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Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest

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A spring 1999 poll of opinion leaders sponsored by leading news organizations in the United States ranked the 100 most significant events of the twentieth century and the Apollo landings on the Moon muscled itself to a very close second to the splitting of the atom. Probably historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. best summarized the position of many opinion leaders polled: "The one thing for which this century will be remembered 500 years from now was...when we began the exploration of space" (Arlene Levinson, "Atomic bombing of Hiroshima tops Journalists' List of Century's News," Associated Press, February 24, 1999). Not surprisingly, both the development of the atomic bomb and the Apollo program has enjoyed enormous attention as a subject of historical research and writing. University of Andrews historian Gerard J. DeGroot, having already tackled the story of the bomb, turns his attention to the Moon landings in "Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest."

He begins with the appropriate concern that Apollo has taken on mythical qualities, and is remembered with nostalgia for a time long gone. Such a situation begs for an antidote, and apparently DeGroot considers himself just the person to deliver it. Questioning the reasons for the Apollo program, as well as the execution and results of it, DeGroot presents a poorly researched book--based almost exclusively on secondary materials, and then even missing many of the most significant of those works--with an excessively over-the-top thesis that is both indemonstrable and ineffectively argued. While I believe it is appropriate to criticize aspects of the history of space age, responsible criticism grounded in the historical record should always inform it. Unfortunately, this work does not warrant serious consideration.

DeGroot takes exception to the reasons for the space race, arguing that a group of space advocates hijacked the national agenda during the Sputnik crisis of 1957-1958, created a federal agency to accomplish their dreams, and pried national treasure from a range of other more worthy causes to fund trips to the Moon. He sets the stage by characterizing German rocketeer Wernher von Braun as a self-righteous traitor and John F. Kennedy as a dupe. He then weaves a conspiracy of bureaucrats, industrialists, and politicians who promoted space exploration as a means of feathering their own nests. The low point in that discussion revolves around convicted felon Bobby Baker, DeGroot claiming that he had the contract to provide candy vending machines at defense plants. His last sentence about this subject is telling: "And you thought Apollo was a story about heroes" (p. 153). How this relates to the Apollo program is never quite clear since there is no indication of any malfeasance from NASA officials whatsoever.

Most of what DeGroot claims in "Dark Side of the Moon" has been argued before by other scholars, and generally those critiques are more innovative and reasoned. Certainly he is not the first scholar to challenge the necessity of the Moon race. Amitai Etzioni in "The Moondoggle: Domestic and International Implications of the Space Race" (Doubleday, 1964) offered an important critique more than forty years earlier. Pulitzer Prize-winner Walter A. McDougall presented a strikingly sophisticated challenge of the necessity of the Moon race in "...The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age" (Basic Books, 1985), arguing that Apollo prompted the space program to become identified almost exclusively with high-profile, expensive, human spaceflight projects of limited value. Others have done so as well. For readers interested in this type of critique of the space program, "...The Heavens and the Earth" is the gold standard.

Other difficulties abound. Ostensibly about the Apollo program, only half of the book actually deals with it. The first seven chapters recite in a not particularly insightful manner the early history of space advocacy, Sputnik, the politics of creating NASA, and the early U.S. efforts to reach space. The rest of the book skips through the unfolding of the Apollo program, and the last chapter carries the human spaceflight story into the post-Apollo era. DeGroot's concluding assertion--"Hubris took Americans to the Moon, a barren, soulless place where humans do not belong and cannot flourish. If the voyage has had any positive benefit at all, it has reminded us that everything that is good resides on Earth" (p. 269)--is the ultimate arm-waving statement in a book filled with them. The issue of hubris in Apollo deserves serious scholarly attention, the apparent barrenness of the Moon has been challenged by scientists, and whether or not humans can survive there for long is very much an unknown. The reference to seeing the Earth anew because of the trips to the Moon is now so obvious as to have become trite. Such assertions, without elaboration and substantiation abound in this embarrassing book. The Apollo epic deserves responsible consideration and reflective analysis, and responsible criticism; unfortunately Gerard DeGroot accomplishes none of this in "Dark Side of the Moon."

