1. Cosmonauts, Astronauts, Space Dogs and Monkeys
20 September 2017

2. Debate Update Make sure you are well prepared, as follows:
Organize your opening presentation:
State your main point first
Give statements that support your point
Summarize briefly to conclude your presentation
Use real sources to support your points
Textbook, other books, magazine and journal articles, speeches

3. More on the Space Race
Rickover: If the newspapers printed that the Soviet Union planned sending the first man to Hell, our federal agencies would cry the next day, “We can’t let them beat us to it!”
Oh you may leave here for four days in space/ But when you return it’s the same old place/ … hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace. “Eve of Destruction”
Kennedy: We are engaged in a world-wide struggle

4. After Explorer 1 success and discovery of Van Allen belts

5. Birth of NASA Eisenhower could not avoid Sputnik
This was a new era where organized manpower was the greatest national asset
The Cold War expanded to competing systems: Free enterprise and liberty vs Controlled economy and totalitarianism
Even High School physics was affected: PSSC
Presidential Science Advisor appointed
More Federal dollars a key part of the solution
NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) was moribund

6. Civilian Space Program
Eisenhower saw American resources were limited: not poor, but rich from free enterprise; too much government creates a non-competitive shadow economy
Distrust of the political and economic power of the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’
Take advantage of existing NACA centers, add military capability (von Braun, JPL) add money
NASA established in 1958

7. Jim Webb’s Space Age America
Infused with Southwest spirit
More like TVA or Panama canal than Columbus voyage
NASA centers across the USA, especially Northeast, Southeast, Gulf
Explosion of technical support for science, education, R&D
Space was the ‘new frontier’, following the pioneer spirit

8. Benign Hypocrisy behind Space Race
US claimed the more positive term, but took advantage of the latter:
‘Leadership’ vs ‘Imperialism’
Cooperation vs competition
Civil vs military program

9. Space Dogs and Monkeys
Naturally the first test flights were with animals
Yeager: "a monkey's gonna make the first flight.”
Ham ‘the Astrochimp’ flew on Redstone rocket
Laika ‘barker’ was a Moscow stray

10. Ham

11. Laika

12. Astronauts and Cosmonauts
First men in space became national heroes
‘Our rockets always blow up’: fewer than 1/3 of first 37 launches reached orbit
With Alan Shepherd’s flight program seemed off the ground, but still behind USSR
135 million watched Glenn launch (contrast with USSR)
Astronauts and cosmonauts personalized the program

13. Space Age Communism
Not just a drive for power and affluence, or evidence of superiority of socialism
Link between rocketry and revolution
Inspiration, but it brought irreversible change in the march for technology: a tremendous creative work of the Soviet people (Breshnev)

14. Test Pilots

15. Astronaut Appeal
They had the ‘right stuff’, became leading symbols for bravery and patriotism
Hearkened to Lindberg, frontier sheriff, military test pilots
TV and national press told the ‘Boy Scout’ story, they were like the heroes of 1950’s TV
Many marriages held together only by fear of being taken off flights…
Like the engineers, they were citizen soldiers in the Cold War

16. Alan Shepherd

18. John
Glenn

19. Space Symbolized Technical Power
Demonstrated organizational capacity
Showed power of science and the national will
Space Race balanced the negativism of the ‘Counter Culture’
LBJ: there are few problems that cannot be solved by men (remember his ‘War on Poverty’)
We thought technology could win the Viet Nam war, but the 1968 Tet offensive disproved this
Lost in Space and Star Trek were modern ‘morality plays’

20. Summary
NASA and the space program were a benign hypocrisy, where we claimed high goals while competing with the Soviets
The US program took advantage of military technology while trumpeting the civilian and scientific aspects
Animals made the first test flights
Humans personalized the space race and became immensely popular heroes

21. Conclusion Eisenhower resisted the temptation to use dangerous tools
Kennedy was inspired by the wonder and adventure
LBJ saw the space program as a model of the government role. It should grasp the power to eradicate poverty and crime, whip the communists, develop the third world
If we can put a man on the moon…