenneth 

Boulding noted, “remind me, I am afraid irresistibly, of the libations to MarxismLeninism which usually accompany quite sensible russian works.”34 

the volume’s greatest contribution is Mazlish’s article on historical analogy, 

a piece that stands by itself as a major theoretical analysis of that widely used, 

easily abused, and poorly understood activity. according to Mazlish, analogies 

often evolve into myths, which not only provide “needed emotional continuity 

and support, but pass readily into models” that can mislead as easily as lead. 

a possibly insurmountable problem was “historically conditioned awareness.” 

how could researchers base analogies on events that occurred only once (like 

the 17th century discovery of microscopic life) and changed perceptions forever 

(like the railroad altering people’s concepts of time and space in a way that 

reduced the novelty of future advances)?35 

Faced with these challenges, Mazlish stated, “I am tempted to state 

categorically that, for purposes of scientific knowledge, only a historical analogy that 

1) allows for progressive trends, and 2) rises above the comparison or resemblance 

of two simple elements can be of any real value.” More realistically, the best 

research should treat the space program, like the railroad as “a complex social 

invention” in a specific (and evolving) environment.36 any serious historical 

analogy had to be based on detailed, informed empirical studies; focus on the 

complex relationships within the larger system, and not simply comparing two 

32. Ibid. No aaaS records have yet been found of the workshop. 

33. Ibid. 

34. Kenneth e. Boulding, “Space, technology, and Society: From puff-puff to Whoosh,” Science, 

(February 25, 1966): 979. 

35. Mazlish,“historical analogy,” pp. 9-10. 

36. Ibid, p. 11. emphasis in original. 
 

 

 

 

 

144 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

isolated elements; and, use as large a “fair sampling” as possible to ensure study 

of the right elements.37 

Mazlish concluded with five generalizations: 

1. Beware simplistic conclusions. “all social inventions are part and parcel 

of a complex—and have complex results. thus, they must be studied in 

multivariate fashion.” 

2. there are usually alternate technological approaches to attain economic 

goals. 

3. “all social inventions will aid some areas and developments, but will 

blight others.” 

4. “all social inventions develop in stages and have different effects during 

different parts of their development.” 

5. “all social inventions take place within a national ‘style,’ which strongly 

affects both their emergence and their impact.”38 

these generalizations have held up well, though often are not heeded. 

Simplistic comparisons abound today, especially in the political arena. 

particularly neglected in both historical and contemporary analyses is “asset 

and liability bookkeeping,” including paths not taken. economic historians 

have proved best at constructing such alternative realities. 

Building on an excellent overview of the early decades of american 

railroad technology, thomas p. hughes provided more comparative analysis 

than the other papers, including a compelling definition that encompassed 

the railroad, space program, and many other areas: “Wherever and whenever 

nature in her nonanimal manifestations frustrates man in the pursuit of his 

objectives, there exists a technological frontier.”39 

Space exploration surely satisfies the “most extreme result of technological 

frontier penetration is the creation of a man-made environment and the rendering 

of nature imperceptible.”40 But nature in the form of a hostile environment is 

not imperceptible; rather, it is held at bay to the point that robotic probes can 

be sent on decades-long missions. 

hughes noted that one challenge of engineers is to compromise economically 

with nature, to solve problems in ways that are technologically but also 

financially feasible.41 the importance of economics in shaping the trajectory 

37. Ibid, pp.18-20.the preferred word for multi-causal, complex explanations was “multivariate,” 

showing historians can be as trendy as any other group. 

38. Ibid, pp. 34-35. 

39. thomas p.hughes,“atechnological Frontier:the railway,” in Bruce Mazlish, ed. The Railroad and 

the Space Program.An Exploration in Historical Analogy (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1965), p. 53. 