The Dark Side Of The Moon is a highly uneven book written by Gerard DeGroot, a Professor of History and an award winning author. The book adopts the now generally accepted view the America's space program in the 1960s was driven by cold war politics rather than important scientific goals. The book also argues that the Apollo program was a dead end for space exploration rather than a significant event in the ongoing human exploration of space. The author then proceeds from these not unusual ideas to argue that America's manned exploration of space was a massive waste of money, a mere American ego trip and a grossly mismanaged rush to the moon. These are much more debatable propositions.

The shocking aspect of the book is that the author of this "history" relies on an Apollo mission to the moon that never took place as part of his argument that Apollo was an ill conceived rush to the moon. DeGroot believes that Apollo astronauts made three trips to the moon prior to the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, thus making even the Apollo 11 flight to the moon "routine." Showing his lack of knowledge of what actually happened in the Apollo program, DeGroot writes on pages 230-231 -

"For NASA, Apollo 8 provided valuable confirmation that the package which would take Americans to the Moon actually worked. Apollo 9 then took on the original profile of Apollo 8, except for the fact that, given the earlier mission's success, there seemed little point in testing the lunar module in Earth orbit. The crew of James McDivitt, David Scott, and Rust Schweickart therefore went to the Moon. After the command module separated from the spent rocket, the crew turned it around and then docked with the lunar module, which was still enclosed in Saturn's final stage. They then pulled away and headed for the Moon.
Once in the Moon's orbit, McDivitt and Schweickart climbed into the lunar module, separated it from the command module, and flew it for the first time."

This story about Apollo 9 going to the moon is fiction, not history. This is no mere typo or misstatement, but an appalling error in scholarship by this historian. Apollo 9 never went to the moon. Astronauts McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart did not orbit the moon in Apollo 9. Apollo 9 was planned and executed (highly successfully) as an Earth orbit mission. One minute of on on-line research can confirm this. [...]. The difference between an Earth orbit mission and a lunar obit mission is vast. How vast? Well, since the last Apollo flight to the moon in 1972 there have been over a hundred Earth orbit flights and not a single flight to the moon. Since Apollo 11 was only the second time the lunar module went to the moon and only the third time men traveled to the moon, it was not a "routine" event. In erroneously describing the Apollo 9 mission as traveling to the moon and using that as part of his argument for criticizing NASA, the author seriously undercuts his credibility.

Furthermore, continuing factual errors about the Apollo program show that the author does not have any in depth knowledge of what actually occurred on these missions. For example, in writing about what DeGroot describes as the "well known" Apollo 13 mission, he states "An explosion ripped through the outer skin of the Command Module, which quickly lost electric power." P. 250. In fact, the explosion ripped through the skin of the service module, an entirely different part of the space craft. If the explosion had ripped though the skin of the command module, the astronauts would have immediately died from decompression of the command module. An author of a book about the Apollo missions should better understand the design of the Apollo command and service modules that made up the Apollo spacecraft. Especially if it is a book highly critical of the entire program.

The author also shows that he does not have a clear grasp of the events that took place during the Apollo 11 moon landing. DeGroot describes the exciting events taking place as Neil Armstrong pilots the lunar module to a safe landing spot on the moon as it was running out of fuel. Then, in describing the actual landing on the moon (p. 235) he writes, "Armstrong uttered the magical words: `Contact.'" Armstrong did not say that; the NASA transcripts of the flight clearly show that Buzz Aldrin spoke the words "Contact Light" when the lunar module Eagle's probe touched the lunar surface and the contact light flashed on control panel. Putting Aldrin's words in Armstrong's mouth may by itself be viewed as a small error, but in this situation of repeated errors it evidences poor scholarship.

The legacy of the Apollo moon landings may be fairly debated. Was it a milestone of human achievement and one of the most memorable events of the Twentieth Century or and an unnecessary ego trip that wasted many billions of dollars? It is an interesting debate but this book, because of its errors and poor scholarship, does not provide a credible answer to that question.

