Rosseau, Brendan 2019 Astronomy Thesis

Title: The Intellectual Marketplace: The Evolution of Space Exploration from Copernicus to von Braun & Beyond Advisor: Jay Pasachoff Advisor is Co-author: None of the above Second Advisor: Released: release now Authenticated User Access: Yes Contains Copyrighted Material: No

The Intellectual Marketplace: The Evolution of Space Exploration from Copernicus to von Braun & Beyond

by

Brendan L. Rosseau

Dr. Jay Pasachoff, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Astronomy

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

May 8, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3

Thesis

Prologue ………………………………………………………………………………………... 4

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………... 6

Part I: Early Astronomy ………………………………………………………………….. 11

Part II: Space Exploration in the New World ……………………………….….... 25

Part III: Spaceflight ………………………………………………………………………... 43

Looking Back & Looking Ahead ….………………………………………………….… 60

Appendix

Endnotes ………………………………………………………………………………………. 64

About the Author …………………………………………………………………………… 68

Citations ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 69

1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my great appreciation to Professor Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial ​ ​ Professor of Astronomy at Williams College, for his invaluable contributions to this thesis and to my education in astronomy.

I am particularly grateful for the assistance given by Dr. Alexander MacDonald, NASA ​ ​ Senior Economic Advisor and Emerging Space Program Executive, whose perspective and feedback helped guide my analysis.

I would like to offer my special thanks to Peter Marquez, co-founder of Andart Global and ​ ​ former White House Director of Space Policy, for providing unique insights into and direct experiences with the field of 21st century space activities.

I would also like to thank Matthew C. Weinzierl, Elbling Professor of Business ​ ​ ​ Administration at Harvard Business School, for his perspective on contemporary space economics and his helpful comments.

In addition to those named above, I greatly appreciate the feedback from Professor Marek Demiański, the contributions from Dr. Michael Mineiro, the formative influences of Professor ​ ​ Karen Kwitter and Professor John A. Blackwell, the assistance of Wayne Hammond, and the support of my family.

2

Abstract

In light of the recent emergence of a “New Space Age,” this thesis offers an expanded view of space exploration by examining the history of such efforts prior to the beginning of the conventional “Space Age” narrative. Building on the work of Dr. Alexander MacDonald in The ​ Long Space Age, this paper introduces the concept of an “intellectual marketplace,” an evolving ​ framework allowing for the allocation of resources towards space exploration efforts. Beginning with Copernicus, I discuss the role of the intellectual marketplace in the inception of modern astronomy. From there, I trace the evolution of this framework, demonstrating how it has not ​ only operated as an engine for space exploration but also has played an active role in determining their purpose, style, and scope via societally-dependent mechanisms. Discussion ​ ​ continues through the origins of spaceflight, which, as a tool of space exploration, emerged and evolved as a product of the same intellectual marketplace. Through its analysis, this thesis aims to provide historical context that, in conjunction with the conventional “Space Age” narrative, allows for a greater understanding of the forces behind the “New Space Age,” as well as its inherent opportunities and challenges.

3

Prologue

For as long as we have been capable of thought as a species, we have been fascinated with outer space. As civilizations emerged across the globe, the cultural, religious, and philosophic identities of each were inextricably linked with their understanding of the heavens. The ancient Greeks, who used logic and geometry to decipher the universe, are credited with many important early astronomical discoveries. In his treatise On the Heavens, Aristotle presented a ​ ​ a model for the cosmos that was widely accepted for the next two-thousand years. ​ (The ​ alphabetic superscripts correspond to endnotes providing additional information, located in the appendix on page 63. The numeric superscripts correspond to footnotes citing the source of the information or quotation) Across the ocean, the Mayan civilization believed that the night sky was the key to understanding the will of the gods. Their religious fervor led them to study the stars and planets closely, incorporate astronomy into architecture, and even develop a sophisticated calendar. In ancient Egypt, the cultural importance of “Maat,” or cosmic order, linked daily life with the motion of the heavens. Today, we can still find influences of the night sky woven into the ruins of their ancient cities and monuments. Consistent throughout these vastly different cultures was a desire to understand how the universe worked and where we fit into it. As society matured, so did the methods we used to pursue this desire. A new kind of thought emerged, one based upon creating hypotheses and testing them through careful observation. Today, we refer to this as science. Great minds like Galileo and Kepler applied this novel approach to the heavens. Through their efforts, outer space became a domain of incredible discovery. Though humans had gazed at the same stars for millennia, new techniques and tools completely changed our understanding of the universe. In addition to its newfound label as a realm of science, outer space continued to bear its unique cultural, religious, and philosophical connotations. Consequently, space became a battlefield between ideologies, catching people such as Galileo, Giordano Bruno, and Copernicus in the crossfire. Although both society and science have drastically changed since the tumultuous days of Copernicus, the role of outer space in shaping our identity as a species has not diminished. As we explore our universe and unlock more of its mysteries, the influence of outer space on the human psyche continues to expand. Each additional step in understanding the cosmos brings perspective on who we are and why we are here, best-described by Carl Sagan as “the continuing process of revealing to ourselves our true circumstance and condition.”1 The most tangible and incredible achievement to emerge from our human desire to understand the universe is spaceflight. Although we share our innate human curiosity with our predecessors, to them spaceflight was no more than an impossible dream. In the myth of Icarus, the ancients mused about flying to the heavens on wings of wax. Though he designed a myriad of flying machines, even the great Leonardo da Vinci was never able to get them off the ground. As recently as 1947, some college astronomy textbooks, such as the one my grandmother read in her college astronomy course, still doubted the possibility of escaping our atmosphere. However, this was soon to change. When Sputnik slipped the atmosphere in 1957, this dream of spaceflight became a reality, changing the course of human history forever. In the 62 years since Sputnik, spaceflight has evolved dramatically both in terms of how and why we choose to use space. In turn, our ongoing use of space has changed us. The ability to escape the bonds of Earth’s gravity is a great

