The Space Review, MD
09-25-06
Exploring the social frontiers of spaceflight
by Dwayne A. Day
On September 19–21, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the
NASA history office co-hosted a conference titled the Societal Impact of
Spaceflight in Washington, DC. The conference featured over thirty speakers on
this little-covered topic in space history. The speakers included authors,
professional historians, and other serious observers of the space program.
What follows is a brief overview of a number of the presentations at the
conference. This overview is neither comprehensive nor detailed. It will not
include every presentation and only touches on some of the more interesting and
intriguing comments (in my opinion) made by a few of the presenters. A number
of presentations are excluded not because they were uninteresting, but because
I was unable to take notes during the full two and a half days of presentations.
Fortunately, the conference organizers intend to eventually produce conference
proceedings that will include papers by many of the presenters that will certainly
explore these subjects in greater detail.
National Air and Space Museum Deputy Director Donald Lopez gave a brief
opening talk where he mentioned two upcoming events at the museum. One is
the plan to mount a 10-meter-long nose and fuselage section from a 747 to one
of the walls of the museum. The museum’s impressive collection of aircraft lacks
a vintage 747 and this new exhibit will close part of that gap. Another upcoming
exhibition will cover 50 years of space art. The museum owns a vast collection of
space art that rarely gets exhibited and this new display will commemorate the
fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik.
McCurdy also noted that different cultures view space differently. While
Americans have a positive image of the frontier, other cultures do not share this
image or even the concept of a frontier, and certainly do not view it in the same
romantic way as nineteenth century historian Jackson Turner.
The keynote lecture was delivered by Howard McCurdy, a historian at American
University and author of several books on NASA and social history. McCurdy
noted that throughout history humans have changed how they define the world
around them. For instance, for much of early American history the wilderness
was a dangerous and forbidding place, hostile, and “full of bugs.” But Henry
David Thoreau and other writers reimagined the wilderness as a wonderful place
and today people visit national parks on their vacations. McCurdy proposed that
the same has happened with spaceflight. Space is a hostile environment, more
hostile than any place on Earth. And yet space activists and even politicians have
portrayed it as a great frontier, a challenge for humanity to explore, rather than a
place filled with danger.
McCurdy also noted that different cultures view space differently. Discussing a
theme that later speakers would revisit, he explained that Americans have a
positive image of the frontier. Other cultures do not share this image or even the
concept of a frontier, and certainly do not view it in the same romantic way as
nineteenth century historian Jackson Turner. These different narratives can
shape different policies and public attitudes towards space exploration and
development.
Roger Launius, chief of the Division of Space History at the Air and Space
Museum, spoke about turning points in history. He said that this is one way that
historians have of trying to define and shed light on history, but that the definition
of a turning point is fuzzy and this tool can obscure as much as it can illuminate.
For instance, one survey of American historians identified fifteen turning points in
the 20th century. The dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan was number one,
and humans landing on the Moon was second, followed by the attack on Pearl
Harbor and the Wright Brothers’ airplane flight. However, Launius noted what
was not on the list. Ballistic missiles, which made the possibility of instant
annihilation possible, were not on this list, perhaps because they did not have a
clearly defined moment in time but instead were developed over a period of
years. It is important, Launius said, to not simply accept a master narrative that
neatly sums up a history and shoves aside other important events and trends.
James T. Andrews of Iowa State University spoke about his work writing a
book about Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and how he has been used by various groups
and people in Soviet society. Joseph Stalin recognized that Tsiolkovsky’s
notoriety could be useful for enhancing the image of the Communist Party and
the Soviet Union. But, surprisingly to Westerners, Soviet society was not
monolithic during the 1950s and 1960s, and there was published criticism of the
Soviet government’s campaign to place space on the national stage. Western
commentators long noted that the Soviet command-driven economy could deny
its citizens consumer goods in order to build rockets, but what has been little
recognized was that there were people—artists, writers, and others—who
criticized this decision, albeit within limits.
Andrew Chaikin, who is perhaps best known for writing a history of the Apollo
missions A Man on the Moon and serving as an advisor to the award-winning
HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, spoke about the Apollo program’s
place in American mythology. Images from Apollo have taken hold in American
culture, such as MTV’s appropriation of the image of an astronaut on the Moon.
However, Chaikin also noted that the belief among some members of the public
that the Moon landings were faked is not new, and as proof he showed a
December 1969 article from the New York Times about people who claimed that
the landings were actually filmed on a soundstage in the Nevada desert. He also
asked a rhetorical question: is it possible that people were so preoccupied with
other events during the 1960s—the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement,
assassinations. and social upheaval—that Americans did not celebrate the
Apollo landings to the extent that they otherwise might have celebrated? He
proposed that the lack of celebration of the event in the 1960s may have
contributed to a desire to celebrate it later, noting that many of the people he
worked with on the HBO miniseries were truly excited about paying homage to
the Moon landing achievement.