It grabbed my attention when I first saw it: an overview history of the US space program, written by a foreigner who presumably didn't grow up with NASA propaganda. It started out strong, with a 50,000' survey of the German WWII-era missile program, then shifts to the American reaction to Soviet space efforts. But the author can't resist showing us how utterly cosmopolitan and sophisticated and ironic he is, especially compared to us uncultured Yanks. In his discussion of the National Defense Education Act, which funded science and engineering students, he snarks that Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, received his education under it. So what? So did I, and so did most people I know. Almost no women find space appealing? News to this one. Vending machine suppliers made lots of money selling candy at NASA? So what? NASA employees were as human as the rest of us. DeGroot's main research into everyday life in the US in the 60s seems to come from watching old sitcoms.

Two stars for making me look up some of the early history of the space race, but otherwise you can save your time and money. Wolfe's The Right Stuff covered the fallibility of the astronauts a lot better, and the excellent HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, though extremely pro-NASA, presents varied views, including the effects of the space program on the astronauts' families, with much more impact that DeGroot does.

DeGroot seeks not to so much illuminate the history of humankind's greatest technological triumph as to deconstruct it. In a way he is like the revisionist historians who want everyone to believe that American history is just a sorry list of rape, plunder, murder, and lies. There seems to be a kind of preversity in certain people that causes them to look upon greatness and to want to vomit on it. Andrew Chaikin's book on the same subject is far more comprehensive and balanced.

Any credibility Gerard DeGroot has as a "historian" is lost when one considers the length he goes to skew the facts to fit his personal agenda -- as has already been pointed out by many lesser degreed individuals in this opinion section.

However, one only has to look at a Feb 25, 2009 published "commentary" that appeared in the Telegraph (UK) newspaper at: [...]

In it, he concludes with the following statement: "But the final word goes to Eisenhower, who once vetoed Apollo. He reminded Americans that "every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed".

In reality, the actual quote attributed to President Eisenhower that Gerard DeGroot manipulates to suit his position is, in reality, a completely different message which has nothing to do with Project Apollo specifically, or the space program in general, but rather the penalties of war: "Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

The author obviously did not do the basic research required (Apollo 9 did NOT go to the Moon), and obviously has made it his mission to deflate any sense of American accomplishment.

If you want a critical view of the US space program that is honest and not just a hatchet job, try:

...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age

or

The Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb, NASA, and the Secret History of Project Apollo

This book has been sitting on one of my shelves for a couple of years now. I bought it because its title and the brief advertising blurb I read at the time seemed to promise an objective, non-romantic but fair, retrospective of the conquest of the moon. In honour of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing I took the book off the shelf and started reading it, beginning with the author's preface. What a disappointment. This book is anything but objective. DeGroot has a very clear agenda. "Putting men in space was an immensely expensive distraction of little scientific or cultural worth. The American people, in other words, were fleeced" That's it. End of story. DeGroot has spoken. He doesn't debate the pros and cons of putting man in space; he just declares it to be an expensive mistake. So what kind of book can we expect to follow from this kind of hidebound, obtuse start? I decided to check some Amazon.Com reviews and learned that Mr. DeGroot, who calls himself a Professor of Modern History, has made some astonishingly blockheaded blunders. I won't discuss these errors, since other reviewers have already done such a good job of this, but I will say that if you want to write a sneering, iconoclastic book about the greatest technological achievement of the 20th Century you had better get your facts straight. I am going to pitch this shallow, derivative, juvenile piece of pulp. Instead, I've started reading Iosif Shklovsky's 'Five Billion Vodka Bottles to The Moon'. Highly recommended.

The author writes entertainingly and well. The quotations and excerpts from the very early days of research into space are interesting, particularly the predictions made back then (some came true, some were hilariously wrong). The influence of science fiction on the early scientists was particularly noteworthy.

Despite the funny stories, the overall impression of the book is one of shoddy scholarship and careless reasoning.

