Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

IMaGINING aN aerOSpaCe aGeNCY IN the atOMIC aGe
the aeC and NaSa are far and away the canonical american institutional
examples of technocracy under this defnition. the similarities on the surface
are obvious. Both the aeC and NaSa were characterized by geographically
dispersed scientifc research laboratories operating as scientifc fefdoms in a
confederate framework. 8 Both consolidated to a great extent an entire realm of
technology in federal, civilian agencies. Unlike other new technologies, such
as the microcomputer or early aviation, both were handed over wholesale to
civilian agencies created specifcally to oversee them rather than entrusting
progress to the military or private sector. In introducing the problem the framers
of the atomic energy act faced, aeC historians richard G. hewlett and Jack
M. holl noted: “how does one best go about introducing a new technology
into society? a familiar problem for large manufacturers, the management of
technological innovation was hardly a common function for federal ofcials,
except in the area of regulation . . . in the case of nuclear power, the entire
technology was confned within the government.” 9 this fundamental historical
similarity, domination and encapsulation of an entire area of technology by a
civilian government agency, is the basis for the current argument.
this paper will examine the links between atomic energy and the processes
in the executive and legislative branches that culminated in the signing into
law of the National aeronautics and Space act on July 29, 1958. While a
detailed comparative history of the roles, structures, and functions of NaSa
and the aeC would immensely contribute to the historical literature, the
current analysis will focus more narrowly on the way in which the experience
with atomic energy produced unspoken assumptions and shaped the very
imagination of politicians of what the new NaSa should and could become
during the ten-month period from the launch of Sputnik to the passing of the
National aeronautics and Space act. Specifcally, it will be argued that NaSa’s
rise in the 1960s as an engine of american international prestige was rooted in
atomic diplomacy, and that certain debates in Congress about the new agency
Scientifc Estate (Belknap press: 1965) that the fusion of political and economic power seen in the
nuclear and Space age has corrupted market principles by creating corporations solely dependent
on government subsidies, resulting in a difusion of political sovereignty that threatens the
american constitutional order. Finally, no discussion of technocracy in america would be
complete without mentioning Frederick Winslow taylor’s Principles of Scientifc Management
(New York, NY: harper Brothers, 1911), which called for applying scientifc principles to the
training and management of workers to replace “rule of thumb” factory methods.
8. peter J. Westwick in The National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947-1974 (Cambridge,
Ma: harvard University press, 2003) perhaps borrowing from dialectical materialism stresses that
the systemicity of the labs is central to an understanding of their operation.a single national lab
cannot exist in isolation; classifed journals and conferences and competition for personnel and
research programs were central issues that defned the individual labs.
9. richard G. hewlett and Jack M. holl Atoms for Peace and War (Berkeley, Ca: University of
California press, 1989), p. 183.
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