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History 



The Relation of History to Space Technology 



Walter A. McDougall 



Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars 



Smithsonian Institution 



I. Introduction: Nature and Relevance of History 

 A. Varieties of Space History 



There are as many potential varieties of space 

 history as there are varieties of history. At the 

 risii of offending individual sensibilities, they 

 can be broken down. The first category of historians {and 

 the most familiar to the general public) includes the 

 chroniclers of the first two decades of exploration of 

 space. Such historians are drawn primarily from the ranks 

 of journalism and concentrate largely on the manned 

 missions of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.. especially during 

 the putative space race of the 1960s. Such historians 

 write the books that arc most exciting to the general 

 public but least interesting to professional historians. 

 Nonetheles'i. whatever the academic value of their labors, 

 the lournahstic historians of the space age go far to 

 create the public enthusiasm that is apparently vital in a 

 democracy lor a healthy civilian space program. 



A second variety of space historians encompasses the 

 technical or "nuts-and-bolis" historians of technology. 

 These writers have described in detail the evolution 

 of rocketry, telemetry, guidance, and all the other 



The Second Ctant Sl^ by I 



