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

122 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe
wrote in 1976: “In 1945 no articulate, coordinated, self-consciously conservative
intellectual force existed in the United States. there were, at best, scattered
voices of protest, profoundly pessimistic about the future of the country.” 3
the emergence of the so-called New right began in earnest during the
1960s, in parallel with—and to a large degree in response to—the rise of the
New Left. the presidential candidacies of Barry Goldwater and George Wallace
embodied the movement, 4 which was propelled by a zealous, if not obsessive,
anticommunism belief; support for business and defense interests over social
issues; and downright antipathy for the Great Society program—considered
the epitome of the “welfare state” and “big government”—and the so-called
“rights revolution,” which sought equal protection under the law for african
and hispanic americans, women, gays, and the disabled. rather than address
a range of social concerns, the New right wanted to deregulate commerce,
cut the size of government, and reduce corporate and individual taxes. 5 they
believed in the positive benefts of technological progress and scorned the
prevalent notion of limits to growth. 6
the impact of ideology on the space program’s evolution already has been
taken up by roger Launius and howard McCurdy in their milestone work on
presidential leadership, Spacefight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership in which
they wrote that, of all the factors infuencing the space program, “ideology
(was) the most important.” Indeed, “From the beginning of the space age in
1957, the ideological debate over the program has revolved around the expense
3.
4.
5.
6.
Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America: Since 1945, 1st ed. (New York: Basic Books,
1976), p. xv.
phyllis Schlafy, “a Choice, Not an echo,” in Conservatism in America since 1930: A Reader by
Gregory L. Schneider, (New York: New York University press, 2003), pp. 231-237. Schlafy
discusses Goldwater’s candidacy as the embodiment of conservative philosophy from the
perspective of 1964.
For my discussion of these political events, I have relied mainly on William C. Berman’s America’s
Right Turn, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: the Johns hopkins University press, 1998), pp. 2-3, 6-8, 21, &
39, as well as Mary C. Brennan’s Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP
(Chapel hill: University of North Carolina press, 1995); Dan t. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George
Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1995); Carter, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative
Counterrevolution (Baton rouge: Louisiana State University press, 1997); and Godfrey hodgson,
The World Turned Right Side Up: A History of the Conservative Ascendancy in America (Boston:
houghton Mifin, 1996).
paul Neurath, From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back: Problems of Limits to Growth, Population
Control, and Migrations (armonk, New York: M. e. Sharpe, 1994) reviews the limits to growth
debate from the 18th century to the present, including the Club of rome, and has a bibliography
of the literature. robert McCutcheon, Limits to a Modern World: A Study of the Limits to Growth
Debate (London: Butterworths, 1979) provides a contemporary overview of the debate.