Newell, Catherine Lea (Author)
Where did humanity get the idea that outer space is a frontier waiting to be explored? Destined for the Stars unravels the popularization of the science of space exploration in America between 1944 and 1955, arguing that the success of the US space program was due not to technological or economic superiority, but was sustained by a culture that had long believed it was called by God to settle new frontiers and prepare for the inevitable end of time and God’s final judgment. Religious forces, Newell finds, were in no small way responsible for the crescendo of support for and interest in space exploration in the early 1950s, well before Project Mercury—the United States’ first human spaceflight program—began in 1959. In this remarkable history, Newell explores the connection between the art of Chesley Bonestell—the father of modern space art whose paintings drew inspiration from depictions of the American West—and the popularity of that art in Cold War America; Bonestell’s working partnership with science writer and rocket expert Willy Ley; and Ley and Bonestell’s relationship with Wernher von Braun, father of both the V-2 missile and the Saturn V rocket, whose millennial conviction that God wanted humankind to leave Earth and explore other planets animated his life’s work. Together, they inspired a technological and scientific faith that awoke a deep-seated belief in a sense of divine destiny to reach the heavens. The origins of their quest, Newell concludes, had less to do with the Cold War strife commonly associated with the space race and everything to do with the religious culture that contributed to the invention of space as the final frontier.
...MoreReview Asif A. Siddiqi (2020) Review of "Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 894-895).
Review Daniel López González (2020) Review of "Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier". Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 832-833).
Review Lois Rosson (2019) Review of "Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier". Journal for the History of Astronomy (pp. 499-500).
Article
Griswold, Robert L.;
(2012)
“Russian Blonde in Space”: Soviet Women in the American Imagination, 1950--1965
(/isis/citation/CBB001320683/)
Book
Ciancone, Michael L.;
(2010)
History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth History Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics: Houston, Texas, U.S.A., 2002
(/isis/citation/CBB001232444/)
Article
Hersch, Matthew H.;
(2011)
Return of the Lost Spaceman: America's Astronauts in Popular Culture, 1959--2006
(/isis/citation/CBB001032371/)
Book
Biddle, Wayne;
(2009)
Dark Side of the Moon: Wernher von Braun, the Third Reich, and the Space Race
(/isis/citation/CBB001031264/)
Chapter
Neufeld, M. J.;
(2012)
“Smash the Myth of the Fascist Rocket Baron”: East German Attacks on Wernher von Braun in the 1960s
(/isis/citation/CBB001253104/)
Book
Blair, Don;
(2010)
Splashdown! NASA, the Navy, and Spaceflight Recovery
(/isis/citation/CBB001033130/)
Book
Young, Anthony H.;
(2009)
The Saturn V F-1 Engine: Powering Apollo Into History
(/isis/citation/CBB001032646/)
Thesis
Patrice R. Green;
(2019)
For the Common Man: An Analysis of the United States Space and Rocket Center
(/isis/citation/CBB930817598/)
Thesis
Maharaj, Doraisamy Ashok;
(2011)
Space for Development: US-Indian Space Relations 1955--1976
(/isis/citation/CBB001567301/)
Book
Johnson-Freese, Joan;
(2009)
Heavenly Ambitions: America's Quest to Dominate Space
(/isis/citation/CBB001032643/)
Book
Siddiqi, Asif A.;
(2003)
The Soviet Space Race with Apollo
(/isis/citation/CBB001032672/)
Book
Hardesty, Von;
Eisman, Gene;
Khrushchev, Sergei;
(2007)
Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race
(/isis/citation/CBB001231463/)
Book
Dreer, Francis;
(2009)
Space Conquest: The Complete History of Manned Spaceflight
(/isis/citation/CBB001032657/)
Book
Kalic, Sean N.;
(2012)
US Presidents and the Militarization of Space, 1946--1967
(/isis/citation/CBB001212165/)
Book
Mary-Jane Rubenstein;
(2022)
Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race
(/isis/citation/CBB879511970/)
Book
Marchis, Vittorio;
Maris, Etta;
Scheifes, Ansfried;
(2010)
Von Braun: de nazi-raketbouwer die de Amerikanen naar de maan bracht
(/isis/citation/CBB001033214/)
Book
Cheng, John;
(2012)
Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America
(/isis/citation/CBB001202122/)
Book
Christopher Gainor;
(2018)
The Bomb and America's Missile Age
(/isis/citation/CBB915420021/)
Book
Neufeld, Michael J.;
(2013)
Spacefarers: Images of Astronauts and Cosmonauts in the Heroic Era of Spaceflight
(/isis/citation/CBB001201283/)
Book
Oliver, Kendrick;
(2013)
To Touch the Face of God: The Sacred, the Profane and the American Space Program, 1957--1975
(/isis/citation/CBB001201062/)
Be the first to comment!