Is it possible that people were so preoccupied with other events during the
1960s—the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, assassinations. and social
upheaval—that Americans did not celebrate the Apollo landings to the extent that
they otherwise might have celebrated?
Valerie Neal, a curator at the Division of Space History at the Air and Space
Museum, discussed the popular image of the space shuttle over time. Since its
inception in the early 1970s, the shuttle’s image has changed many times and
Neal showed examples of NASA advertising over the years. The shuttle was
touted as an amazing piece of hardware at first, and Neal noted the surprising
lack of human figures in the early NASA artwork of the shuttle. It was supposed
to usher in “a new era of routine spaceflight,” but was later billed as a boon to
science, then a moneymaking business. When the Challenger was destroyed it
had been carrying a communications satellite, yet President Ronald Reagan
hailed the deceased astronauts as heroic explorers, resorting to a common
theme of the space program even if it did not fit the reality. Later the shuttle was
contributing to the goal of “permanent presence in space.” One image that Neal
did not discuss is the popular media portrayal of the shuttle as a mistake or
failure, an attitude adopted by many journalists after the Columbia accident and
bound to dominate the discussion of the shuttle’s impending retirement.
John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington
University, spoke about space in the post-Cold War environment and asked if the
end of the Cold War had changed how the United States conducts its various
space programs. Logsdon noted that at the end of the Cold War a “blue ribbon
commission” addressed the issue of the future of the American space program
and called for substantial changes in the way that the United States operated.
For instance, the commission called for essentially ending the separation
between the military and intelligence space programs, and reducing the security
classification of much of the intelligence space program. This integration did not
happen, although some declassification did occur. There were no major changes
in the way that the space program was executed, although there were changes in
goals and conditions. As one questioner pointed out, the space station was going
to die and in many ways it was the end of the Cold War that saved it, making it
possible for Russia to become a partner. Logsdon, though, noted that although
there have been benefits to this partnership, it is currently American policy to
slowly extricate the United States from it.
James Hansen, a historian at Auburn University who is perhaps best known in
the space community as the author of the Neil Armstrong biography First Man,
spoke about how Chinese culture is adapting and developing to that country’s
new human spaceflight program. When Yang Liwei was launched into space in
late 2003, the Chinese government decided to turn him into a national hero and
surprisingly played up his individual achievement in a society that almost never
celebrates the individual. Hansen also pointed out that, in contrast to their
treatment of Liwei, the Chinese government has kept the two taikonauts who flew
on China’s second human spaceflight mission in relative obscurity.
According to Hansen, the Chinese government put Liwei on a tour of various
Chinese cities where he was often the centerpiece hero of major events attended
by tens of thousands of people. When Liwei visited Hong Kong for a “human
spaceflight exhibition,” local newspapers and business leaders criticized the visit
as propaganda to designed to prop up the Communist government. Although the
popular media was cynical about his trip, Hansen said that there was substantial
evidence that local Hong Kong residents were excited about Liwei’s visit, and
separated his individual achievement from government politics and propaganda.
Hansen also said that the Chinese government played up Liwei’s relationship
with his young son in a society where the father-son bond is a powerful tradition.
Liwei’s son was featured in ceremonies and is himself a hero to children in
China.
Phil Scranton of Rutgers University talked about how the history of spaceflight
has been practiced in the United States. In particular, Scranton noted that there
has been almost no attention paid to corporate history in this area. Space
achievements have been studied in terms of how NASA built and operated
spacecraft, even though the majority of the design, development and
manufacturing of spacecraft—and substantial parts of their operation—were
done by contractors.
Because Air Force leaders did not foresee the incredible range of uses that GPS
was later put to, they had no reason to ensure that it advanced quickly.
Henry Lambright of Syracuse University talked about the change in how NASA’s
leadership viewed the agency’s mission. Throughout the 1960s NASA leaders
viewed their mission as exploring space and were ambivalent about
environmentalism. But in the early 1970s NASA administrator James Fletcher
brought a Mormon’s view of stewardship to the agency and declared that NASA
was an environmental agency. He changed the focus of the agency and
developed Earth remote sensing programs. Soon NASA gained the “lead
agency” role in Earth remote sensing. This was a gradual development with
generally positive consequences for the nation as a whole, but somewhat mixed
consequences for the agency itself. As Lambright and JPL historian Erik Conway
noted, NASA’s increased role in Earth remote sensing also inserted it into the
political debate, first about pollution and the Earth’s ozone hole (which
conservative skeptics initially denied but later accepted) and then global warming
(which conservative skeptics also initially denied, but have now generally
accepted).
Rick Sturdevant, the historian for Air Force Space Command, spoke about the
development of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Sturdevant noted that
several factors slowed the system’s progress, resulting in it only becoming fully
operational in the early 1990s. One impediment to progress was the fact that
GPS initially started primarily as a targeting system for precision weapons.