40. Ibid. 

41. Ibid, p. 55. 
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of space exploration and exploitation remains a significant, underappreciated 

topic. the political economy of space remains based on the fact that the high 

cost of reaching earth orbit and working in space continues to limit the players 

in space to those who have deep pockets—primarily national governments and 

large corporations (themselves often dependent upon government orders). 

an aspect of the political economy of railroads Mazlish noted was that over 

120 British Members of parliament served on railroad boards in 1872. any study of 

the american political economy of space today would have to include fundraising 

and other favors for the senators and representatives on the congressional 

committees overseeing NaSa, the military, and, as former representative 

randy Cunningham demonstrated, the intelligence community.42 

For hughes, historical awareness can sensitize the observer to future probabilities and suggest questions. perhaps most importantly, what fields will 

languish as a result of resources expended on space? Will the institutionalization and reification of this knowledge create a momentum that will transfer 

into other areas? What style will characterize engineers and scientists who have 

learned to operate in space?43 Four decades of experience should enable us to 

now answer these questions. 

economic historians robert Fogel and paul Cootner emphasized the need 

to compare the costs of alternate approaches to accomplish similar work and 

the fact that the full impact of the railroad took decades to emerge.44 Drawing 

on his 1964 Railroads and American Economic Growth, Fogel considered the main 

question from an investment perspective: “Will the increase in national income 

made possible by the space program exceed the increase in income that would 

be obtained if the same resources were invested in other activities?”45 

viewing the railroad’s main effects as reducing transportation costs 

of processes and activities already underway, Fogel suggested that the space 

program would not revolutionize transport, generate transcendent inventions, 

or expand access to knowledge. Instead, he postulated that the space program’s 

most radical and important contributions may come from the knowledge gained 

from exploration, exploration impossible without access to space. Unlike the 

railroad, where transportation alternatives existed, rockets provided entrance 

42. Mazlish,“historical analogy,” p. 31. 

43. hughes, op. cit., p. 72. 

44. paul h. Cootner,“the economic Impact of the railroad Innovation,” in Bruce Mazlish, ed. The 

Railroad and the Space Program.An Exploration in Historical Analogy (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 

1965), pp. 112, 118. 

45. robert William Fogel, ”railroads as an analogy to the Space effort: Some economic aspects,” 

in Bruce Mazlish, ed. The Railroad and the Space Program. An Exploration in Historical Analogy 

(Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1965), p. 74. Fogel’s book was both groundbreaking, leading to 

a Nobel prize in economics for Fogel in 1993, and a counterargument to Walt W. rostow’s 

influential concept of stages of economic takeoff,The Stages of Economic Growth:A Non-Communist 

Manifesto (Cambridge, Ma: Cambridge University press, 1960). 
 

 

 

 

146 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

to a world hitherto unavailable.46 this was the most succinct, accurate, and 

ignored prediction made in the book. 

that prediction more than compensated for another prediction. In an 

excellent example of extrapolating from expectations, Fogel assumed the forthcoming arrival of the supersonic transport would negate any advantage of the 

rocket for point-to-point transportation on earth as the maximum time saved 

by rocket would be five hours.47 

the Committee on Space had noted “one of the most widely discussed 

second-order consequences of the space program is the diffusion of spacegenerated technology into the civilian economy,” a consequence space supporters 

promoted optimistically.48 Significantly, Fogel decisively dismissed what would 

be called spinoff in the case of the railroad. NaSa ignored Fogel’s unwanted 

conclusion: tracking and promoting technology transfer absorbed approximately 

half of the $35 million NaSa spent on impact studies in its first decade. Indeed, 

NaSa has long proclaimed and promoted the value of spinoffs.49 

In a stepping stone to his magisterial The Visible Hand, alfred Chandler, 

together with Stephen Salsbury, offered very general hypotheses about innovative inventions encouraging new methods of management and administration, 

needs that emerge as the invention evolves instead of being immediately obvious. 

Often, operational crises—usually in the form of deadly visible disasters—produce the political attention (including from the press, public, and politicians) 

needed to introduce large and complex organizations to manage these large and 

complex technologies. 

as the history of space programs amply illustrate, management has been 

as challenging as the actual technologies with visible disasters often producing 

major administrative changes. the continuing focus on management indicates 

the space program is still a major work in progress. 

From a NaSa perspective, thomas Cochran wrote the most disappointing 

paper, not even adding a speculative paragraph at the end. From a railroad 

perspective, however, Cochran served up a stimulating view of the demographic, 

institutional, and social-psychological impacts of the railroad. 