First, as several commentators here have observed, the book contains basic factual errors. I had noticed particularly the claim that the explosion in Apollo 13 damaged the skin of the "command module," despite a detailed description in numerous readily available sources that it was a different part of the spacecraft, the service module, that was damaged.

Second, the book consistently makes controversial claims without citation. For example, the book accuses "Jews" of "dreadful things" without any cite or footnote. To the extent that Jews were "dreadful" and to the extent that this point has something to do with NASA, the claim should have been sourced.

Third, the book's main argument is flawed. The book argues that there were limited scientific justifications for the manned moon missions because the moon turned out to be "desolate." The book also cites other claims for the benefits of the space program, such as economic impact and help winning the cold war.

But the book dismisses these claimed benefits without any analysis of the of what actual economic effects Apollo had, or of the cold war benefits of Apollo. As to the first, NASA was the largest consumer of computers during the 60s, and much of the development of the early computers was driven by NASA. Surely some attention should have been devoted to whether NASA's support of computer science, both hardware and software, did in fact have economic benefits. Similarly, the book does not address whether NASA's achievement did in fact increase global popularity of the U.S., impeding the influence of the Soviet Union. And the book does not address whether the vast sums of money NASA wound up sending to higher education and into math and science had other benefits.

Fourth, sometimes NASA is blamed for matters for which it is not responsible. For example, in talking about universities, the book states that "[b]y the end of the decade, the United States had millions of graduates who could solve a quadratic equation or deconstruct Herman [sic] Hesse, but not enough plumbers..." Some quick points: the author comes across as innumerate here - "solving quadratic equations" is something a 12-year-old can do and hardly requires a university degree; NASA would be very unlikely to fund research on Hesse deconstruction; and for a professor to criticize education generally while misspelling the name of an important modern thinker is characteristic of the sloppiness pervading the book.

I came across this book when I decided to google my father just yesterday. I only read one page. Page 214 Interview with Mel Friedman Quality Control. Mel Friedman is my father. I would love to know where Mr De Groot got this so called interview with my father. My father only did one interview with one person. My father did not tell me the man's name but the interviewer told my father he was opening up a museum and wanted my father to "donate" all his NASA memorabilia from working on all the Apollo projects but my father refused. This interview was years ago way before this book was written. Was this Mr De Groot that tried to get my father to give up all his NASA memorabilia? I believe this so called interview with my father is complete propaganda. My father never would have said the things Mr De Groot said he did. I have written an email to Mr De Groot as to his source of this so called interview with my father. I await his reply. My father would take to me to work at Grumman. I was physically in a LEM. My father was also in several meetings with Astronauts. I have met a few of them. I even have some of their autographs on NASA memorabilia. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

I was surprised to find several factual errors in a book written by an academic. That's actually quiet unacceptable for somebody in his position and I wish he had done a bit more research because these errors undermine the main point which I think is very important: "putting a man on the moon is lunacy".

Please don't get me wrong here. I think that the moon program is certainly one of the top technological achievements of the 20th century. It still find it hard to believe today that so much was achieved in so little time and that all those astronauts are back on earth to die from old age and lung cancer. It's simply incredible.

I love technology and certainly space technology. But I love science even more and we have to be honest: the moon program was not about science. Science was just a side show. There was no scientific reason to put a man on the moon in the sixties and there is none today. And there was certainly no economic reason to go to the moon. Yes, there was some "spin-off" but if one looks at the dollar for dollar return, the moon race was a bad investment of historic proportions.

This is the main merit of this book. It shows how NASA and the moon race was driven by politics, power and money and how it was sold to the public that payed for it.

History is repeating itself today. There is another moon shot on the political agenda and this book helps to put everything into perspective. I would love to see a permanent base on mars if it could be done cheaply. But the reality is that the amount of money needed is astronomical.

The US economy is almost foreign owned with a double deficit and everybody is in debt. Making even more debt is proposed the get out of the recession. Is a new moon shot really what we need?

This book helps tremendously at avoiding a huge mistake. That's the reason I gave it 4 stars ( 5 is out because of the factual errors ).