Customer Reviews

Blue Sky Dream

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Hal Beers and I had very similar careers. Navy Jet Fighter Pilot to Lockheed Space Systems Division; David's observations of a latter day "Life With Father" struck a lot of familiar and abused nerves. I joined LMSC about a year earlier than Hal. We were in the same organization at the advent of space systems. The thrill (like Startrek) to go where no man has been before was a real rush. Yet it grew old. We aged. (Always the commute to the west Santa Clara Valley was a bitch. This added tension to a terribly tense job.) The thrill of being the first started to erode when we saw the third and fourth generations of young engineers making the same stupid mistakes we made (with five inch slide rules not IBM PCs with Bill Gates software. Dave missed a few of the high points such as the Nixon post-Viet Nam stagflation and decline in the space-biz where LMSC Sunnyvale's employment dropped from almost 40,000 to about 12,500. We used to track it with our paycheck numbers. In our house "I could be out on the street on Monday Morning" was a classic oft-repeated gag line by my kids - I gagged because it was so close to reality. The book helped me relive some of my greatest and worse hours. Although Hal and I separated about five years after he joined the Company, David's story applies to all of us. The almost hopeless state we drove ourselves and our families. Yet we survived. My kids grew up - graduating from Saratoga High in 1969 and were thrown right into a new life I never dreamed of - Viet Nam riots, Haight-Ashbury, free love, rock and roll and recreational pharmaceuticals. Yet they too survived. David got a little too maudlin. His retrospective on the changes sort of caused the book to drag towards the end. Yet it is an accurate slice of life with the bright stars and Blue Skies of the Cold War - winning ulcers or coronary by-passes in lieu of medals. Its over. I'm sure Pericles grandchildren would agree that life goes on - and humans are by nature survivors. Darwin avered that we adapt. We did and are still adapting. /s/ Bill Eaton, LMSC 1959-1983

I bought this book because I heard that it was about the decline of the aerospace industry in California and how it affected the family of one engineer. This attracted me first of all because my lifetime dream had always been to work in aerospace, preferably in California. The second reason was that I had never achieved this dream and I wanted some indication that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be- sour grapes on my part. I came away with conflicted opinions. Deep down I didn't want that "Blue Sky Dream" to be over, to be less than my dream. I recognized my own early upbringing in the tale- the worship of Von Braun, the Chesley Bonestell art, the model planes, Tom Swift books, the electronic kits and erector sets, Lost in Space- all of it. Yet, the overall experience was not exactly nostalgia, or if it was, it was a bitter nostalgia.

The author does an extremely good job of capturing the feelings of the time. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The experiences with the wide open, empty world of the new subdivision was mine (though ours was in a former cornfield and not an orchard.) Also, when things began to turn sour and he realized that paradise wasn't all it was cracked up to be I knew exactly what he was describing. However, perhaps because I'm a little older I also identified with his engineer father. While I never made it into aerospace I did make it into less glamorous engineering projects in equally less glamorous surroundings. You see, the rust belt experience is in many ways similar to that of the blue sky belt- but it hit us earlier and harder. My parents lost that suburban ranch. There were no huge government interventions to buy us time; in fact the government siphoned resources out of the rust belt to build the blue sky belt- continously. To be fair, the author does point this out.

I found the book on the whole to be satisfying- if not optimistic. I recognized the ring of truth here. I also recognized the problems that he was describing, especially the sell-out of engineers and workers by a management with no drive or imagination. He is correct in why there was no peace dividend and no retooling of industry into useful peacetime production. It never happened. Moreover, we are now all freelancers with no security, no benefits, no guidance, and no inspiration.

The book is not totally without hope however. The deep, almost mystic, faith of the author's mother speaks to that. That's the remarkable thing about my experience reading this book, for I saw myself in the experiences and attitudes of the father, the son, and the mother at different stages of my own life. Unlike the author I do not see the inherent incompatibility of science on the one hand and mystic faith on the other. You just have to decide what represents a higher reality, and what represents a lower, you just have to get your priorities straight. Maybe one day the whole country will get its priorities straight too.

While my dad worked in a steel mill in western Pa. this is my story too. It is the story of growing up, Catholic, in the 60's & 70's in a small town. The Lost in Space chapter is fun, since I collect LIS toys now.The author was shooting higher than this, but it hit me emotionally at a lower level. I enjoyed the book, and have re-read it many times.

Blue Sky [Tribe] Team
The American Dream as described in David Beer's book was fueled by the Cold War under a banner of self-preservation over economy. As the Cold War ended the Blue Sky Dream ended and the Blue Sky Tribes as described by Mr. Beer were dispersed like the Native Americans of the mid-to-late 1800s. The Blue Sky Tribe's migration from California was like a virtual Trail of Tears. Unfortunately 9/11 and the war on terror has brought on a rebirth - a new dream with the same mantra of self-preservation. Just as the orchards of northern California gave way to the manicured subdivisions of the Blue Sky Tribes , places like Tucson, Arizona have seen their natural desert vegetation surrender to planned communities of the new Global Teams with a distinct California flavor. Mr. Beer's eulogy portends the future of the new Global Team environment of the twenty first century. Until we has human beings throughout the world learn to live with each other, our American culture will continue to cycle through eras of self-preservation and the ironic emptiness that it leaves us with.
Mr. Beer does an excellent job of portraying the subtle but extensive impact on our traditions of a self-preservation society. All new entrants into this lifestyle should read this book and reflect on its message. If you are not vigilant your time will come.

A remembrance both personal and political of the boom-boom aerospace era and its offspring, Beers' story is that of a pilot and an industry, a father and a son. The book grew out of an article, "The Crash of Blue Sky California," which appeared in Harper's and won Beers a National Magazine Award in 1993. Those of us who lived in or near the instant communities fueled by Federal dollars funneled to Cape Kennedy, Huntsville, Houston, Silicon Valley, Boston and other military-industrial-electronic centers can instantly connect to Beers' childhood home. But even from a further remove, his insight into the drive behind our post-war militarism and the rippling effects throughout the country will ring true. From Sputnik to Star Wars to Apple Computer's curious origins to simulated flight games in the multi-megahertz 90s, this work covers the rise and fall of an attitude and an era. And it does so in the context of painful personal experience and the difficulty and joy of finally growing up. This one will definitely make you think.

This book is amazing. There is a belief that if we just work hard enough, all come together and contribute the right little pieces, we can make everything good, without changing ourselves. This book is an examination of that mythology. In the end it was fear that fed it. The idols, sputnik, Apollo, were false, designed to give the nation(s) something to believe in besides fear. In the end it may be story of how we came to find that massive technology, and massive coordinated efforts were not the answer.

On reading "Blue Sky Dream" I am reminded that once there was a nation that thought it could do anything-There still is: ISS-International Space Station.

John R. Aubrun
Spacecraft Engineer
International Space Station Project
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne

The author definitely has some issues with his father. It's always easiest to blame the parents. Although well organized, it's still a pretty cheap piece of whining.