Societal Impact of Spaceflight (review)

The purely technological aspects and political ramifications of the Space Age receive extensive coverage in the literature of aerospace history. The influence of spaceflight on culture, ideology, and economics receives less attention but is perhaps the more important topic. Without a clear understanding of the effects of technology on society, we run the risk of simply celebrating the technical achievement and forgetting the unintended consequences that inevitably follow these events. Societal Impact of Spaceflight is the result of a conference, sponsored by the NASA History Division and the National Air and Space Museum's Division of Space History in September 2006. Essays from a number of leading scholars in aerospace studies cover a wide range of topics on this societal impact. Together they form an extensive study of spaceflight's influence, or lack of influence, on humans across the planet.

The central theme of this anthology centers on a mandate contained in the legislation that created NASA. It charged the agency not only with conducting research in aeronautics and spaceflight but also with assessing the impact of aerospace activities and technology on society. While NASA has often met this charge superficially through the years, the 2006 conference, and the resulting book, have provided a deeper look at the myriad ways in which the activities of space programs seem to influence culture and society. Not surprisingly, there are many positive benefits that have accrued over the years but the activities of the Space Age have also not met the expectations of many observers.

With such an extensive work, it is impossible to provide a summary of every topic covered. The book contains thirty-three essays by different authors organized into seven sections. As with the conference, each section groups similar essays by context. In attempting to put the societal effects of spaceflight into perspective, the work also highlights the difficulty in making such assessments. The first chapter demonstrates that while measurement of these effects may be quite subjective, the use of methods such as comparative analysis or contextual comparison may mitigate some of the weaknesses of interpretation. Thus the book begins with a useful perspective for gauging the accuracy of such judgments. This theme carries forward into the second section, which seeks to determine the turning points in space history. The various essays examine the oft-mentioned turning points such as the first human in space, the Apollo 11 landing, the space shuttle decision, the beginning of U.S. and Russian cooperation with the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of the Chinese space program. However, most of the chapters reflect the difficulty of assigning a turning point label to any event or series of events. For example, the examination of the impact of the Apollo program on the American mindset reveals that while it may be the first step towards future exploration of the solar system and beyond, for most Americans its relevance has faded with the memory.

Other sections examine the commercial and economic effects of space programs and the impact of satellites in areas such as communications, navigation, environmental research, and military reconnaissance. Among the many outgrowths of space programs are some surprising benefits. The NASA risk prevention system used to safeguard astronaut food is currently in use by many U.S. food producers and processors under regulations adopted by the Food and Drug Administration.

The final sections cover many of the social, cultural, and ideological consequences of the Space Age. Social effects on the U.S. space program also receive notice due to the influence of the Civil Rights Movement and the quest for women's rights in the 1960s and 1970s. One chapter, covering the influence of spaceflight on education, reaches the conclusion that little evidence beyond the anecdotal exists to make the case for major transformations in the American education system. Another demonstrates the waning popular...