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Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

ASTR 4800 - Space Science: Practice & PolicyToday: Beginnings of the Space Race – Before Sputnik

• Homework for next class: Science – The Endless Frontier

– HW #1 due on Friday.– Read:

• Chapter 2 in Beyond Sputnik;• McDougall, Chapter 6; and• Science: The Endless Frontier by V. Bush (web article)

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

Space in the News: 6 Things to Know About Trump and NASA

Presenter: Jeremy Muesing

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

V. Lenin (1870-1924)“Dictatorship of the Proletariat”

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

Comparison of Soviet & American Systems in the Early 20th Century

Characteristic U.S.S.R. U.S.

Economy Socialist/Communist Capitalist

Political/CEO Totalitarian/Dictator Democracy/President

Commerce Collectives Private industry

Income level Very poor Wealthy

R&D Little technology Advancing after WWII

International relations Isolationist Isolationist

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky1857-1935

• Considered the father of human space flight.

• First academic treatise on rocketry (1903).

• Calculated escape velocity from Earth (25,000 miles/hr or 11.2 km/sec).

• Proposed multi-stage rocket.

• Designs for space stations, airlocks.

Tsiolkovsky’s crateron the Moon’s farside

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

How was rocketry consistent with the Bolshevik philosophy?

• Technology needed to survive and compete with the West (Lenin’s lesson from WWI).

• But, Soviets were ideologically opposed to free exchange of ideas!

• Centralized R&D was seductive feature of Soviet system (command & control).

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Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

1925

1929

1935

Josef Stalin(1878-1953)

Stalin stifled autonomy thru terror & bytraining a new generation of loyalists.How was research possible in thisenvironment?

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

1940’s1960’s

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev(1907-1966)

Developer of Sputnik & 1st human space flight

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

What was the impact of GermanV-2 rockets after the war?

• von Braun began the U.S. space program at White Sands, NM.

• What did the Soviets get?

• The role of Korolev.

• Military implications to deliver

H-bombs via ICBMs.

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

How did Russian paranoia & the need to catch up drive rocket technology development?

• Tension between “borrowing” and developing technology

• Lack of competitive stimulus

• Risks of failure

• Scarcity of skilled labor

• Organization separation of R&D and production

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

Franklin Roosevelt(1882-1945)

1942

1933

Roosevelt changed fundamental view of the size, scope, and services provided by the Federal Government

1940

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

Contrast in Size of Research in Federal Budget in 1933 versus 2017

• Only $6 million spent in 1933 on research. Let’s inflate this to 2017 $ using Consumer Price Index calculator

=>$110 M.

• This number grew to $1.59 B by 1945 ($21 B in FY17 dollars).

• Using AAAS analysis, today’s total R&D Federal budget is ≈$147 B (-10% decline since FY07).

• What happened and why?

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Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

1926 in Roswell, NM

Robert Goddard(1882-1945)

No sponsors for rocketry in the U.S. before WWII!

The NY Times in 1919 said “Professor Goddard does not know the relation of action & reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum again which to react”. The day after Apollo 11 launched in 1969, the Times issued a correction “Further investigations have confirmed…that a rocket can function in a vacuum. The Times regrets the error.”

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

J. Robert Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb

(1904-1967)

“I am death, destroyer of worlds” (from Bhagavad-Gita)

It all changed after the Manhattan Project!

Astronomy 4800 – Space Science: Practice & Policy

Why was Russia viewed as technology threat to America?

• Tough Soviet rhetoric (superiority of communism, world revolution).

• Communist subversion of Poland and Eastern Europe.

• Berlin Blockade.