CHAPTER14 AMERICASNP ACEH ISTORY QUESTIONS,O PPORTUNITIES LEGACIES, AND FUTURER ESEARCH’ FOR Asif A. Siddiqi I n the 35 years since astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon, no space achievement has quite captured people’s imaginations as Apollo. Thirty-five years after that singular event, the specter of Apollo still looms large as a benchmark for all that came later. In the context of the current inertia of the American space program-the Space Shuttle temporarily grounded while astronauts take to orbit in Russian rockets for unimaginative tours of the International Space Station-Apollo retains an even stronger pull to those seeking adventure and exploration.2 Given Apollo’s centrality in popular conceptions of the history of the space program, it is not surprising that historical writing-both popular and academic-has been shaped profoundly by the experience of the Moon landings. Even those areas of space history that have no apparent connection to Apollo, such as military space history, for example, assume their historical places in our memory in relation to Apollo. Because of the project’s status as being emblematic of a lost, young, and adventurous America, space historians negotiating the delicate boundaries between memory and nostalgia have typically veered from the former to the latter with an ease that underscores more about the state of the current space program than the one that actually happened. In addition, Apollo’s huge shadow has helped to marginalize many important but unexplored areas of space history. In the past 40 years ofspace history, historians have worked within several interpretive approaches to space history, all of them defined and demarcated by the shadow of Apollo and its political backdrop, the Cold War. This essay is an attempt to revisit that historiography in search of some common unify- 1. I would like to thank Dwayne A. Day, Steven J. Dick, Roger D. Launius, and Michael J. Neufeld for their helpful comments. 2. For the current crisis, see Roger D. Launius, “After Columbia: The Space Shuttle Program and the Crisis in Access to Space,” Artropolitics 2 (July-September 2004): 277-322. 434 CRITICAISLS UES IN THE HISTOROYF SPACEFLIGHT ing theme^.^ The goal is to identify certain interpretive and narrative patterns and then elaborate on areas where scholarship is lacking or where important questions remain unexplored? A close reading of the literature shows that his- torians have located their work within four different narratives based around exploration, competition, technology, and the astronauts. These interpretive paradigms continue to dominate and define our understanding of the origins, evolution, and nature of the American space program. The categories were not mutually exclusive, and the approaches have overlapped over time, but these four guiding themes have remained as important explanatory devices. Some saw the space program as indicative of Americans’ “natural” urge to explore the frontier; some believed that the space program was a surrogate for a larger struggle between good and evil; others wrote of a space program whose main force was modern American technology; and others described a space program whose central actors were hero astronauts, representing all that was noble in American culture.’ In all of the four schools, which continue to flourish today, historians have typically examined the history from the top looking down, describing only the tallest trees of a vast forest of society and culture. The first generation of scholarship was distinguished by a focus on linear, narrow, and progress- oriented narratives unencumbered by context, critique, or culture. Historians also shared a nostalgic yearning for the 1960s, the halcyon period of American space exploration. Like the space program itself, historians repeatedly romanti- cized the claimed victories of Apollo without questioning many of the incon- trovertible motivations and repercussions of the space program. Starting in the 1980s but really coming to fruition in the 1990s, a “new aerospace history” began to emerge. Building on a few notable works pub- lished during the late Cold War, a new generation of historians tackled the history of American space exploration from different perspectives involving politics, society, and culture. These new works distinguished themselves from the older canon because they revisited, cajoled, and questioned some of the basic foundational notions of the received space history. Some did so explic- 3. For earlier works on the historiography ofAmerican space exploration, see Richard P. Hallion, “A Source Guide to the History of Aeronautics and Astronautics,” American Studies International 20, no. 3 (1982): 3-50; Hunter A. Dupree, “The History ofthe Exploration ofspace: From Official History to Contributions to Historical Literature,” Public Historian 8 (1986): 121-128; Pamela E. Mack, “Space History,” Technology and Culture 30 (1989): 657-665; Roger D. Launius, “The Historical Dimension of Space Exploration: Reflections and Possibilities,” Space Policy 16 (2000): 23-38. 