In an article that local and state governments seeking to attract businesses 

should ponder, robert Brandfon examined what happened when a powerful 

railroad monopoly, the Illinois Central, entered a poor state, Mississippi, with 

goals quite different than those held by politicians and citizens. For Brandfon, 

the key analogy was with NaSa’s then new Mississippi test Facility (now the 

46. Fogel, p. 106. 

47. Ibid, p. 104. 

48.earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 153. 

49. See for example Marjolijn Biejlefeld and robert Burke, It Came From Outer Space. Everyday 

Products and Ideas from the Space Program (Westport, Ct: Greenwood press, 2003). 
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Stennis Space Center). Would NaSa act as a colonialist or contributor to the 

state? how would it handle race relations, an explosive issue in the mid-1960s? 

Would NaSa improve education so locals could be hired, or would NaSa 

import the skilled workforce from outside the state?50 

Based on his significant 1964 The Machine in the Garden, Leo Marx 

examined why so little was known about the impact of technological progress 

upon the collective consciousness. Commenting on Marx, Mazlish noted, “in 

some ways the most difficult to trace and establish, the railroad’s impact on 

the imagination seems almost to be the most fundamental.” Just as the iron 

horse altered conceptions of the pastoral landscape, “one of the most significant 

impacts” of the space program could be new perceptions of earth and space.51 

the rise of the environmental movement has affirmed this impact. 

reception to Railroad was positive. academic book reviews admired this 

“thought-provoking and intriguing book,” though some considered the analogy 

“tremulous.”52 For Bauer and the Committee on Space, the value of Railroad 

was demonstrating that, after a century of writing, the scope and nature of the 

technology-society relationship had not been fully evaluated and that causation 

and change were more complex than assumed. By implication if not analogy, 

the space program would prove equally academically challenging.53 

Unfortunately, the book’s impact was restricted. In a serious blow to 

its diffusion, MIt press never issued a paperback version, the fate of many 

collected works. Consequently, the influence of Railroad, especially on graduate 

students, remained limited. 

a 1979 NaSa-sponsored study on the space program from the perspectives 

of the social sciences and humanities placed Railroad under the category of 

“Impact analysis,” which was “an intellectual invention of the late 1960s and 

early 1970s and evolved as part of the burgeoning academic study of technology 

in its social context.”54 the main directions of the social study of technology as 

well as the aaaS project, however, moved away from Railroad. 

50. robert L. Brandfon, “political Impact: a Case Study of a railroad Monopoly in Mississippi,” 

in Bruce Mazlish, ed. The Railroad and the Space Program. An Exploration in Historical Analogy 

(Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1965), p. 200. 

51. Mazlish,“historical analogy,” pp. 33, 41. 

52. John F. Stover,“the railroad and the Space program,” American Historical Review 72, 1 (October 

1966) 280-281; Julius rubin,“the railroad and the Space program,” Business History Review 41, 

3 (autumn 1967): 334. 

53. raymond a.Bauer,“Detection and anticipation of Impact:the Nature of the task,”in raymond 

a. Bauer, ed., Social Indicators (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1966), p. 20. 

54. t. Stephen Cheston, “Space Social Science: Suggested paths to an emerging Discipline,” Space 

Humanization Series 1 (1979): 1. 
 

148 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

StUDIeS ON the DeteCtION OF SUCh eFFeCtS 

the second research area focused on three questions: 

1. Can effects which have been guessed at or discerned be measured with 

accuracy? 

2.Can procedures be devised for locating effects which have not been 

thought of? 

3.Is it possible to segregate effects of the space program from study of the 

effects of other factors in our society?55 

Under the direction of robert N. rapoport, an anthropologist and sociologist 

at Northwestern University, the Committee on Space commissioned papers in 

1964 to look at the impact of NaSa installations on local communities; of NaSa 

on functional groups like businessmen, students, and engineers; of NaSa needs 

on education and labor; and of the process of technology utilization. 

Second-Order Consequences appeared in 1969. Congressman emilio Q. 

