Matthew D. Tribbe's Books

No Requiem for the Space Age

The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture

By: Matthew D. Tribbe

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No Requiem for the Space Age

The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture

By: Matthew D. Tribbe

During the summer of 1969-the summer Americans first walked on the moon-musician and poet Patti Smith recalled strolling down the Coney Island Boardwalk to a refreshment stand, where "pictures of Jesus, President Kennedy, and the astronauts were taped to the wall behind the register." Such was the zeitgeist in the year of the moon. Yet this holy trinity of 1960s America would quickly fall apart. Although Jesus and John F. Kennedy remained iconic, by the time the Apollo Program came to a premature end just three years later few Americans mourned its passing. Why did support for the space program decrease so sharply by the early 1970s? Rooted in profound scientific and technological leaps, rational technocratic management, and an ambitious view of the universe as a realm susceptible to human mastery, the Apollo moon landings were the grandest manifestation of postwar American progress and seemed to prove that the United States could accomplish anything to which it committed its energies and resources. To the great dismay of its many proponents, however, NASA found the ground shifting beneath its feet as a fierce wave of anti-rationalism arose throughout American society, fostering a cultural environment in which growing numbers of Americans began to contest rather than embrace the rationalist values and vision of progress that Apollo embodied. Shifting the conversation of Apollo from its Cold War origins to larger trends in American culture and society, and probing an eclectic mix of voices from the era, including intellectuals, religious leaders, rock musicians, politicians, and a variety of everyday Americans, Matthew Tribbe paints an electrifying portrait of a nation in the midst of questioning the very values that had guided it through the postwar years as it began to develop new conceptions of progress that had little to do with blasting ever more men to the moon. No Requiem for the Space Age offers a narrative of the 1960s and 1970s unlike any told before, with the story of Apollo as the story of America itself in a time of dramatic cultural change.

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Page Count

289

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199313547

ISBN 13

9780199313549

Dark Star

A New History of the Space Shuttle

By: Matthew H. Hersch

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Dark Star

A New History of the Space Shuttle

By: Matthew H. Hersch

A captivating history of NASA’s Space Transportation System—the space shuttle—chronicling the inevitable failures of a doomed design. In Dark Star, Matthew Hersch challenges the existing narrative of the most significant human space program of the last 50 years, NASA’s space shuttle. He begins with the origins of the space shuttle: a century-long effort to develop a low-cost, reusable, rocket-powered airplane to militarize and commercialize space travel, which Hersch explains was built the wrong way, at the wrong time, and for all the wrong reasons. Describing the unique circumstances that led to the space shuttle’s creation by President Richard Nixon’s administration in 1972 and its subsequent flights from 1981 through 2011, Hersch illustrates how the space shuttle was doomed from the start. While most historians have accepted the view that the space shuttle’s fatal accidents—including the 1986 Challenger explosion—resulted from deficiencies in NASA’s management culture that lulled engineers into a false confidence in the craft, Dark Star reveals the widespread understanding that the shuttle was predestined for failure as a technology demonstrator. The vehicle was intended only to give the United States the appearance of a viable human spaceflight program until funds became available to eliminate its obvious flaws. Hersch’s work seeks to answer the perilous questions of technological choice that confront every generation, and it is a critical read for anyone interested in how we can create a better world through the things we build.

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Page Count

329

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262376660

ISBN 13

9780262376662

No Requiem for the Space Age

The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture

By: Matthew D. Tribbe

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

No Requiem for the Space Age

The Apollo Moon Landings and American Culture

By: Matthew D. Tribbe

No Requiem for the Space Age' paints a portrait of a nation in the midst of questioning the very values that had guided it through the post-war years as it began to develop new conceptions of progress that had little to do with blasting ever more men to the moon. Here is a narrative of the 1960s and 1970s unlike any told before, with the story of Apollo as the story of America itself in a time of dramatic cultural change.

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Age

Page Count

276

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199385513

ISBN 13

9780199385515

Book's by Matthew D. Tribbe

No Requiem for the Space Age

No Requiem for the Space Age

Dark Star

Dark Star

No Requiem for the Space Age

No Requiem for the Space Age

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