4. In the paper, I do not distinguish between the often false dichotomy of academic versus popu- lar works. Important contributions to space history have come from both ends ofthe spectrum, and both have had their strengths and weaknesses. I also do not explore the study ofinternational coop- eration in space history, a vast topic covered by others in this volume. Finally, due to limitations of length, I omit discussion of those histories dedicated to the events of the pre-Sputnik era. 5. I list and describe representative examples from each group in the main body of the essay. AMERICASNP ACEH ISTORYLE: GACIEQS, UESTION. S.. 435 itly, others more implicitly. The new history also moved beyond the lenses of competition, exploration, technology, or astronauts. In some cases, the litera- ture built upon the older models, while in others, it made a clean break from the older canon. Historians also moved into new areas of political, technological, social, and cultural history benefiting from a shared interest in new sources and new methodological approaches. Simultaneously, the old Cold War paradigm of historiography continues to flourish, propagated especially in several synthe- ses, creating an interpretive tension between the old and new writing that may promote a middle ground in the future. Whether this mix will generate new, interesting, and challenging ideas remains to be seen, but it has been healthy for the field to expand beyond the previously narrow borders, if for nothing else to link and relocate space history, not as something peculiar and unique, but as part of a broader inquiry into American history. EXPLORATION The most common motif in space historiography has been that of locating space exploration as part of an eons-long human urge to push the geographi- cal frontiers of existence. Prescriptive works on space exploration published in the pre-Sputnik era-some of which assumed iconic status in later years- firmly established such an approach to history. A harbinger of this paradigm was Willy Ley, a veteran of early amateur German rocketry groups from the 1930s. Updating a book he had first authored in 1944 through 21 printings, Ley’s Rockets, Missiles, and Man in Space (1968) was a landmark publication that former NASA Chief Historian Roger D. Launius has called “one of the most significant textbooks available in the mid-twentieth century on the possibili- ties of space travel.”6 A popular historical narrative tracing the evolution of rocket technology from the ancient Babylonians to the mid-l960s, Ley’s work weaved together human imperatives and technical evolution in a seamless whole. From the beginning, he described his book as “the story of the idea that we possibly could, and if so should, break away from our planet and go explor- ing to others, just as thousands of years ago men broke away from their islands and went exploring to other coasts.’” By focusing on a few scattered, talented individuals with a vision of space travel, Ley delineated the history of space 6. Roger D. Launius, Frontiers of Space Exploration (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1998), p. 190; Willy Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space (New York: Viking Press, 1968). Ley also published an abridged and slightly updated version of his book the following year as Events in Space (New York: D. McKay, 1969). 7. Willy Ley, Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere (New York: The Viking Press, 1945), p. 3. In popular history, others have connected space history to the exploration paradigm. See, for example, Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York: Random House, 1983). 436 CRITICAILSS UEISN THE HISTOROYF SPACEFLIGHT exploration as essentially one with an individualistic character. In Ley’s world, technology, i.e., the means to fulfill these singular visions, was subordinated to the needs and whims of resourceful scientists or engineers whom he called “Prophets of Some Honor.” Thus, the principal actors behind space explora- tion were neither nations nor states, but noble visionaries. Ley also established a pantheon of icons for the future history of space; by giving currency to such names as Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, Hermann Oberth, and Robert Goddard, he gave a face to the technology.8 German rocketry pioneer Wernher von Braun’s History ofRocketry and Space Travel (1966) (cowritten with Frederick I. Ordway 111) built upon Ley’s work and cemented a number of unquestioned narratives about the origins of the “Space Age,” including the centrality of von Braun’s V-2 “rocket team” in the postwar American rocket and space program, thus marginalizing a number of other equally important indigenous innovators in the American context such as the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at Caltech (GALCIT) and the American Rocket S~cietyS.o~ p ow- erful was this synthesis that to this day, almost all history books on space exploration begin