History 220-011 History of Space Exploration

The Other Space Race is a unique look at the early U.S. space program and how it both shaped and was shaped by politics during the Cold War. Eisenhower's "New Look" expanded the role of the Air Force in national security, and ultimately allowed ambitious aerospace projects, namely the "Dyna-Soar," a bomber equipped with nuclear weapons that would operate in space. Eisenhower's space policy was purely practical, creating a strong deterrent against the use of nuclear arms against the United States. With the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, the political climate changed, and space travel became part of the United States' national discourse. Sambaluk explores what followed, including the scuttling of the "Dyna-Soar" program and the transition from Eisenhower's space policy to John Kennedy's. This well-argued, well-researched book gives much needed perspective on the Cold War's influence on space travel and it's relation to the formation of public policy.

Why do nation states choose to develop national space programs? How can they justify national efforts to acquire capabilities by arguing for membership of the space club? This book provides a unique perspective of the past, current and future of space exploration and technological development in world politics. A country that sees itself as a power deserving of a seat at the table of world governance is expected to race for space. Based on a rich and detailed analysis of a range of space programs of states which are not usually at the focus of world politics and its research, the author shows that joining the space club is a legitimate and rational decision. The book provides a different way of looking at international relations, through a relatively under-studied area of policy - the space club.

Fifty years after the Moon landing, a new history of the space race explores the lives of both Soviet and American engineers At the dawn of the space age, technological breakthroughs in Earth orbit flight were both breathtaking feats of ingenuity and disturbances to a delicate global balance of power. In this short book, aerospace historian Roger D. Launius concisely and engagingly explores the driving force of this era: the race to the Moon. Beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 and closing with the end of the Apollo program in 1972, Launius examines how early space exploration blurred the lines between military and civilian activities, and how key actions led to space firsts as well as crushing failures. Launius places American and Soviet programs on equal footing--following American aerospace engineers Wernher von Braun and Robert Gilruth, their Soviet counterparts Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov--to highlight key actions that led to various successes, failures, and ultimately the American Moon landing.

A concise history of spaceflight, from military rocketry through Sputnik, Apollo, robots in space, space culture, and human spaceflight today. Spaceflight is one of the greatest human achievements of the twentieth century. The Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957; less than twelve years later, the American Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon. In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Michael Neufeld offers a concise history of spaceflight, mapping the full spectrum of activities that humans have developed in space. Neufeld explains that "the space program" should not be equated only with human spaceflight. Since the 1960s, unmanned military and commercial spacecraft have been orbiting near the Earth, and robotic deep-space explorers have sent back stunning images of faraway planets. Neufeld begins with the origins of space ideas and the discovery that rocketry could be used for spaceflight. He then discusses the Soviet-U.S. Cold War space race and reminds us that NASA resisted adding female astronauts even after the Soviets sent the first female cosmonaut into orbit. He analyzes the two rationales for the Apollo program: prestige and scientific discovery (this last something of an afterthought). He describes the internationalization and privatization of human spaceflight after the Cold War, the cultural influence of space science fiction, including Star Trek and Star Wars, space tourism for the ultra-rich, and the popular desire to go into space. Whether we become a multiplanet species, as some predict, or continue to call Earth home, this book offers a useful primer.

This volume deals with key issues of the space economy, defined as the full range of activities and the use of resources that create value and benefits for human beings in the course of exploring, researching, understanding, managing and utilizing space. These topics are treated from an economic perspective, with particular attention paid to the development of knowledge, as well as the set-up of technologies with high industrial impacts. The book, thus, provides a new and wider interpretation of the space economy, focusing on the (tangible) returns of the investments made in the space industry since the Space Race. It will particularly appeal to scholars, researchers and PhD students, as well as those in the space community.