[...]... lasted into the 1980s For the space program, this includes the post-Apollo drawdown and then the remilitarization of space that culminated in the Strategic Defense Initiative And then there is that central event of the last half century, the end of the cold war How did American science and technology and the American space program adapt to the loss of their primary driver? The absence of cold war competition... Sputnik When the hurried American response failed dismally on the launch pad, JPL and the army got the green light to enter the space race JPL s tracking system and reentry vehicle earned it the right to build the satellite, known as Explorer 1 The triumphant launch of Explorer on 31 January 1958 propelled JPL into the public eye and also into a leading role in the nation’s space program. 9 JPL followed... well the effects of the end of the cold war and the search for new justifications for the civil space program in the 1990s, which settled on international economic competitiveness to replace the military and political competition of the space race Space exploration, this argument ran, would keep the American economy operating in the black by creating new technologies and enticing younger generations into. .. addition, the period covered by this book, the last quarter of the twentieth century, offers rich historiographical ground that few historians of science and technology have tilled.2 This book extends cold war history past the countercultural rebellion of the 1960s and the Vietnam War into the thaw of the 1970s and then to the renewed chill that started in the late 1970s and lasted into the 1980s For the space. .. meet the challenge of launching irreparable, and highly expensive, machines, JPL helped develop the regime known as systems engineering, which reduced risk by imposing discipline on individual engineers and their relation to scientists and managers.6 The title has two other connotations that represent primary themes of this history The first is the relation between the civil space program and the secret—or... twin Voyager spacecraft began a triumphant tour of the outer planets by flying by Jupiter in 1979 and returning a remarkable collection of images and data This book is the second volume in the history of JPL, a sequel to JPL and the American Space Program by Clayton Koppes; it picks up the story from the end of Koppes’s detailed account in 1976 and carries it to 2004 During this period JPL accomplished... patterns, much as people at JPL digitally process images to bring out particular features.5 The book’s title echoes a Neil Young song that includes the line: “out of the blue and into the black. ” The words capture not only the trajectory of JPL s spacecraft, which hurtled beyond earth’s atmosphere into deep space, but also the implications for JPL s work As Young’s song continued, and once you’re gone,... Explorers and two Pioneers, the last of which aimed for the moon and signaled JPL s intent to push beyond earth orbit Meanwhile, after much debate, Eisenhower and Congress in mid-1958 created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) NASA coveted JPL s space expertise, and on 1 January 1959 the lab transferred to the new agency JPL would thence have to negotiate its role amidst the often... NASA: unlike the other NASA centers, JPL was owned and paid for by the government but operated by a contractor, in this case Caltech Where the boundary lay between the public and the private depended on one’s point of view From the perspective of NASA and Congress, the government was paying for the work and thus had a right to say how it should be done Caltech and JPL, however, replied that the point... reconnaissance flights to the moon known as Ranger; then Surveyor, to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon; and, concurrently, Mariner probes to Venus and Mars.10 But even this scaled-back program would push JPL to the breaking point and beyond, and force the lab to forge a new regime The shift from rockets to spacecraft was not just a matter of mastering new technical fields JPL engineers went from developing . h0" alt="" Into the Black Into the Black JPL and the American Space Program, 1976–2004 Peter J. Westwick Yale University Press New Haven & London Copyright © 2007 by Yale University. All. past the countercultural rebellion of the 1960s and the Vietnam War into the thaw of the 1970s and then to the renewed chill that started in the late 1970s and lasted into the 1980s. For the space. primary themes of this history. The fi rst is the relation between the civil space program and the secret—or black space programs of the military. 7 After starting as a military lab, JPL largely