by invoking Tsiolkovskiy, Oberth, and Goddard-and then move to von Braun’s rocket team. What these pioneers had in common was a sustained belief that the human spirit was possessed of an indomitable urge to explore and, as a corol- lary, to seek knowledge. In one of his most oft-repeated quotes, the Russian theoretician Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy (1857-1935) had written that “the earth is the cradle of reason, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.”” For the his- torian of the American space program, reason was combined with a modern version of manifest destiny, a marriage of the near-spiritual urge to explore new frontiers and the cold, hard rationale of technology. One of the earliest scholarly works to equate the idea of the American West with the space fron- 8. For biographies, see Helen B. Walters, Hermann Oberth. Father of Space Travel (New York: Macmillan, 1962); Hans Barth, Hermann Oberth: Vater der Raumfhrt: autorrsierte Biographie (Esslingen: Bechtle, 1991); David A. Clary, Rocket Man: Robert H. Coddard and the Birth of the Space Age (New York: Hyperion, 2003); Milton Lehman, This High Man: The Ltfe of Robert H. Goddard (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1963); A. Kosmodemiansky, Konstantin Tiolkovsky, 1857-1935 (Moscow: Nauka, 1985). 9. Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway 111, History ofRocketry and Space Travel (New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell Company, 1966). The book was published in revised editions in 1969, 1975, and 1985. The final edition was published as Space Travel: A History (New York: Harper & Row, 1985). 10. K. Tsiolkovskii, “lssledovanie mirovykh prostranstv reaktivnymi priborami (1911-1912 gg.),” in Izbrannye trudy, ed. B. N. Vorob’ev and V. N. Sokol’skll (Moscow: Nauka, 1962), p. 196. The original phrase was ‘‘nAaHeTa eCTb KOAbI6eAb pa3yMa, HO Hen6311 BeYHO XXTb B KOAbI6eAH,” or “Planeta est’ kolybel’ razuma, no nel’zia vechno zhit’ v kolybeli.” For typical refer- ences to the quote, see A. A. Kosmodemyansky, K. E. Tsrolkovsky-His Ltfe and Work (Moscow: Nauka, 1960), p. 153; William Shelton, Soviet Space Exploration: The First Decade (New York: Washington Square Press, 1968), pp. 12-13; Roger D. Launius, Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2003), p. 9. AMERICASNP ACHE ISTORYL:E GACIESQ, UESTION.S .. 437 tier was The Railroad and the Space Program: An Exploration in Historical Analogy (1965), a collection of essays which used the American railroad as a metaphor for the slow human migration into space.” These early works foreshadowed and exemplified an important thread in the future of space history, equating the American frontier in the West with the space frontier beyond the Earth. Through the past 50 years, those looking ahead, such as policy-makers and spaceflight advocates from John F. Kennedy to Wernher von Braun to Mars Society President Robert Zubrin, have used Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier motif to inspire, justify, and advocate space exploration on a grand scale.” Those looking back, especially space historians, have also invoked the frontier thesis to explain the majesty of the early years of American space exploration; they have explained not only how engagement with the frontier has shaped American society and culture, but also how the foundations of American society and culture-particularly democracy and individualism- have shaped space exploration. The frontier ideal resonated partly because, like space explorers, many of the original explorers of the West shared uto- pian ideals.13 The space program represented a potent union of two powerful strands of American culture, the search for utopia and the belief in the power of technology, a manifestation of 20th-century technological to pi an ism.'^ In the 1960s, at a time when the emerging reevaluation of the frontier thesis and its attendant costs to both the environment and the native peoples of the continent had yet to enter the mainstream discourse in American history, the use of the West as a guiding analogy for space exploration implied expansion, development, freedom, and ultimately liberation from the chains of previous existence. If there were pitfalls in exploration, they were minimal at best.15 These markers of frontier exploration resonated deeply with many histori- 11. Bruce Mazlish, ed , The Railroad and the Space Program: An Exploration in Historical Analogy (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1965). 12. For Frederick Jackson Turner’s original works on the frontier thesis, see John Mack Faragher, ed., Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: The Signtjicance 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 the frontier’s resonance in modern times, see Richard Slotkin, Gnafighter Nation: The Myth ofthe Frontier in Twentieth Centnry America (New York: Atheneum, 1992). Roger D. Launius gives some notable examples ofprominent advocates invoking the frontier thesis in the 1960s in his “Historical Dimension of Space Exploration.” 