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

aMerICaN SpaCefLIght hIStory’S MaSter NarratIve
aND the MeaNINg of MeMory
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mules. his aim was to call attention to the plight of the poor even as the u.S.
government spent lavishly on fights to the Moon. 27
In contrast to the triumphalist, exceptionalist narrative that celebrates space
exploration, this narrative views the endeavor as a waste, a missed opportunity
to further important and necessary goals in america. Indeed, the triumphalist
narrative of spacefight has been so powerful a memory that most people in the
united States refecting on it believe that NaSa enjoyed enthusiastic support
during the 1960s and that somehow the agency lost its compass thereafter. 28
Contrarily, at only one point prior to the apollo 11 mission, october 1965,
did more than half of the public favor the lunar landing program. americans
have consistently ranked spacefight near the top of those programs to be cut
in the federal budget. Such a position is refected in public opinion polls taken
throughout the Space age when the majority of americans ranked NaSa as the
government initiative most deserving of reduction, and its funding redistributed
to Social Security, Medicare, and numerous other programs. While most
americans did not oppose space exploration per se, they certainly questioned
spending on it when social problems appeared more pressing. 29 at some level
it was like the characterization of the overlanders en route westward on the
oregon trail who opined that the platte river that they followed was a mile
wide and an inch deep. Support for space exploration was broad but not deep
and almost always lost in comparison to other federal initiatives.
Since the heyday of apollo, little has changed in this support for NaSa
and its space exploration agenda. Many on the left view spacefight, usually
characterized exclusively as the human space program, as a waste of resources
that might be more efectively deployed to support other good ends. Many
fnd themselves nodding in agreement when Josh Lyman, the White house
assistant Chief of Staf in the fctional West Wing television series told NaSa
ofcials that his one priority for the space agency was that it stay out of the
newspapers with tales of mismanagement and woe. he added that his agenda
included using precious federal funds here on earth to help people rather than
to conquer space. 30
27. bernard Weinraub,“Some applaud as rocket Lifts, but rest Just Stare,” New York Times, July 17,
1969, p. 1.
28. James L. Kaufman, Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project Apollo,
1961-1963 (tuscaloosa, aL: university of alabama press, 1994); Mark e. byrnes, Politics
and Space: Image Making by NASA (New york, Ny: praeger, 1994); Neil de grasse tyson,
“expanding the frontiers of Knowledge,” in Stephen J. garber, ed., Looking Backward.
Looking Forward: Forty Years of U.S. Human Spacefight Symposium (Washington, DC: NaSa
Sp-2002-4107, 2002), pp. 127-136.
29. roger D. Launius, “public opinion polls and perceptions of u.S. human Spacefight,” Space
Policy 19 (august 2003): 163-175.
30. “the Warfare of genghis Khan,” episode #513, West Wing, broadcast: february 11, 2004.