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« Not Members Of The Mars Society | Main | On The Subject Of Space Heritage »

Space Heritage

The editorial page letter below (Florida Today) affirms my view that there is much work to be done in the area of space site and artifact preservation. The fine effort to save the Apollo LUT, while both brave and bold, lacked adequate momentum and money to succeed.

Find ways to preserve more of space history

I applaud a recent letter wake-up call to save our Space Coast heritage before it is all gone with the wind. As the writer said, many launch sites are already dismantled.

Since then, a March 24 FLORIDA TODAY photo on page 1B showed the Apollo launch umbilical tower being disposed.

On the plus side, the letter also mentioned several facilities such as the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center and the Space and Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station that are actively preserving what they can. However, they need help.

Neither the Air Force nor NASA use taxpayer dollars expressly to preserve historical sites and facilities. The Air Force Space and Missile Museum Foundation Inc., a private nonprofit corporation, is authorized to raise money for the Museum. Perhaps their charter could be expanded to include the following launch complexes:

LC-13, the last remaining ICBM service gantry; LC-14, where Mercury Atlas astronauts flew into space; LC- 19, where Gemini-Titan missions were launched; and LC-34, where we lost three astronauts in the Apollo 1 fire.

Anyone wishing to learn more should call the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at 853-9171.

M.J. Martin
Merritt Island ------------

Apparently, at least one writer of school history books doesn't think that space exploration was a notable event of the Cold War era. My 12 year-old son's 6th-grade US history/civics text does not mention Sputnik/Explorer I or space exploration in the Cold War chapter. The Civil Rights movement of that era receives well-deserved ink in that book, but it is apparent that the author does not feel that James Webb, Alan Shepard, Wernher von Braun, or Neil Armstrong deserve as much mention as say, Rosa Parks. Shameful!

Posted by Jim McDade at March 31, 2004 10:45 AM

Comments

There are about a half dozen different aspects of space history and education that I'd like to discuss, but I'm not sure I can keep them all separate (and they're all interrelated anyway).

As you note, Sputnik and other space subjects don't get mentioned in school textbooks. I imagine that if someone did a study of this (look at the dozen best-selling textbooks), you'd find that this is typical.

But space also gets neglected by a lot of academic and professional historians, including those who should know better. Many histories of the Cold War completely ignore Apollo (at one time NASA was 5% of the federal budget), reduce Sputnik to a paragraph or less, and usually ignore satellite reconnaissance. Even as eminent and respected a historian as John Keegan has written an entire book about intelligence and war and almost completely ignored satellite reconnaissance. Yet, if you simply look at the kinds of information that the US was gathering on the Soviet Union during the Cold War you would see that satellites completely revolutionized intelligence collection.

Now I could go into all the reasons why this happens, but my fingers would fall off. I think at the core is simply a bias/disinterest in space, which is part of a greater bias/disinterest in the history of science and technology. So they produce histories that reflect this--with a few exceptions, such as nuclear history.

There is also the question of what school kids learn about space history and there they learn almost nothing. Although this textbook chapter on the Cold War omits Sputnik, the reality is that it probably doesn't matter because the kids will not even get that far. Many elementary history classes never even reach the Korean War. And if they delve into later subjects, they stick with the really big topics like the civil rights movement and Vietnam. International politics matters little compared to these social issues.

Finally (or not), you have to remember that now that standardized testing dominates elementary education, teachers end up teaching to the tests. If a subject or topic is not required for the standardized tests, they will not teach it. A friend who was closer to this (producing educational materials under NASA contract) said that the demand dropped quite a bit once the standardized tests debuted. She said that the teachers would explain "I would like to teach about space stuff, but it's not required and I don't have time."

It's worth thinking about how NASA has adapted its educational outreach to the new reality of standardized testing.

Posted by Dwayne A. Day at March 31, 2004 12:46 PM

The Washington Times has an article about some of the rules textbooks have to follow these days, look at:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040328-125027-5592r

There's a strong focus on promoting a certain view, regardless of the reality. Here's one quote:

"Publishers followed with their own editorial anti-bias guidelines, which banned words, phrases, images, and depictions of people deemed unacceptable -- such as "man," "mankind," "manpower," "men," said to be sexist. Also banned are "able-bodied," "aged," "babe," "backward," "chick," "fairy," "geezer," "idiot," "imbecile," "Redskin," "sissy," "suffragette" and "waitress.""

I don't know how you do that and still tell about American history. Sounds a lot like Newspeak to me.