13. Roger D. Launius, “Perfect Worlds, Perfect Societies: The Persistent Goal of Utopia in Human Spaceflight,”Journal ofthe British Interplanetary Socrety 56 (2003): 338-349. 14. For an excellent look at the origins of technological utopianism in American culture, see Howard P. Segal, Technological Utopianism in American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985). 15. For critiques of the frontier thesis, see Patricia Nelson Limerick, Clyde A. Milner 11, and Charles E. Rankin, eds., Trails: Toward a New Western History (Lawrence: University Press ofKansas, 1991); Richard White, It’s Your Misfrtune and None ofMy Own: A New History ofthe American West (Norman. Oklahoma University Press, 1991). 438 CRITICAISLS UESI N THE HISTOROYF SPACEFLIGHT ans, enough that many still invoke them in the 21st century. Describing the parallel paths of the Russian and American space programs, author Robert Zimmerman, in Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel (2003), compared them to colonization of Earthly landscapes: “The ancestors of both peoples were pioneers . . . . The land both groups settled was harsh, brutal, and unyielding. Death was omnipresent. Out of these two pioneer struggles have risen nations able to forge in the sky the first rockets, the first spacecraft, and the first tentative and grand attempts to colonize the stars.”16 Similar notions run through Bruce C. Murray’s Journey into Space: The First Three Decades of Space Exploration (1989) and William E. Burrows’s Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond (1990), both of which explicitly deal with deep space exploration by robotic probes.” That Earthly exploration remains a powerful motif for making sense of space exploration is exemplified best by Where Next, Columbus? The Future of Space Exploration (1994), a collection of meditations by prominent historians that link Columbus’s seabound trip to the early years of space exploration.’* Once the landing of Apollo astronauts on the Moon in July 1969 effec- tively ended the “space race” for the United States, historians took up the challenge of chronicling this extraordinary technological achievement in a multitude of works, many of which framed the project as part of the human exploration imperative. Unlike many other programs of the 1960s, or indeed since, the Apollo program represented a perfect distillation of interpre- tive approaches that focused on exploration since the Apollo missions had geographical delimiters that paralleled exploration of the West: beginning from the known, the Earth, voyagers set out in a very physical way for the unknown, the Moon. In contrast, the hundreds of Earth-orbital missions since 1972, while risky and adventurous, have not represented physical movement in the same way Apollo did.” NASA managers early on recognized Apollo’s exceptionalist nature within the space program. In the introduction to one of the first volumes to reflect on Apollo, then-NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher explicitly located the Apollo expeditions as part of a tradition stretch- 16. Robert Zimmerman, Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2003), p. 460. 17. Bruce C. Murray, Journey into Space: The First Three Decades of Space Exploration (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989); William E. Burrows, Exploring Space: Voyages in the Solar System and Beyond (New York: Random House, 1990). 18. Valerie Neal, ed., Where Next, Columbus? The Future oJSpace Exploration (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). See also Peter Bond, Reaching for the Stars: An Illustrated History oJManned Spacefight, 2nd ed. (London: Cassell, 1996). 19. Deam argues that “this shift has essentially emptied the [space] program of its public charac- ter, moving spaceflight from an open embrace of political action to closed concerns with economics and technological determinism” (Dirk Deam, “Public Space: Exploring the Political Dimensions of the American Space Program” [Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 19991). AMERICASNPA CEH ISTORYL EGACIESQ, UESTION. S.. 439 Since the time of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, space history has matured into a much more rigorous and complex area of study, one with which the theme of exploration has long been associated. No photograph better illustrates this connection than the image of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. It has assumed iconic proportions in modern society. (NASA image no. ASll-40-5903) ing back to the Pilgrims at Plymouth and Darwin’s voyages on the HMS Beugle; both were “ventures into uncharted Similarly, Harry Hurt 111, in his For All Munkind (1988), compared the Apollo missions to Earthly explorations, specifically invoking “Christopher Columbus’s daring voyage to the New World.”21 20. James C. Fletcher, “Foreword,” in Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, ed. Edgar M. Cortright (Washington, DC: NASA, 1975). 