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Technocracy and Statecraft in the Space Age 

 — Toward the History of a Saltation 



WALTER A. MCDOUGALL 



The "space age," born with the first artificial earth satellites in the autumn of 1957, 

 is already twenty-five years old. The origins of space technology have passed into 

 contemporary history even as the Space Shuttle, the European rocket Ariane, 

 permanent Soviet space stations, and the prospect of space-based laser weapons 

 open a second Space Age of ineffable potential. What is the Space Age? Did Spiit- 

 nikl mark the beginning of a distinct period in the history of human institutions 

 and collective behavior? These questions matter at a moment in history when 

 our societies, politics, economies, and diplomacy are wrenched by perpetual 

 technological revolution. 



The pnma facie case is impressive for marking the te( hnological turning point 

 of the mid-twentieth century at the birth of the Space Age. The first Sputniks 

 seemed to overturn the foundations of the post-World War II international 

 order. They promised imminent Soviet strategic parity, placed the United States 

 under direct military threat for the first time since 1814, triggered a quantum 

 jump in the arms race, and undermined the calculus on which European, 

 Chinese, and neutralist relations with the superpowers had been based. The 

 space and missile challenge was then mediated by massive state-sponsored 

 complexes for research and development, in the United States and throughout 

 the industrial world, into institutionalized technological revolution and, hence, 

 accelerating social, economic, and perhaps cultural c hange. Space technology 

 altered the very proportions of human power to the natural environment in a 

 way unparalleled since the spread of the railroads. Mac hines can now travel, deal 

 destruction, store and transmit information, observe and analyze the earth and 

 universe at orders of magnitude beyond what was possible before 1 957. Virtually 

 every field of natural science has leapt forward or been transformed on the 

 strength of space-based experimentation and data. Sputnik would seem to 

 qualify as a historical catalyst.' 



I thank ihc slati .>( iht- NASA HiMorv Ofluc. cspccuilK Munli- 1) Wnuhl ...ul Alex K(iI,im<I. Ic.i tluii uriRinus 

 assistance in the icscirch kd.lmi; to this .irliLlc ,uul loicn (liali.un, Mchin Ri.m/l.iii;. l*it»r W.uUsU. ..nd 

 Reginald Zelnick foi wilu.ible Mii.<,Hsli<inv I aJM. ili.iiik ihe Conuiiiltc. on Kcs.an li (.1 ihe I niMisiu .,t 

 California. Bcrkele\, the Wcodn.vs W iImhi Inurnali..n,iK,cntcr foi Sdioi.ii s.aii.l iin collciKiusai Hci kik\ t..i 

 their support and eiU(Hn.ii;<nK iit 



'. See Robert I-apidus. "Sputnik and lis KeperuisMons. A H.St, ,11, al(:aiaKsi.-.\.„n/«r ,///./„</,»/. 17(1970) 

 88-93. Wall W. Rostov has also described Sputnik as the tuiniiii; p,.iiii m le.cni liiM,)iv wiihoi.i. Ii,.wevcr. 



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