Daddario (D-Ct) introduced the studies as “an important initial contribution to 

the development of technology assessment” and predicted analyzing secondary 

consequences would “become an integral part of the research-developmentapplication sequence.”56 

Unlike the other books, Second-Order Consequences received poor reviews 

and vanished into obscurity. the criticism addressed “simply trite and 

fragmentary” findings, “the unsystematic attack on substantive phenomena, and 

the lack of a broad theoretical orientation,” but also reflected the more skeptical 

academic and political environment of the late 1960s. had the researchers been 

captured by their client, producing supportive reports that did not question 

NaSa goals or costs? Why were the results so passive instead of identifying 

“the need for action”?57 

55. earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 151-152. 

56. emilio Q. Daddario “Foreward,” in raymond a. Bauer with richard S. rosenbloom and 

Laure Sharp and the assistance of others, Second-Order Consequences.A Methodological Essay on the 

Impact of Technology (Cambridge Ma: MIt press, 1969), p. vi. Daddario’s interest was more than 

perfunctory: he later served as director of the congressional Office of technology assessment and 

president of the american association for the advancement of Science. 

57. Ilkka heiskanen,“Second Order Consequences,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, 2. (June 

1971): 232; see also, William D. Nordhaus, “economics of technological Change,” Journal of 

Economic Literature 8, 3 (September 1970), 864-867. 
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StUDIeS ON the evaLUatION aND FeeDBaCK OF 

INFOrMatION aBOUt eFFeCtS 

the third area, social trends, was the heart of the aaaS project. Social 

indicators was such a new area of study that it suffered “not only a general lack of 

consensus as to what should be measured, but also disagreement on goals, purposes, 

and the nature of our society.” the Committee on Space sought “to see if it could 

raise the quality of such evaluations by examining carefully the bases for making 

such evaluations—the social indicators used in measuring trends.”58 Bauer and his 

colleagues were among the leaders in recognizing the importance and potential 

of, as a 1962 president’s Science advisory Committee stated, systematically 

collecting behavioral data and providing advice to the government.59 

Social Indicators was written not just to determine how to measure specific 

impacts of the space program but to propose a total information system that 

would provide “the earliest possible detection or anticipation of impacts that bear on the 

primary mission” of “NaSa or some similar institution.”60 Contributor Bertram 

M. Gross claimed the book was “the first occasion on which the entire field 

has been surveyed and a comprehensive set of proposals, based upon careful 

analysis, has been developed.”61 

appearing in 1966 to favorable reviews, Social Indicators was the most 

influential of the three volumes. political scientist Ithiel de Sola pool, who 

worked with Bauer and later organized a retrospective technology analysis of 

the telephone, stated that the aaaS project pushed the idea of social indicators 

into “the mainstream of american social thought.”62 perhaps a more objective 

indicator of the book’s value is the fact that, four decades after its appearance, 

MIt press still sells Social Indicators. the concept has taken root and flourished: 

a search of Google Scholar for “social indicators” returns roughly 36,000 hits 

compared with 47,000 for “economic indicators.”63 Several internationally 

prominent composite indicators, such as transparency International, are as 

much social as economic. 

58. earl p. Stevenson,“report of the Committee on Space,” Records of the Academy (American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences), 1963/1964, 154-155. 

59. Life Sciences panel of the president’s Science advisory Committee, Strengthening the behavioral 

sciences; statement by the Behavioral Sciences Subpanel (Washington, DC:the White house, 1962), 

pp. 13-19. 

60. raymond a. Bauer,“Detection and anticipation of Impact:the Nature of the task,” op. cit., pp. 

10-11, 63. emphasis in original. 

61. Bertram M. Gross, in Bauer, Social Indicators, op. cit.,“preface,” p. xv. 

62. Ithiel de Sola pool,“In Memoriam,” PS 10, 4 (autumn, 1977): 517. See also Ithiel de Sola pool, 

ed., The Social Impact of the Telephone (Cambridge, Ma: MIt press, 1977). 