21. Harry Hurt 111, For All Mankind (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press Book, 1988), p. xiii. 440 CRITICAISLS UESIN THE HISTOROYF SPACEFLIGHT Beyond linking the great Earthly explorations and migrations with the Apollo expeditions, early works on Apollo, such as the Apollo 11 astronauts’ (ghostwritten) First on the Moon (1970) and Richard Lewis’s The Voyages of Apollo: The Exploration ofthe Moon (1974), focused predominantly on the people at the tip of the iceberg, i.e., the astronauts who performed the missions.22T wo decades later, Andrew Chaikin’s landmark A Man on the Moon (1994) continued in this vein, merging the exploration motif with the astronauts’ perspectives on the project while omitting any interpretive look at the broader political, social, or cultural factors behind Ap~lloB.y~ ~fo cusing exclusively on the thoughts of the astronauts, the details of the missions, and the nuances of the technol- ogy, Chaikin masterfully conveyed the experience of Apollo as if it were one in which only a few dozen people were involved. Context was provided only to the extent that the news media reported it at the time of the Apollo mis- sion~T.h~u~s, in one sense, in the historiography of the space program, Apollo became a national, even global experience that was conceived, executed, and directly experienced by a few chosen ambassadors. This contradiction may not be as irreconcilable as it appears, for Apollo was a unique artifact of its time. Millions of people witnessed the first landing of humans on another celestial body through their black-and-white TVs in the comfort of their homes. Such vicarious exploration had no precedent. If the import of Apollo was ultimately global, signaling human migration off the planet, then its immediate commu- nicative power was ultimately largely private, in homes and offices. Historically, many of those who advocated space exploration emphasized science as an important rationale for exploration. The literature on the his- tory of space-based science has, however, not been significant. Several factors explain the weakness of a unified tradition of writing on space science history. These include the fragmentary nature of the field, where much of the work is generated from other history-of-science subdisciplines such as the history of physics, astronomy, life sciences, meteorology, and oceanography. The con- tributions in two volumes of essays separated by 10 years, Space Science Comes ofAge: Perspectives in the History ofthe Space Sciences (1981) and A Spacefdring Nation: Perspectives on American Space History and Policy (1991), underline the difficult struggles of nascent space-based science constituencies (within solar science and planetary science) to escape the shadow of their parent communi- 22. Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., with Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin, First on the Moon (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1970); Richard S. Lewis, The Voyages ofApollo: The Exploration of the Moon (New York: Quadrangle, 1974). 23. Andrew Chaikin, A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts (New York: Viking, 1994). 24. For media treatments of the space program, see Andrew A. Klyukovski, “The Space Race as the American Dream: Fantasy Theme Analysis of ‘The New York Times’ Coverage” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002). AMERICASNPA CHE ISTORYL EGACIESQ, UESTION.S .. 441 ties (physics and astronomy). 25 Additionally, science has traditionally played a secondary (if not tertiary) role in the American space program, behind politi- cal and military imperatives. For space historians who have chronicled the American space program as political, nationalistic, or technological enter- prises, space science has been a corollary theme rather than a central one.26 Two volumes of NASA’s Exploring the Unknown series chronicling the history of American civilian space exploration are the most important contributions to space science history, but the editors’ consignment of space sciences to volumes 5 and 6 in the series underscores the subfield’s priority in the sche- matic of space history Finally, historians have frequently seen space science as deeply connected to rationales of militarization or exploration. As such, space science history remains embedded with these other narratives. For example, in his Science with a Vengeance: How the Military Created the US Space Sciences after World War I1 (1992), David DeVorkin argued that space science was created largely due to the existence of the German V-2 missile, a weapon of war whose development had nothing to do with either the search for scien- tific knowledge or exploration.28 25. Paul A Hank and Del Chamberlain, eds., Space Science Comes ofAge. Perspectives in the History .f Space Sciences (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981). See also Karl Hufbauer, “Solar Observational Capabilities and the Solar Physics Community Since Sputnik, 1957-1988”; Joseph N. Tatarewicz, “Space Technology and Planetary Science, 1950-1985,” in A SpacPfanng Nation: Perspectives on American Space History and Policy, eds. Martin J. Collins and Sylvia D. Fries (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), pp. 77-114, 115-132. 