The Next Space Patrons

Mankind will not remain forever confined to the Earth. In pursuit of light and space it will, timidly at first, probe the limits of the atmosphere and later extend its control to the entire solar system. —Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Letter to B. N. Vorobyev, 1911 What do we learn from this long-run perspective on American space exploration? How does it change our understanding of the history of spaceflight? How does it change our understanding of the present? This book has provided an economic perspective on two centuries of history, with examinations of early American observatories, the rocket development program of Robert Goddard, and the political history of the space race. Although the subjects covered have been wide-ranging, together they present a new view of American space history, one that challenges the dominant narrative of space exploration as an inherently governmental activity. From them a new narrative emerges, that of the Long Space Age, a narrative that in the ...

Public Spirit and Patronage: American Observatories

In the first half of the nineteenth century, American astronomical observatories were instruments for the personal exploration of the planets and the stars as well as monuments of civic development. Their value was often more symbolic than scientific and they represented significant expenditures for the individuals and communities that undertook them. Their costs were equivalent, in modern terms, to small robotic NASA probes. The cost of these facilities grew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with the Lick, Mount Wilson, and Mount Palomar Observatories representing major, billion-dollar equivalent investments in space exploration capabilities. These early American observatories were predominantly privately funded. Over forty observatories are investigated, only two of which were built with significant government support. The motivations that dominated the financing of these “lighthouses of the sky” were personal ones—intrinsic interest in the heavens and scientific curiosity, or the desire to signal status through monuments and legacies. This earliest period of American space exploration was thus one with an overridingly private context, with social entrepreneurs like Ormsby McKnight Mitchell and George Ellery Hale selling the mystique and adventure of the heavens to the wealthy elite and the general public. Major figures from the 19th century were involved in funding astronomical observatories, include Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

Introduction

And what would be the purpose of all this? For those who have never known the relentless urge to explore and discover, there is no answer. For those who have felt this urge, the answer is self-evident. —Hermann Oberth, Man into Space, 1957 The rise of private-sector spaceflight and American billionaires pursuing their ambitions in space seems to be a new phenomenon. After the origin of space exploration as a government enterprise during the Cold War Space Age, entrepreneurs and individuals have become a new force on the scene and are increasingly the drivers behind some of the most prominent space activities. In the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union developed intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver their nuclear warheads, creating the technology for satellites and spaceflight vehicles. The race into space then became an important dimension of the Cold War as the two superpowers competed vigorously to be the first to claim prestigious spaceflight achievements, culminating in an American victory with the successful expedition of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon. After the unmatched success of the Apollo program, with no political need for further spectaculars, NASA was downsized, spaceflight was confined to low-Earth orbit, and further exploration was confined to robots. Since then, NASA spaceflight projects have continued to advance our knowledge of the solar system and the universe ...

In the Eyes of the World: The Signaling Value of Space Exploration

The chapter explores the political and economic origins of the Cold War Space Race. Unlike the earlier private-sector led phases of space exploration, it was the large-scale political demand for spaceflight that provided a new driving economic force starting in the late 1950s. It is the political history of this period that has dominated the history of spaceflight and has given it an overwhelming governmental and public-sector focus, relegating the earlier history of private-sector support to the footnotes and sidelines. The driving motivation during this period for the provision of public funds was a desire to signal status and capability through monumental achievement—this time at a national scale rather than at the city or individual level at which earlier space exploration projects, such as astronomical observatories, had been focused. Understanding space exploration as a signaling function for the nation and the nation’s leaders provides a perspective that allows pursuits such as the Space Shuttle, Space Station Freedom, and the International Space Station to be understood as resulting from the same exchange mechanism that produced America’s desire to go to the Moon.

Piety, Pioneers, and Patriots: The First American Observatories

In the earliest period of American history, astronomy and the exploration of the heavens was considered a hallmark of intellectual development and a noble endeavor for the colonial elite. In the wake of the American Revolution, the desire to signal a robust and independent national presence intensified in all areas, including astronomy. Major efforts in this regard were led by John Quincy Adams. From the mid-1830s, and for the next four decades, the construction of observatories accelerated rapidly as part of what has been referred to as “the American Observatory Movement” starting with university and college observatories and progressing to observatories with broader social contexts. An observatory located on top of a Philadelphia high school was an unlikely inflexion point in the history of American space exploration. The motivations of religious belief also played a significant role in the funding of early American observatories. The Georgetown Observatory was a point of contention between American Jesuits and the Superior General in Rome, and politics and ambition elevated the Navy’s Depot for Charts and Instruments to America’s first National Observatory.

Spaceflight, Millionaires, and National Defense: Robert Goddard’s Fund-Raising Program

Robert Goddard was the American “father of liquid-fuel rocketry” and his career constituted the world’s first spaceflight development program. This chapter provides an economic analysis of Goddard’s career and explores his motivations and financial strategy for long-run space development. Goddard was not only the first to achieve flight with a liquid-fuel rocket, he was also the first to earn significant funding for spaceflight research. He raised much of his funding from private and semi-public sources—including philanthropic funds provided by James Smithson, Andrew Carnegie, Daniel Guggenheim and Harry Guggenheim. Though it was largely private funding that allowed Goddard to make the substantial progress that he did, he also believed that the resources required to develop the first orbital launch vehicles would vastly exceed what private individuals were likely to provide. As a result, Goddard shared with his contemporaries, Werner von Braun in Germany and Sergei Korolev in Russia, a belief that military funding provided the key to the development of spaceflight and enthusiastically and persistently pursued U.S. military funding throughout his life. He was so committed to transacting this Faustian bargain that he would work with the Chemical Warfare Service on gas warfare applications and would later leave the security and long-standing patronage of the Guggenheim family in pursuit of a major military rocket development contract in the Second World War. An economic analysis of Goddard’s career thus situates the motivating force of space history at the level of the individual, with the spaceflight developer willing and able to manipulate external demands, particularly in the military, in order to achieve his interplanetary objectives.