Exploring the Unknown; Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program: Volume V: Exploring the Cosmos, NASA SP-2001-4407

Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Policy and Plans, NASA History Office, 2001. Presumed first edition/first printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. VOLUME V ONLY. xxviii, [1], 796 pages. 25 cm. Illustrations. Glossary. Biographical Appendix. Index. Slight wear and soiling to DJ. This is part of the NASA History Series. John M. Logsdon is Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History at the National Air and Space Museum;. From 1987 to mid-2008, Logsdon was Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, where he is also Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs. Dr. Logsdon's research interests focus on the policy and historical aspects of U.S. and international space activities. Dr. Logsdon is the author of The Decision to Go to the Moon: Project Apollo and the National Interest and is general editor of the eight-volume series Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program. He has written numerous articles and reports on space policy and history. He is frequently consulted by the electronic and print media for his views on space issues. This volume is the fifth in a series that had its origins in the 1990s. The individuals involved in initiating the series and producing the first two volumes have been acknowledged in those volumes. An exception must be made for NASA Chief Historian Roger D. Launius, who has become not only a strong supporter of this series but also an essential collaborator in its implementation. Despite the political imperatives which have caused America's civil space program to direct most of its budget towards human spaceflight, there is no doubt that the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has also inspired a global revolution in scientific knowledge. For more than four decades, NASA has pioneered the exploration of the 'Final Frontier', opening a window on the Universe that has transformed our vision of the planets, stars, and galaxies. As befits an agency created to inform and inspire the American people, much of this endeavor, the triumphs and the tragedies, has been pursued in the full glare of global publicity. However, despite such remarkable openness, NASA's history has inevitably included less-publicized episodes of controversy and dissension. Reports and memoranda written by some of the key participants in these political and managerial battles, many published for the first time, stand out as the gems in this fascinating collection of more than 120 documents recounting the history and development of the US space-science program. These snapshots, recalling some of the most significant moments in NASA's space-science enterprise, are organized into three sections. The first chapter is devoted to the origins and early organization of US space science, beginning with the program to explore the ionosphere and the response to the launch of Sputnik I. The remaining chapters cover NASA's solar-system exploration efforts and the evolution of space-based astronomy and astrophysics. Particularly fascinating are the documents from the 1980s that detail the desperate struggles by NASA's leaders to maintain a program of solar-system exploration at a time when the agency's budget was being slashed and political support was waning. Among them is a proposal from NASA administrator James Beggs to terminate the entire planetary program, thereby making JPL surplus to NASA's needs. Another revelation is an illustrated 'comic book', produced in 1984 by George Field of the National Research Council, to explain to government accountants and politicians the necessity of pursuing all four of NASA's proposed 'great observatories'.