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

INTRODUCTION
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felt it refected both the frustrations and the realities of the Space Age. In the end,
there seemed to be consensus that human spacefight has been a disappointment in
the aftermath of Apollo, and in that sense the Space Age, if indeed it ever existed,
has been a disappointment as well. Such disappointment is no artifcial construct
of historians; the legendary Wernher von Braun, who thought humans would
land on Mars by 1984, would undoubtedly have agreed. Nor is disappointment
necessarily a bad attitude; it means vision has outstripped practical realities and
that vision may yet drive individuals and nation-states toward new realities.
In common parlance, the title “Remembering the Space Age” carries with
it a connotation that we are looking back on something that may have ended.
Or maybe it never began; certainly launching Sputnik in and of itself did not
constitute a Space Age, and the resulting reaction culminating in the manned
lunar landings had ended within 15 years. Communications, navigation, weather,
reconnaissance, and remote sensing satellites have been more sustained. But is
such space activity, bounded by commercial and practical applications, enough
to constitute a Space Age? Or, as several speakers opined, is space science the
real core of the Space Age? As John McNeill concluded in his opening paper, it
may well be too early to tell whether space activities over the last half century
constitute a genuine “Age.” We may need more time for better perspective. One
thing is certain: if indeed the Space Age exists and if it is to continue, it must be
a conscious decision requiring public and political will. Like exploration, each
culture must set its priorities, and there are no guarantees for the Space Age.
The reader will fnd this volume flled with many more provocative
thoughts and themes, large and small. However one defnes or explains away the
Space Age, whether in terms of space science, human spacefight, applications
satellites, or a combination of all of them, it is clear that what we usually refer
to as the Space Age has been remembered diferently by individual scholars
depending on their perspective, by scientists and engineers depending on their
specifc roles, and by the public depending on their priorities. Moreover, it
has been remembered diferently depending on when one contemplates these
questions. Quite aside from references to “semiotics,” “tropes,” and other
postmodern terms common in the frst years of the 21st century, the record
presented in this volume is quite diferent from the perspective 25 years ago,
or even 10 years ago. 5 And it will be diferent 25 years from now. Such is the
nature of memory; such is the nature of history.
Steven J. Dick
NASA Chief Historian
Washington, DC
May 2008
5. See, for example, Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger D. Launius,
John M. Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000).