A History of the Kennedy Space Center (review)

A History of the Kennedy Space Center (review) Dwayne A. Day Technology and Culture, Volume 49, Number 3, July 2008, pp. 813-815 (Review) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.0.0052 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/243119 [ Access provided at 7 Oct 2020 18:09 GMT from Utrecht University Library ] 13_49.3bkrevs:13_49.3bkrevs 779– 7/14/08 1:20 PM Page 813 B O O K R E V I E W S moral justifications have been hotly debated in the “typical history.” Gordin strives for originality by rephrasing the issues. He separates the military and moral justifications for using the bomb: “the issue of military justification of the atomic bombings simply did not appear as a live question for Tru- man or his advisers” (p. 7). And he says nothing about any legal justifica- tion. Telford Taylor, who was chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, judged the attack on Nagasaki to have been a war crime on the grounds that, since Japan was already beaten, the second bomb served no military purpose; see Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (1970), p. 143: “The rights and wrongs of Hiroshima are debatable, but I have never heard a plausible justification of Nagasaki. It is difficult to contest the judgment that Dresden and Nagasaki were war crimes.” It is questionable whether the military, legal, and moral issues can be properly separated. The historian is obligated to make a careful review of those reputed separations and not casually postulate them. Though Gordin has read extensively, his method is irritatingly conjectural (“Yet the Japan- ese government hoped . . .”; “Stalin believed . . .”; “most Americans felt deeply . . .”), and his endnotes are inflated by frequent citations of whole books—no page references. Gordin’s thesis, however he wishes to frame it, would carry more weight if he confronted the “typical” historians and showed specifically how their “standard picture” is flawed. In the mean- time, the standard picture is alive and well. HAROLD DORN Dr. Dorn is professor emeritus of history at Stevens Institute of Technology. A History of the Kennedy Space Center. By Kenneth Lipartito and Orville R. Butler. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. Pp. xvi+478. $39.95. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has long had what is probably the most effective contract history program in the federal govern- ment, producing excellent first drafts of scholarship on various subjects that provide a solid foundation for those who follow. NASA has long given its contract historians access to documents and to its own officials, and vir- tually unlimited independence in the pursuit of the story. This book by Kenneth Lipartito and Orville Butler is a very good addition to this canon, telling of the development of the launch facility at Cape Canaveral, which has not only been vital to the nation’s space program, but has also had a major impact on the economy and social development of the state of Florida. Cape Canaveral was originally selected as a missile launch site by the air force for geographic reasons: a long stretch of empty ocean over which un- 813 13_49.3bkrevs:13_49.3bkrevs 779– 7/14/08 1:20 PM Page 814 T E C H N O L O G Y A N D C U LT U R E manned missiles and rockets could fly, and fall. Because many rockets have to launch eastward in order to go around Earth, it was a natural site for launching NASA rockets into space. And the site could also be easily reached by water, so large rocket stages could be shipped there. NASA was assembled in 1958 out of pieces of several organizations, most importantly the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which JULY had several field centers, including property in Virginia that had been used 2008 for missile launches. But it was clear that Cape Canaveral was the best VOL. 49 choice for launching the agency’s rockets. The cape was already bustling with work on the American ballistic missile program, and NASA started by utilizing army and air force property and equipment. But the Apollo program significantly changed this dynamic. NASA ac- quired substantial amounts of property and began extensive construction in the swamps on Merritt Island. Soon the agency was building one of the largest enclosed structures there to house the mighty Saturn V rocket, the Vehicle Assembly Building. Workers faced a horrific mosquito problem, and they also had to contend with alligators and poisonous snakes, not to men- tion wild boars. After President Kennedy’s assassination the area was re- named Cape Kennedy, but eventually the name was changed back to Cape Canaveral, with NASA’s facility named the Kennedy Space Center, or KSC for short. The major input of cash and a skilled workforce to a relatively sleepy southern state had a lasting political impact, and one of Florida’s two senators even flew on a space shuttle when he was a congressman and NASA was pandering to any government official who could provide funding. Lipartito and Butler provide an excellent and comprehensive narrative account of NASA’s development of the area. Their opening chapter explains the myriad tasks involved in the preparation of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo spacecraft that carried Apollo 11 to the Moon, illustrating just what happens at a launch site like KSC. They also make the point that once the rocket lifts off, except for analyzing lessons learned from its preparation, the center’s job is done and everyone turns their full attention to the next launch. Kennedy is an example of technical “operations,” rather than sci- ence or research and development. The authors then recount the initial history of the area, air force and NASA occupancy of reclaimed swampland and former orange groves, and the substantial investments for Apollo. They also discuss the impact of all that construction and technical work on the local region, formerly com- prised of sleepy fishing and farming communities. They cover the down- turn in work—and the local economy—as the result of the end of the Apollo program, and then changes implemented for the space shuttle pro- gram, which required some new construction but largely relied on the existing Apollo infrastructure. Shuttle operations and the two tragic acci- dents, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, are examined. In both cases, NASA’s safety culture was identified as a culprit. However, although 814 13_49.3bkrevs:13_49.3bkrevs 779– 7/14/08 1:20 PM Page 815 B O O K R E V I E W S the vehicles are maintained and readied for launch at KSC, the program is managed from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and it was Johnson officials who were ultimately culpable for ignoring evidence that the vehi- cles were in danger. This is not a dry policy or bureaucratic history. As the authors point out, KSC is in many ways the most physical and blue-collar of the NASA centers. It is where people turn wrenches and stack rockets. But they also note that it takes planning to turn a wrench on something as complex as a rocket or spacecraft. At times the people planning and managing the pro- gram, often from far away, resisted input and observations from those doing the work in Florida. Lipartito and Butler have done an impressive amount of research, well- documented in footnotes. They have culled a wide array of sources, includ- ing official records, memoirs, and local news media accounts which provide not only facts, but also flavor, to the story. (Although they do not admit this, KSC’s documentary records are less than desirable, but the book does not appear to have suffered in any way.) The book is very readable and manages to bring the subject alive. Though it is a little dense and special- ized for an average reader, even someone with no knowledge of the history of spaceflight would find it engaging and informative. This is an excellent comprehensive history of KSC. DWAYNE A. DAY Dr. Day is a study director with the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council and served as an investigator for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950. By Avner Offer. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xviii+454. $45. This book might suggest itself as a successor to John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1958 Affluent Society or as another example of an economist reaching out to a wider audience to challenge that profession’s habitual blindness to the “externalities” of market transactions, as has been attempted by Tibor Sci- tovsky, Robert Frank, or Juliet Schor. Noted Oxford economic historian Avner Offer offers instead a rigorously economic treatment of his themes, focusing less on a historical argument about the impact of riches on self- control and well-being than on identifying economic models, statistical measures, and terminology for addressing a potpourri of issues loosely re- lated to his themes. Those who have forgotten their economics (or never learned) will be frustrated by his references to the substitution effect and prisoner’s dilemma, not to mention income elasticity and hyperbolic dis- counting, but the persistent reader will find much of value. 815