The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age [Paperback]

Walter A. McDougall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1986

This highly acclaimed study approaches the space race as a problem in comparative public policy. Drawing on published literature, archival sources in both the United States and Europe, interviews with many of the key participants, and important declassified material, such as the National Security Council's first policy paper on space, McDougall examines U.S., European, and Soviet space programs and their politics. Opening with a short account of Nikolai Kibalchich, a late nineteenth-century Russian rocketry theoretician, McDougall argues that the Soviet Union made its way into space first because it was the world's first "technocracy"—which he defines as "the institutionalization of technological change for state purpose." He also explores the growth of a political economy of technology in both the Soviet Union and the United States.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Exhaustively researched, brilliantly conceived, and beautifully written.

(New York Times Book Review )

A lucid and comprehensive political history of the American, European, and Russian space programs.

(New Scientist )

Once every decade or so, a book comes along that stands by itself as a remarkable contribution to the literature of a field. Such a work is Walter A. McDougall's ... the Heavens and the Earth.

(Technology and Culture )

[A] boldly conceived, elegantly written, and unfailingly provocative history of the new age of space.

(Science )

This highly acclaimed study approaches the space race as a problem in comparative public policy.

(The Astronomical Society of the Pacific )

[An] immensely readable and elegant book.

(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists )

The definitive, surprising and highly readable history of the U.S. space program. Forget visionary rhetoric about humans' need to explore the next frontier: McDougal demonstrates how NASA's moon missions grew directly from Hitler's V-2 rocket project at Pennemunde and were all about the classic military necessity of controlling the high ground—in this case the really high ground... [One of] the five best books I have read about the U.S. space program.

(Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down )

Book Description

Now in paperback—a widely acclaimed history of the space age.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 555 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (September 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465028888
• ISBN-13: 978-0465028887
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,290,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a compelling political analysis of the space program, October 10, 2000

By 

G W Thielman (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

The political history of the space age in _...The_Heavens_and_the_Earth_ provides a fascinating glimpse of the considerations taken within the Eisenhower administration and the Khrushchev regime regarding the orbital realm. Unlike other authors issuing paeans to Kennedy for his expensive though successful challenge of a manned lunar program, Professor McDougall renders a more sympathetic assessment of Eisenhower's reluctance to commit federal resources to open-ended and prestige-focused stunts. The hesitance in launching the first orbital satellite, although politically disastrous, was prudently based on concerns that foreign countries might object to orbital overflights by potential reconnaissance vehicles. With the Soviet Union launching the first satellite _Sputnik_, such criticism would be rendered moot, although this triumph enabled Khrushchev to persuasively promote Soviet hegemony and stoke American fears of missile delivery for nuclear explosives.

Most Americans have forgotten that Eisenhower advocated "open skies" to reduce the potential of overreacting to a perceived threat due to insufficient or faulty mobilization information, as well as reduce military expenditures (comparatively higher than today). Khrushchev, hoping to obscure both intentions and especially the capabilities of Soviet military power projection for preserving options in diplomatic and domestic intimidation. The United States wanted more open information so as to avoid a future "Pearl Harbor" and the Russians wanted to maintain their eastern-European gains without obligation to show their economic weakness and armed force limitations. Although sharing the information with the citizenry was an ultimate preference (now available thanks to LandSat, SPOT and other orbiting cameras), Eisenhower directed the first reconnaissance satellites as the Discovery series to look behind the Iron Curtain.

Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's overtures by upping the stakes, federalizing research towards attention-grabbing endeavors with an eye towards employing technological problem-solving ultimately to social engineering against poverty and racism. Neither Kennedy nor Johnson appeared to realize that engineering solutions and welfare statism address not only different problem categories, but their agents differ -- engineers tend to focus on the measurable and quantitative, whereas social workers (unless flaking for larger budgets) appeal to a more ethereal empathy with their charges. Professor McDougall shows the underlying hubris behind these policies, and how this was integrated into the manned (and unmanned) programs for NASA.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Pulitzer Prize-winning Explanation of the Space Race, December 20, 2003

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Although there were notable forerunners, spaceflight historiography came of age with the 1985 publication this book by Walter McDougall. It received Pulitzer Prize and a host of other well-deserved awards with its analysis of the origins and conduct of the space race. This book explores the Cold War rivalry in race with the preparations for and launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, through the race to the Moon in the 1960s. The author argues that the mandate to complete Apollo on Kennedy's schedule prompted the space program to become identified almost exclusively with high-profile, expensive, human spaceflight projects. This was because Apollo became a race against the Soviet Union for recognition as the world leader in science and technology and by extension in other fields as well.

McDougall juxtaposes the American effort of Apollo with the Soviet space program and the dreams of such designers as Sergei P. Korolev to land a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. The author recognizes Apollo as a significant engineering achievement but concludes that it was also enormously costly both in terms of resources and the direction to be taken in state support of science and technology. In the end, NASA had to stress engineering over science, competition over cooperation, civilian over military management, and international prestige over practical applications. Not all agree with McDougall's arguments, but since the publication of "the Heavens and the Earth..." historians have been striving to equal its scintillating analysis, stellar writing, and scope of discussion.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, Revealing and Ahead of its Time, March 7, 2006

By 

Terry Sunday (El Paso, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

I purchased this book when it first came out 20 years ago. At the time, it was very controversial. Author McDougall suggested that President Eisenhower actually wanted the Soviet Union to be the first to launch an earth satellite because that would establish the legal principle of "freedom of space." This principle was vital for the interests of the United States, which at the time was moving full speed ahead to develop reconnaissance satellites. Allowing the Soviets to go first would solidify the idea that one nation's satellites could freely pass through the skies of another nation. If the Soviets established such a principle, they would be unlikely to protest when OUR satellites began to overfly their territory. As later books based on newly declassified sources have confirmed, McDougall's analysis of Eisenhower's motives turned out to be right on target. The only thing the President underestimated was the intensity of the American public's reaction to the Soviet's "Sputnik I." Detailed and comprehensive, this book remains one of the best single-volume histories of the early years of the Space Age.