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

370 reMeMberINg the SpaCe age
though distinctive in many respects, critics from the right believed the
power accrued by NaSa corrupted it, making it exploitative of others and
engendering in them cynicism toward those they dominated. they may have
tried to conceal that fact by laying claim to the dominant myths and symbols
of the american frontier, invoking heroes from american folklore, positivist
images of “manifest destiny,” and happy visions of white-topped wagon trains
traveling across the prairies, but conservative critics declared that only a ruse.
through space exploration the federal government enhanced its power and
while many americans celebrated this use of federal power, conservatives
bemoaned its intrusion into their vision of individual liberty for the future.
that concern has enjoyed a persistent presence in the american spacefight
community since the 1980s.
of course, absent the power sharing relations present on earth—state to
state, local to national, philosophy to philosophy—the regime above earth’s
atmosphere must be ruled by concentrated state power, much of it u.S. power,
often hidden behind beguiling masks. they have been reminded by conservative
critics of the subtle nature of strenuous and sometimes capricious governmental
power in this experience. the region has, of course, been the scene of intense
struggles over power and hierarchy, not only between nations but also between
classes, genders, and other groups. the outcome of those struggles has a few
distinctive features found nowhere else in america, especially power elites
that are not much like those in other areas, particularly those elites located at
intersections between the federal agencies, corporations, and interest groups.
at sum, these concerns suggest an uneasy relationship to the bureaucracy that
made possible the advance of space exploration.
this is seen in at least one criticism of space exploration from the political
right in the mid-1990s when then Speaker of the house Newt gingrich (r-ga)
criticized NaSa as having too much power and becoming muscle-bound. he
said that while he generally favored science and technology investment by the
federal government he always believed that NaSa should have been dismantled
after apollo. In the aftermath of the Moon landings, gingrich said, NaSa had
become a bureaucracy in the worst sense of the term. “If you keep people
there,” he contended, “they become obsolescent.” 51 that was a metaphor for
the whole of NaSa as it moved beyond its glory of the Moon landings.
In an irony too great to ignore, criticism of space exploration—especially
the apollo program—from the right has largely been juxtaposed with support
for NaSa from conservative politicians in the years since the Moon landings.
Whereas the apollo program, expensive and large and successful, had been the
technology to dupe americans, may be found in robert L. park, Voodoo Science: The Road
from Foolishness to Fraud (New york, Ny: oxford university press, 2000); amitai etzioni,
The Limits of Privacy (New york, Ny: basic books, 2000).
51. “gingrich Says NaSa Should have folded,” New York Times, february 5, 1995, p. 24.