Abstract
It has been over three decades since the space age began with the spectacular surprise, the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 satellite in late 1957. The American space program sent astronauts to the moon, built a space shuttle, and then faltered when the space shuttle turned out to be a rather expensive and dangerous way of putting hardware into orbit rather than the inexpensive, reliable space truck which it was sold as. The Soviet space program, which stumbled on its way to the moon, plugged along and launched a series of space stations in low earth orbit. The Soviets now have considerably more experience with long-duration space flight than the Americans have.
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Reference Notes
Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971), p. 272.
See, for example, Dwight David Eisenhower, Waging Peace 1956–1961: The White House Years (New York: Doubleday, 1965), p. 206.
W. Von Braun, F. I. Ordway III, and Dave Dooling, Space Travel: A History (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), p. 170.
Sally K. Ride, Leadership and America’s Future in Space (Washington, D.C.: NASA, 1987), pp. 16–19.
Tables 2 and 3 are taken largely from the Ride report, p. 19; I’ve added the Skylab mission and left out quite a few.
H. L. Shipman, Space 2000: Meeting the Challenge of a New Era (New York: Plenum, 1987), pp. 97–99.
This story has been told many times, most notably in F. I. Ordway III and M. R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1982).
W. Von Braun, F. I. Ordway III, and Dave Dooling (collaborating author), Space Travel: A History (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), pp. 121–123.
Walter A. MacDougall,... the Heavens and the Earth (New York: Basic Books, 1985), p. 122.
See, for example, Shipman, Space 2000, p. 24.
See MacDougall, pp. 120ff; J. A. Van Allen, The Origins of Magneto spheric Physics (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1983), pp. 33–59.
For the details of the launch decision, see Space 2000, Chapter 1, as well as the Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1986).
John Logsdon, The Decision to Go to the Moon (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970).
A brief history of the supercomputer initiative is in S. Karin and N. P. Smith, The Supercomputer Era (Boston: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1987), p. 106.
The role of NASA is discussed by MacDougall, p. 317.
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© 1989 Harry L. Shipman
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Shipman, H.L. (1989). Thirty Years Into Space. In: Humans in Space. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6104-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6104-4_4
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