63. accessed 	at http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=%22economic+indicators%22&btnG= 

Search (downloaded august 7, 2007). 
150 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

Less successful were efforts to employ the concept bureaucratically. Bauer 

and others, including Minnesota Senator Fritz Mondale, employed SocialIndicators 

to promote action by the federal government, including the establishment of a 

Council of Social advisors similar to the Council of economic advisors and 

more advice to Congress.64 While such a council did not appear, a bipartisan 

Congress established the Office of technology assessment (Ota) in 1972. 

Ota lasted until 1995, when terminated by the new republican Congress. 

aNaLYSIS
 

In his introduction, Mazlish outlined five issues to address:
 

1. What were the theoretical problems of historical analogy? 

2. What was the impact of the railroad on 19th century america? 

3. Could the railroad’s impact be used as a “device of anticipation” to 

study the impact of the space program? 

4. 	Could this aaaS effort possibly become the prototype of future 

“impact” studies? 

5. Could this volume serve as an example of the difficulties involved in 

organizing such a project?65 

as he noted, this effort was an initial exploration, designed to probe 

possibilities, not prove. the volume indeed provided a much richer appreciation 

of the theoretical challenges of creating and using historical analogy as well 

as the many impacts of the railroad on 19th century america. the grander 

goals and visions, however, remained unfulfilled. the first two issues were the 

province of the historian and the most successfully developed. the last three fell 

into the province of NaSa and the aaaS as well as the historian, and they must 

be answered either negatively or, to use the Scottish legal concept, not proven. 

What happened to the last three goals of the aaaS and Railroad? Or, more 

accurately,what did not happen? Was the problem a lack or loss of aaaS and NaSa 

support, a lack of effort to link historians with social scientists and NaSa policymakers, or a more fundamental mismatch between historians and policymakers? 

that is, were the grand aaaS expectations killed by factors beyond 

their control, executed poorly and thus unsuccessfully, or doomed from the 

64. talcott parsons, “report of the president,” Records of the Academy (American Academy of Arts and 

Sciences),(1968 - 1969), 11;Otis Dudley Duncan,“Developing Social Indicators,” Proceedings of the 

National Academy of Sciences 12 (December 1974), 5096-5102; elmer B. Staats,“Social Indicators 

and Congressional Needs for Information,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 

Science 435 (January 1978): 277-285. 

65. Mazlish, op.cit.,“preface,” pp. vii-xi. 
 

 

 

 

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beginning by the inherent inability of historians and social scientists to create 

information and package knowledge in a form useful to policymakers? 

Did the Committee on Space ever ask itself or NaSa, “What sort of 

product would be most useful to NaSa policymakers?” Railroad, from a practical 

or theoretical policy perspective, was useless. there were no conclusions, no 

lessons learned, no set of bulleted issues to serve as guide points, or any other 

packaging of information in a useful form. 

Similarly surprising was what else did not occur. the aaaS did not 

convene a conference of historians, social scientists, and NaSa policymakers 

to discuss the book. Indeed, the contributors to Railroad never met or 

coordinated their efforts.66 If initiated today, at a minimum, the contributors 

would hold a workshop to discuss the topic and their plans. after receiving the 

papers, the planners would then convene a conference with the intended 

audience, NaSa managers, and policymakers. this process of consultation 

and feedback would ensure greater focus, feedback, and relevance. 

to the Committee on Space, the railroad appeared the logical subject to 

study. as the Fogel essay suggests, would studying other historical analogies, 

such as exploring and colonizing hostile environments such as the oceans 

or arctic have proved more fruitful?67 Would studying frontiers—real and 

imagined—have provided insights valuable to NaSa?68 

Did NaSa ask, “What can we learn from history, and what is the best 

way for historians and social scientists to work together with managers and 

engineers?” NaSa, along with the Department of Defense, is among one of the 

major government agencies that uses its history. the history Office at NaSa, 

established in 1959, not only creates and contracts histories but also serves as a 

source of information for NaSa as well as business and the public.69 

has NaSa learned? In one sense, no. to take a recent example, the 2004 

administrator’s Symposium focused on risk and exploration. In addition to 

administrators, astronauts, and scientists, the speakers included explorers of the 

earth and sea—but not one historian or social scientist, even though the NaSa 

history Office provided significant support.70 

66. robert Brandfon, interview, January 25, 2008. 