Because Air Force leaders did not foresee the incredible range of uses that GPS
was later put to, they had no reason to ensure that it advanced quickly. Another
factor delaying its operational availability was the 1986 Challenger accident,
which grounded the planned launch vehicle for GPS satellites and forced the Air
Force to reopen production lines for expendable launch vehicles.
Roger Handberg of the University of Central Florida discussed the bubble in
space commerce. Handberg said that the United States used to be totally
dominant in space commerce, but over the years has lost much of its lead. This
decline has been self-inflicted, Handberg said, through limits on exports and
other government policies that have either hindered American competition on the
world stage or encouraged competitors to attempt to grab market share from the
United States.
Glenn Hastedt of James Madison University spoke about reconnaissance
satellites and their role in globalization and stabilization. The problem today is
that intelligence agencies have moved from looking for secrets to solving
mysteries, and reconnaissance satellites are not well-suited to accomplishing
this. But in response to a question, Hastedt said that human intelligence was not
really the solution to the limitations of satellite reconnaissance. Human sources
are difficult to develop and it can take decades to cultivate them. It is not possible
to simply decide to acquire better human intelligence, and then go and do it in the
short timespan needed to improve intelligence collection in the war on terror.
Glen Asner of NASA’s History Division discussed the use of social history to
interpret the societal impact of spaceflight. According to Asner, there is virtually
no academic research on race relations in the aerospace industry, and he agreed
with Philip Scranton that corporate aerospace history is almost nonexistent as
well.
Andrew Fraknoi, of the Foothill College & Astronomical Society of the Pacific,
spoke about the changing attitude toward the study of astronomy in American
education. At one time astronomy was a requirement in American schools. This
was part of the “mental discipline” model of education, which was based on the
belief that study of subjects like Latin, Greek, and astronomy was good for
training students how to think, even if they would not later use the knowledge in
their lives. However, American science education transformed into the study of
biology, chemistry, and physics. Astronomy became a subset of physics, often
ignored completely. Now, with the “No Child Left Behind” act, there is no room for
astronomy in American schools because astronomy is not included in
standardized tests that teachers must prepare their students to take.
Margaret Weitekamp, of the Division of Space History at the National Air and
Space Museum, spoke about her museum’s collection of “space collectibles.”
The museum has over 3500 objects in this collection, which is growing constantly
as collectors retire and donate their cherished collectibles to the museum. These
objects can include everything from trading cards to dolls to mission pins and
polo shirts. She said that she is currently struggling with deciding which objects
to include in the museum’s collection and which ones to exclude. Weitekamp is
also considering writing a book about why people have collected space objects
and what they may signify.
Mendell also warned of a potential generational gap in visions of space. Younger
people no longer have the shared vision of those raised during the Apollo era.
Space is no longer a frontier to be explored and conquered, but instead is a
place from which to try and solve Earth’s problems.
Asif Siddiqi of Fordham University spoke about pre-Sputnik Russian spaceflight
culture and asked a provocative question: why does space achievement not
resonate outside of the United States and Russia? Siddiqi noted that Konstantin
Tsiolkovsky was a strong believer in eugenics and thought that it was necessary
to exterminate imperfect plants and animals. His belief in perfecting humankind
extended to his vision of a spacefaring civilization. But this was in many ways an
extension of earlier Russian philosophical ideas about traveling into space to
retrieve the souls of the dead.
Ron Miller, a well-known space illustrator, discussed the role of early science
fiction on popular understanding of spaceflight. Miller explained that there were
many whimsical stories about journeys to the Moon, but it was Jules Verne who
made the first serious effort to apply know scientific and engineering techniques
to his fictional story about a journey to the Moon.
Alexander Geppert, of the Free University of Berlin, discussed the European
perception of spaceflight. Geppert also exhibited one of the more fascinating
cultural images during the conference—an ad paid for by the German space
industry as part of a 2005 national advertising campaign. Bemoaning the lack of
government support for spaceflight, the ad stated “Berlin, wir haben ein
Problem…” The phrase, which translates to “Berlin, we have a problem,” is an
obvious homage to the famous Apollo 13 phrase.
Wendell Mendell, of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, talked about how interest in
spaceflight shares many characteristics with religion. He noted that for many
years people who were interested in space from an economics standpoint were
belittled by the believers. But in recent years we have seen the strange
development of rich believers who have sufficient money to express their belief
by funding entrepreneurial space companies. However, Mendell also warned of a
potential generational gap in visions of space. Younger people no longer have
the shared vision of those raised during the Apollo era. Space is no longer a
frontier to be explored and conquered, but instead is a place from which to try
and solve Earth’s problems. He also mentioned that over the years he has
encountered numerous people who felt betrayed by the Apollo program. They
believed that it was the beginning of something bold and exciting, but when it
ended many of them lost their jobs and their dreams.