On space: The irony is that, long after the U.S., U.S.S.R. and the rest are a distant memory, a couple thousand years from now, "Sputnik" "Apollo" and "Armstrong" will probably be some of the very few things the common person will know from our era, just as we remember some of the greatest accomplishments and people of Rome and Greece.

Posted by VR at March 31, 2004 08:01 PM

VR writes:

On space: The irony is that, long after the U.S., U.S.S.R. and the rest are a distant memory, a couple thousand years from now, "Sputnik" "Apollo" and "Armstrong" will probably be some of the very few things the common person will know from our era, just as we remember some of the greatest accomplishments and people of Rome and Greece.

Are you sure about that, VR?

I suspect we might be heading into a new dark age. Armstrong et al. might, a couple thousand years from now, be remembered as we remember Leif Erickson and company.

You might try reading Poul Anderson's "Orion Shall Rise." That book could turn out to be an optimistic view of humanity's future.

Posted by Chuck Divine at April 1, 2004 07:10 AM

Chuck, It is true that "barbarians" still outnumber "civilized" people at this point in history. We are at serious risk of losing it all in a matter of decades if we do not heed the warnings of people like you and some of those great writers like Anderson.

I tend to be a bit more optimistic than some of those very smart people, particularly if we human beings do not give up on the pioneering spirit that energized the drive toward freedom and liberty here in the New World.

Some politicians and citizens want us to wait until we have created Utopia before we proceed into the space frontier. If we wait for that Utopia, civilization will surely decay and crumble.

Perfection is a nice goal, but nature abhors a vacuum, does not allow "perpetual energy", and likewise will not allow a Utopian society to exist. We should try to feed and educate our poor, but we cannot expect people to stop harming themselves by acting badly.

Posted by Jim McDade at April 1, 2004 09:14 AM

Chuck, I said "probably" - I'm not a fortune teller. I don't think we're going into a dark age anytime soon, but it doesn't matter - Sputnik was the first instance of any species on the planet, through all the ages, to deliberately put an object in orbit. Apollo was the first instance that anyone, in all the ages, reached another world. Barring a loss of all records, those events will be remembered long after our silly current political arguments are forgotten.

Posted by VR at April 1, 2004 01:24 PM

By the way, I did read "Orion Shall Rise." Poul Anderson was one of my favorite authors. Hint: The initials "VR" come from one of his characters.

Posted by VR at April 1, 2004 01:25 PM

On textbook language: this is not surprising. I just think it's interesting that somebody actually needs to declare that these words should not be used. After all, what textbook writer is actually going to refer to women as "chicks"?

However, I wonder about other words on that list. Why ban "suffragette"? Is there something sexist about that term? I thought it was generally used to refer to the women who campaigned for their right to vote.

On the subject of standardized testing: I checked with a colleague and she said that NASA has indeed taken the "Standards of Learning" (or SOL) into account for its education materials. They have to, because teachers cannot use the material without all the SOL jargon/paperwork. However, they run into a problem with trying to produce material at Headquarters because each state has different standards. So they try to cover several state criteria when they do that. The field centers probably have an easier time. For instance, JSC undoubtedly produces education material that meets the Texas SOL requirements.

On textbooks in general: This is way too big a topic to get into here, but there have been a lot of things written about the textbook industry. In short, big states dominate and textbooks are often written to cater to them. If you can sell your textbook to the state of California, for instance, you got it made, so you do whatever the California officials tell you to do.

And while political correctness has often reigned, the flip side is that text books have often been blandified--nobody wants to offend anybody, so they turn history into a mush.

Posted by Dwayne A. Day at April 1, 2004 03:47 PM

VR,

I might be seeing more of the negatives. For example, it seems entirely possible that all of Bush's January plan might fail. Some of the things I think about include:

• The age of the current aerospace workforce.
• The fact that something like 80% of the current aerospace workforce doesn't want their children to follow in their footsteps.
• The aversion American youth is showing toward careers in science and tech generally and aerospace in particular. I think this is a rational response to current conditions in these fields.
• The well deserved reputation the aerospace establishment has for dishonesty, close mindedness and abuse of the workforce.

There are other things going on in society at large that are also troubling.

For example, we also are in an era in which we see centralization of power and consolidation of various enterprises occurring. This has certain short term advantages but tragic long term costs.

Will this produce a decline and fall of the United States in the near term? It's far from certain what will happen. I write about these issues because I know something about them and think I can perhaps influence our society in a favorable direction. If I had no hope, I would drop out completely and work on just making my life the best it could be.

Posted by Chuck Divine at April 2, 2004 10:23 AM


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