26. Two important works on science performed during Apollo are framed as part of program- matic “mission-oriented” histories. See William David Compton, Where No Man Has Cone Bejore: A History of Apollo Lunar Exploration Mtssions (Washmgton, DC: NASA SP-4214, 1989); David M. Harland, Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions (London: Springer, 1999). A third, lesser- known but more accomplished work focuses exclusively on the science rather than the missions: Donald A. Beattie, Taking Science to the Moon: Lunar Experiments and the Apollo Program (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2001). 27. See particularly the excellent introductory essays in John M. Logsdon, ed., Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History .f the U.S. Civil Space Program, vol. 5, Exploring the Cosmos (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2001-4407, 2001); John M. Logsdon et al., eds., Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History o f the US. Civil Space Program, vol. 6, Space and Earth Science (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2004-4407, 2004). For the few other notable works on the history of space science, see Charles A. Lundquist, Skylab’s Astronomy and Space Sciences (Washington, DC: NASA, 1979);J ohn A. Pitts, The Human Factor: Btornedicine in the Manned Space Program to 2980 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4213, 1985; John E. Naugle, First Among Equals: The Selection of NASA Space Science Experiments (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4215, 1991); David Leverington, New Cosmic Horizons: Space Astronomy from the V-2 to the Hubble Space Telescope (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 28. David H. DeVorkin, Science with a Vengeance: How the Military Created the US Space Sciences after World War II (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1992); David H. DeVorkin, “Military Origins of the Space Sciences in the American V-2 Era,” in National Military Establishments and the Advancement of Science and Technology, eds. Paul Forman and Josk M. SLnchez-Ron, Studies in Twentieth Century History (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996). See also DeVorkin’s “Solar Physics,” in Exploring the Unknown, vol. 6, pp. 1-37. 442 CRITICAISLSU ES IN THE HISTOROYF SPACEFLIGHT COMPETITION AND NATIONASLEC URITY The exploration motif overlaps with a second theme running through the historiography of space exploration, that of competition. Richard Lewis, in his From Vinland to Mars: A Thousand Years ofExploration (1976), eloquently illustrated the ways in which competition over resources and land spurred exploration. He found a common imperative existing from the Greenland and Vinland voyages of the Viking Eric the Red all the way to the Viking spacecraft landings on Mars in the bicentennial year of 1976. Framing his narrative around this coincidence of names, Lewis focused on competition as a guiding metaphor for space exploration: The common denominator [in all exploration] is intraspe- cific competition . . . : deadly competition among men and families for land, among nations for power and wealth. This is the force that drove the have-nots in medieval Scandinavia across uncharted seas, impelled Renaissance Europe to seek the wealth of the Indies and circumnavigate the planet, urged Amundsen and Scott on the tragic race to the geographic south pole, and launched Americans to the Moon.29 Like Lewis, many space historians have used competition-specifically, the Cold War-as a second defining lens to understand space history. Most popular accounts of the space race, and many from an academic perspective, have framed the American adventure in space as competition with an adver- sary who did not share the same moral commitment to freedom and equality. In the canon, both Sputnik and Apollo emerge, at least implicitly, as material representations embedded with notions of two ideologically opposed systems of governance. To a large degree, such evaluations of Apollo reflected rheto- ric from the 1960s-from American politicians, the American media, and from participants in the Apollo project itself. But because accounts of the space race have been typically undergirded by implicit claims about morality of national cultures, historians rarely engaged in critiques of Apollo or the space program in general, since such methodological approaches would be tantamount to challenging the moral authority of the United States. In his recent Apollo: The EpicJourney to the Moon, an engaging and awe-inspiring account of the Apolio project, David West Reynolds distills this rationale succinctly and emotionally: 29. Richard S. Lewis, From Vinland to Mars: A Thousand Years of Exploration (New York: Quandrangle, 1976), p. xii.