Abstract
A small set of actors has dominated civil space policy and programme development in the United States since the inception of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA officials, major aerospace firms, space scientists in academia, U.S. presidential administrations, members of Congress, and leaders of other U.S. government offices—often working in concert with or in reaction to the policies of foreign national space agencies—have guided decisions concerning what space projects the nation has undertaken. Walter McDougall’s …The Heavens and the Earth, W. D. Kay’s Can Democracies Fly in Space?, and many other works describe the powerful state, industry, and university actors who contributed to NASA’s rise in the late 1950s and helped to shape the agency’s sense of identity, organisational culture, programme choices, and external relationships, which have been focused so centrally on human space flight, over its decades of existence.
The views expressed herein are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA or the U.S. government
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Notes
- 1.
McDougall, WA (1985) …The heavens and the earth: a political history of the space age. Johns Hopkins, Baltimore; Kay, WD (1995) Can democracies fly in space? The challenge of revitalising the U.S. space programme. Praeger, Westport. See also, for example, Bromberg, JL (1999) NASA and the space industry. Johns Hopkins, Baltimore; Launius, RD, McCurdy, HE (eds) (1997) Spaceflight and the myth of presidential leadership. University of Illinois, Chicago; Logsdon, JM (2010) John F. Kennedy and the race to the moon. Palgrave Macmillan, New York; Logsdon, JM (2015) After Apollo? Richard Nixon and the American space programme. Palgrave Macmillan, New York; Smith, RW (1989) The space telescope: a study of NASA, science, technology, and politics. Cambridge University, Cambridge.
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McCurdy, HE (1997) Space and the American imagination. Smithsonian, Washington; Michaud, MAG (1986) Reaching for the high frontier: The American pro-space movement, 1972–1984. Praeger, New York.
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Kauffman, JL (1994) Selling outer space: Kennedy, the media, and funding for project Apollo, 1961–1963. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL; Byrnes, ME (1994) Politics and space: image making by NASA. Praeger, Westport; Starr, KA (2008) NASA's hidden power: NACA/NASA public relations and the cold war, 1945–1967. Dissertation, Auburn University; Lewenstein, BV (1993) NASA and the public understanding of space science. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 46: 251–254; Billings, L (2010) Fifty years of NASA and the public: what NASA? What Publics? In: Dick, SJ (ed) NASA’s first 50 years: historical perspectives. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, pp 151–181; Scott DM, Jurek, R (2014) Marketing the moon: the selling of the Apollo lunar programme. MIT, Cambridge, MA; Kaminski, AP (2015) Sharing the shuttle with America: NASA and public engagement after Apollo. Dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
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Bush, V (1945) Science: the endless frontier: a report to the president. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington.
- 5.
See, for example, Ezrahi, Y (1990) The descent of Icarus: science and the transformation of contemporary democracy. Harvard, Cambridge, MA; Macdonald, S (1998) The politics of display: museums, science, culture. Routledge, New York; Schmid, SD (2006) Celebrating tomorrow today: the peaceful atom on display in the Soviet Union. Social Studies of Science 36(3):331–365; Sarewitz, D (1996) Frontiers of illusion: science, technology, and the politics of progress Temple, Philadelphia.
- 6.
See, for example, Price, DK (1967) The scientific estate. Harvard, Cambridge, MA; Nelkin, D (1975) The political impact of technical expertise. Social studies of science 5(1):35–54; Irwin, A and Wynne, B (eds) (1996) Misunderstanding science? The public reconstruction of science and technology. Cambridge, Cambridge.
- 7.
For more on the evolution of the astronaut profession, see Hersch, MH (2012) Inventing the American astronaut. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
- 8.
Epstein, S (1996) Impure science: AIDS, activism, and the politics of knowledge. University of California, Berkeley.
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Fischer, F (2001) Citizens, experts, and the environment: the politics of local knowledge. Duke, Durham.
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NASA (2010) NASA open government plan. http://www.nasa.gov/open/plan/index_prt.htm. Accessed 3 May 2015.
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NASA (2014) NASA strategic plan. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/FY2014_NASA_SP_508c.pdf. Accessed 3 May 2015.
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Office of Science and Technology Policy (2013) Implementation of federal prize authority: fiscal year 2012 progress report. https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/competes_prizesreport_dec-2013.pdf. Accessed 3 May 2015.
- 13.
See, for example, National Commission on Space (1986) Pioneering the space frontier: the report of the National Commission on Space. Bantam, New York; NASA (1993) Toward a shared vision: 1992 town meetings. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington.
- 14.
Safwat, B, Stilgoe, J, Gillinson S (2006) Open space: a citizen’s jury on space exploration. http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/exploration/Public/DEMOS_Space_Jury_final_report_v5.pdf. Accessed 3 May 2015.
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Launius, RD (2003) Public opinion polls and perceptions of U.S. human space flight. Space Policy 19:163–175.
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NASA conceptualised its Space Shuttle as a “space truck” that would open space to new user groups and uses:
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/542464main_SSPPbridge.jpg
NASA’s Open Government Plan lays out the agency’s plans and mechanisms for involving members of the public in space activities: http://www.nasa.gov/open/plan/index_prt.htm
NASA’s Centennial Challenges programme invites individuals and teams to propose solutions to tough problems in space technology development, such as robots that can locate and return samples from a terrain without human intervention, as shown here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/14383756106/
A consortium of academic, informal education, and policy analysis institutions partnered with NASA to conduct two forums in November 2014 bringing together citizens of many backgrounds to solicit their views on NASA’s plans to find potentially hazardous asteroids and move an asteroid or piece of an asteroid to lunar orbit for human exploration.
Source: https://ecastnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/p1060131.jpg?w=624
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Kaminski, A. (2016). What Place for the People? The Role of the Public and NGOs in Space Innovation and Governance. In: Al-Ekabi, C., Baranes, B., Hulsroj, P., Lahcen, A. (eds) Yearbook on Space Policy 2014. Yearbook on Space Policy. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1899-3_8
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