Cosmonauts, Astronauts, Space Dogs and Monkeys

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…