The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 839 military influence. The army and navy were closely involved in most major technical innovations of interwar aviation, such as the shift from wood to all-metal structures. Modern aviation owes not only its existence to the military but also its specific shape. The book sometimes reads like a tabloid exposé. Particularly disturbing are Biddle’s speculations on Glenn Martin’s sexuality. Biddle concludes that Martin was homosexual, citing as support Martin’s continued residence with his mother, his flashy clothes, and lack of documented sexual relationships. If Martin were gay, his success as a military contractor in the face of prejudice appears almost heroic. Yet Biddle alludes to Martin’s sexuality with sneering innu­ endo, referring to him by the early nickname of “flying dude,” which Biddle asserts was “about the same ... as being called a faggot” (p. 24). Donald Douglas’s infidelity is germane to Biddle’s story, since Douglas’s mistress gained considerable power within the company. Martin’s sexuality seems much less relevant. His life-style may well have interfered with his ability to gain contracts from conservative military officers, but Biddle ascribes all of Martin’s failings to poor management. Biddle exploits some neglected sources, especially the papers of Martin and Gross at the Library of Congress. He also makes good use ofcongressional hearings and oral histories. However, the book’s lack of scholarly apparatus limits its usefulness. Credit for quotes is given by page number in the back of the book, and pages of text are provided with no references at all. Biddle ultimately fails to provide critical insight into the develop­ ment of American aviation. His determination to tarnish the saintly image of his main characters prevents him from making a serious contribution to our understanding of the military-industrial nexus and its influence on 20th-century technology. The pioneers of the aviation industry made a Faustian bargain with the military that permitted them to continue designing and flying airplanes. Whether their lives were virtuous or reprobate, the bargain remained the same. Eric Schatzberg Dr. Schatzberg is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the History of Electrical Engineering at Rutgers University. His book on the shift from wood to metal airplane structures will be published by Princeton University Press. The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy: A Critique of the Historiography of Space. By Rip Bulkeley. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Pp. xvi + 286; notes, index. $29.95. The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy focuses not on the impact of Sputnik on the United States but on U.S. space policy from 1945 to the immediate aftermath of Sputnik in 1957. Rip 840 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Bulkeley takes as his starting point the political finger pointing that followed the launch of the first Sputnik. Political leaders of the Democratic party placed the blame for U.S. backwardness on Eisen­ hower, but Bulkeley argues that the case they made distorted the historical record for political ends. He sets out to prove that the problem lay more with the Truman administration’s failure to act on key opportunities to pursue research and development of ballistic missiles and satellites. As Bulkeley’s subtitle suggests, his examination of early space policy has a larger goal. He contends that space historians have uncritically believed the propaganda of the Democrats and therefore ignored the early hesitations and false steps of U.S. space policy before Sputnik. Historians have repeated the propaganda of the space race and therefore have failed to criticize the militaristic (or perhaps imperial­ istic) mind-set of the space program. Bulkeley makes a valuable contribution by providing detailed reexaminations of a number of important topics, often with the benefit of recently declassified government documents. His close-up look at the Truman administration’s attitudes toward rockets and space flight fills a significant hole in recent historiography. He reexamines the politics of satellite proposals for the International Geophysical Year, showing that Cold War politics played an intimate role in the development of U.S. scientific satellite plans despite claims ofscientific neutrality by the same scientists who were deeply involved in political planning. Finally, his

Aviation · Face (sociological concept) · Historiography · Human sexuality · Management · Navy · Political science · Power (physics) · Social science · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Engineering · History · History and Developments in Astronomy · Law · Philosophy · Space exploration and regulation