Page 43 - Science

BOOKS et al.

HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Looking home

from the heavens

An ode to early spaceflight
celebrates the transformative effect The iconic “Blue
of viewing Earth from above Marble” photograph
places humanity’s
accomplishments and
foibles in context.

By Matthew Shindell flight, from early aircraft to the Apollo mis- of the book are based on a close reading
sion. Potter begins his narrative not with the of the published literature. A reader well
n 17 December 1903, Orville and Wil- Wright Flyer but with Charles Lindbergh’s versed in the history of air and spaceflight
bur Wright performed the first suc- historic 1927 flight from New York to Paris, will not learn anything new here, but as
cessful controlled flight of a powered presumably because the famous aviator is a a nonacademic introduction to the topic, Downloaded from
aircraft. Less than 60 years later, more substantial historical figure and there this book will no doubt be appreciated.
on 12 April 1961, the Soviet Union is a wealth of available published material Potter’s writing style is clear and engaging,
O launched Yuri Gagarin aboard the about his life (22 of the 62 sources listed and his approach to the subject is thor-
Vostok 1 spacecraft into orbit around Earth, in the book’s bibliography are either about ough, if not scholarly.
making him the first human in space. The Lindbergh or written by a Lindbergh). As much as this book’s narrative ap-
half-century between these two landmarks Lindbergh, in turn, is used to introduce a proach to the history of human flight de-
in the history of flight saw two world wars, number of other highlights of early human serves praise, it is not clear what the overall
a tense cold war between two nuclear flight, providing a narrative thread that message is meant to be. In the final third of http://science.sciencemag.org/
superpowers, and the accelerated advance- runs through the book. We learn, for ex- the book, Potter emphasizes the transform-
ment of the emergent aerospace industry. ample, that he encountered and ative effect of seeing the whole
It was no secret that war, conflict, and admired the American rocketeer Earth from outside, something
competition were the driving forces behind Robert Goddard; that he spent only a handful of humans have
the state’s interest in rockets, even if the sci- time in Germany during the had the privilege to do. He also
entists and engineers claimed loftier goals. rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, laments the failure of NASA to
So it is quite remarkable that from these whose ambitions would propel convey this experience effectively
pursuits—from countless military and civil- the development of Wernher to the public, suggesting that it on March 1, 2018
ian contracts made in the interest of national von Braun’s V-2 rocket; and that was hamstrung by the insistence
defense—came some of the most enduring he relished the achievements of some activist organizations
The Earth Gazers
images of a peaceful and fragile Earth. of the Apollo mission, believing On Seeing Ourselves that NASA not tread upon reli-
The most iconic images—the “Earthrise” the conquest of space to be akin Christopher Potter gious ground in its depiction of
photograph taken by astronaut Bill Anders to the pioneering days of flight. Pegasus Books, 2018. spaceflight—an issue brought to
on Christmas Eve 1968 and the “Blue Mar- The book is split into three 470 pp. a head in a 1971 lawsuit waged by
ble” photograph of the entire Earth taken parts. In the first, the reader is pre- Madalyn Murray O’Hair, founder
by Harrison “Jack” Schmitt on 7 Decem- sented with biographical sketches of many of of American Atheists, that was spurred by
ber 1972—were products of NASA’s Apollo the already well-known figures in the his- the Christmas Eve reading of the Book of
program. By some accounts, these images tory of aviation, rocketry, and space explora- Genesis by the crew of Apollo 8.
helped to launch a nascent environmental tion, including Goddard, von Braun, and to Potter’s clear narrative style gives way
movement and a new political consciousness a lesser extent their Russian counterparts, to sometimes opaque poetic musing. He
within the American counterculture. But ac- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Sergei Korolev. alludes to a “metaphysics of space travel”
cording to the men who captured them, they As the story turns to the first crewed that so far has been lost on humans. He
hardly do justice to the experience of seeing flights into space, the focus turns to seems to want humankind to find a new
Earth from a distance, which some have de- individual missions undertaken by the understanding of its place in the universe—
scribed as a truly spiritual experience. U.S. space program. Part one ends with a one that acknowledges our connectedness
While Christopher Potter’s title—The Earth brief history of Project Mercury. Part two with the technologies that now surround
Gazers—and much of the book’s thrust focus extends this story from Gemini to Apollo. us and their potential ability to lift us—and
on the transformative effect of seeing Earth Potter profiles each mission and provides sees the technological triumph of Apollo to
from space, the bulk of it is about the saga of anecdotes that bring out the personalities literally transcend our earthly bonds as a
PHOTO: NASA The reviewer is space history curator, National Air and Space of the astronauts. these first two parts fitting allegory. j 10.1126/science.aar7911
not conduct any
Although Potter did
research,
original
Museum, Washington, DC 20014, USA. Email: shindellm@si.edu
SCIENCE sciencemag.org 2 MARCH 2018 • VOL 359 ISSUE 6379 999
Published by AAAS

DA_0302Books.indd 999 2/28/18 10:54 AM