67. I am grateful to peter Stearns for raising this point. See albert a. harrison,Yvonne a. Clearwater, 

and Christopher p. McKay, eds., From Antarctica to Outer Space: Life in Isolation and Confinement 

(New York, NY: Springer-verlag, 1991) and Jack Stuster, Bold Endeavors: Lessons from Polar and 

Space Exploration (annapolis, MD: Naval Institute press, 1996). 

68. David F. Noble, The Religion of Technology.The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (New York, 

NY: alfred a. Knopf, 1997), 115-141; howard e. McCurdy, Space and the American Imagination 

(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution press, 1997); Carl abbott, Frontiers Past and Future. 

Science Fiction and the American West (Lawrence, KS: University press of Kansas, 2006) 

69. roger D.Launius,“NaSa history and the Challenge of Keeping the Contemporary past,” Public 

Historian 21, 3 (Summer 1999): 63-81. 

70. Steven J. Dick and Keith L. Cowing, eds., Risk and Exploration. Earth, Sea and the Stars. NaSa 
 

 

152 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

In another sense, NaSa has learned, but two highly visible disasters were 

needed in order for the agency to do so. One result of the 1986 Challenger 

explosion was the superb investigation by sociologist Diane vaughan, who 

pinpointed the sociocultural factors that contributed to the Shuttle’s loss.71 

Seventeen years later, when Columbia disintegrated on reentry, the investigation 

board had John Logsdon as a member and Dwayne Day as an investigator, while 

consulting with henry Lambright, roger Launius, and howard McCurdy—all 

outstanding scholars of the nation’s space efforts. 

In addition to preserving and studying the past, the NaSa history Office has 

tried to be accessible to policymakers and managers and to produce products aimed 

at them. While most of these efforts are reactive (e.g., responding to questions and 

requests), some are proactive or more than the mere delivery of information. the 

history Office has held annual conferences, of which this is the third, addressing 

large themes and trying to reach larger audiences beyond academia. 

attention to history has informed some recent and current policy. the 

developers of president George W. Bush’s vision for Space exploration sought 

historical analysis (and analogies) of the ill-fated Space exploration Initiative on 

which to base their work.72 In a 2007 presentation on systems of lunar governance, 

William S. Marshall of the ames research Center suggested including “the use 

of historical checks to prevent society from repeating its mistakes.”73 

Judged by its ambitious objectives, the aaaS project failed. Institutionally, 

NaSa has no Office of Impact staffed by social scientists and historians 

earnestly working away to chart and guide the secondary consequences of space 

exploration and exploitation. predicting and shaping first-order—let alone 

second-order—consequences has proven far more challenging than Bauer 

and his colleagues anticipated, reflecting the problems of applying systems 

management to that unruly aggregate we call society. 

viewed by discipline, historians and social scientists continue to 

communicate poorly with policymakers and the public, since most neither 

know how or care to write or “package” (to use a more jarring but useful word) 

relevant history for policymakers. Institutional mechanisms for encouraging 

such efforts are greatly lacking, and I suspect many historians would flee if 

offered the chance to contribute to the shaping of policy. 

administrator’s Symposium. September 26-29, 2004. Naval postgraduate School. Monterey, 

California (Washington, DC: NaSa, 2005). 

71. Diane vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision. Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA 

(Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1996). 

72. thor hogan, “the Space exploration Initiative: historical Background and Lessons Learned,” 

rand pM-1594-0Stp (Santa Monica, Ca: raND, September 2003). this was part of 

hogan’s larger Mars Wars. The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative (Washington, DC: 

NaSa, august 2007). 

73. padma tata, “Jury duty on the Moon? http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/ October 3, 2007 

(downloaded October 8, 2007). 
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SOCIaL SCIeNtISt aND hIStOrIaN have GONe BeFOre 

Nor have historians embarked on many future impact studies. Indeed, 

rarely do historians work in groups or with other disciplines.74 When they do, 

which requires finding funding on a much larger scale than they are accustomed, 

the best analogy may be that of herding cats. a notable exception is the tensions 

of europe network and research collaboration funded by the european Science 

Foundation to encourage cooperation among european academics.75 

Yet history and historical analogies are powerful tools, especially when 

used well.76 historical understanding, analogy, and questioning can be employed 

profitably and wisely.77 It behooves historians and social scientists to try to 

accomplish this because we know that if we don’t, history will be misused 

to influence and justify policy. Look at the widely used example of Munich: 

appeasement is bad, an argument used by supporters of the vietnam War in the 

1960s and the second Iraq war in the 2000s. as peter Stearns noted in 1981, 

Munich in 1938 was not vietnam in 1968. the same is true for Iraq in 2007.78 

Good history, good analogies, and good guidance are necessary, but they 

are not enough. What also must be considered is if anyone is listening, not just 

in NaSa but also in the legislative branch and wider public. Organizations 

like history News Service (http://www.h-net.org/~hns/index.htm) and history 

News Network (http://hnn.us/) provide historians with a public forum to address 

contemporary issues within a historical context. the problem of audience, 

unfortunately, is not confined to historians and social scientists.79 We should think 

more about our responsibilities as public intellectuals and act accordingly. 

We expect leaders and administrators to make errors. We want them, 

however, to make smart rather than dumb ones. Good history—accurate and 

aimed at policymakers—can and should help them to avoid dumb errors. 

academics tend to end papers with calls for further research. I shall continue 

this tradition with two recommendations. First, the history profession and NaSa 

should examine the Department of Defense history programs and the field of 

military history to learn what the military and military historians are doing right 

74. the situation since 1981 has not changed significantly (peter N. Stearns,“applied history and 

Social history,” Journal of Social History 14, 4 (Summer, 1981): 533-537. 

75. accessed at http://www.histech.nl/tensions/ (downloaded august 7, 2007). 

76. For a fascinating study of how physicists used analogy, see Daniel Kennefick, Traveling at 

the Speed of Thought. Einstein and the Quest for Gravitational Waves (princeton, NJ: princeton 

University press, 2007). 

77. richard e. Neustadt and ernest r. May, Thinking in Time:The Uses of History for Decision Makers 

(New York, NY: Free press, 1986). 

78. peter N. Stearns, “applied history and Social history,” Journal of Social History 14, 4 (Summer, 

1981): 533.a less used but equally important lesson of Munich is that all the major players should 

be at the negotiating table. the inclusion of up-and-coming as well as established spacefaring 

nations in discussions about coordinating future Moon exploration is a good sign that that lesson 

has been learned. 

79. Barbara Kline pope,“Because Science Matters,” Science. (June 1, 2007): 1286. 
154 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe 

and wrong.80 Second, over two decades have passed since richard e. Neustadt and 

ernest r. May published their important Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for 

Decision Makers. It is time to update that classic with lessons for the 21st century. 

Let me end by returning to Mazlish’s statement that “In short, we are 

really attempting to set up a new branch of comparative history: the study of 

comparative or analogous social inventions and their impact on society.” Judged 

by this goal, did he succeed? after all, there is no school of history analogy. But 

perhaps his words should be thought of as another way of describing the history 

of technology and of urging historians to expand their theoretical tool chests. 

80. For a sense of the extensive military programs and their challenges, see pat harahan and Jim 

Davis, “historians and the american Military: past experiences and Future expectations,” 

Public Historian 5, 3 (Summer 1983): 55-64; richard h. Kohn, “the practice of Military 

history in the U.S. Government: the Department of Defense,” Journal of Military History 

61, 1 (January 1997): 121-147. For specific applications of history, see andrew J. Bacevich, 

preserving the well-bred horse,” The National Interest (September 22, 1994): 43-49; Conrad 

C. Crane, Avoiding Vietnam: The U.S. Army’s Response to Defeat in Southeast Asia (Carlisle, pa: 

army War College, 2002); Brian Mcallister Linn, The Echo of Battle. The Army’s Way of War 

(Cambridge, Ma: harvard University press, 2007).