1 Sagan, Carl. Pale Blue Dot: a Vision of the Human Future in Space. Random House, 1994. ​ ​

4 power; the ways that we as a species have chosen to use this power is revealing. Nowhere else are the stakes higher or the stage as grand as in spaceflight. The story of spaceflight is one of unity and competition, hope and loss, sacrifice and promise. In a sense, to study spaceflight is to study unique human decisions with far reaching consequences. Learning from the successes and failures of the past might allow us to use spaceflight to secure a brighter future. Already spaceflight has allowed our species to advance incredibly quickly in a matter of decades. Through enabling global telecommunications, weather prediction, the Global Positioning System (GPS), and much else, outer space has become essential to modern life. At the same time, the space environment has become increasingly complex over time. Longstanding spacefaring nations with robust space programs have dynamically expanded their use of space, including treating space as a potential battlefield. More and more nations have gained spaceflight capabilities, each with their own agendas and levels of acceptable risk. Further complicating matters is the recent emergence of private corporations with bold spacefaring agendas. We now find ourselves at the outset potentially exciting chapter of space exploration, which some have called the “New Space Age.” Although the current moment is complex, rapidly evolving, and poorly understood, one thing remains certain: this New Space Age has major implications for life back here on Earth.

5

Introduction

On February 6, 2018, a deafening roar tore through Cape Canaveral, shattering the serenity of a sunny mid-afternoon. Twenty-seven engines erupted simultaneously, spewing a stream of flame from the base of a rocket towering twenty-three stories tall.2 Its sleek white frame glinting in the Florida sunshine, the rocket lifted off from the Earth and quickly ascended towards the heavens. As it rose, the thousands of people who made a pilgrimage to witness this spectacle thundered with zealous cheers. The excitement of the moment was only magnified by the historic surroundings in which they took place. The setting for that launch was the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, Pad A. It was there that, nearly a half-century prior, the gargantuan Saturn V rockets propelled the first men to the Moon. The same site, along with the adjacent Pad B, hosted each launch of the 135 Space Shuttle missions.3 This Launch Complex, witness to so much history, was in many ways the symbolic home of modern space exploration. It was only fitting that it should be the location for that afternoon’s launch, which echoed the site’s historic launches, but was decidedly different. The momentous launches of the past had all been orchestrated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the iconic American federal space agency. However painted on this rocket was a logo that read “SpaceX,” the name of the private company responsible for its creation and launch. Though private companies like Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) had built and launched rockets in the past, and had been doing so since the 1980’s, this launch was significant for several reasons. First, this rocket, dubbed the “Falcon Heavy,” was the most powerful to be launched by a private company.4 In terms of thrust, the Falcon Heavy boasted twice the capacity of the next closest rocket system.5 Secondly, a key feature of this launch was testing the ability to detach, guide, and land the rocket’s side boosters to a location near the launchpad. Accomplishing this novel feat would be a major step towards developing fully reusable rockets and dramatically lowering the costs of spaceflight. Third, the rocket carried an unusual payload; while most test launches of rocket systems use concrete to simulate payload weight, SpaceX chose to strap a sports car to the Falcon Heavy’s upper stages. What’s more, the car was fitted with cameras offering live views as the vehicle and its “driver,” a mannequin outfitted in a prototype spacesuit, hurtled through interplanetary space.6 The car in question was a Roadster made by Tesla, a company also headed by the CEO of SpaceX, eccentric billionaire Elon Musk.b ​ The quirks particular to that February 6 launch (viz., the rocket’s power, side-booster landings, and payload, all of which could be streamed online in high-definition) made it a spectacular sensory experience, more akin to Broadway choreography than to a test of corporate R&D. In an age when rocket launches have become routine, the Falcon Heavy drew quite the audience, both in person and virtually around the world: an estimated 100,000 spectators

2 Howell, Elizabeth. “Facts About SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Rocket.” Space.com, 22 Feb. 2018. ​ ​ 3 Malik, Tariq. “NASA's Space Shuttle by the Numbers: 30 Years of a Spaceflight Icon.” Scientific ​ American, 21 July 2011, ​ 4 Chang, Kenneth. “Falcon Heavy, in a Roar of Thunder, Carries SpaceX's Ambition Into Orbit.” The New ​ York Times, The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2018. ​ 5 “How the World Reacted to Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy Launch.” BBC News, BBC, 7 Feb. 2018. ​ ​ 6 Lee, Nathaniel. “Elon Musk Sent a $100K Tesla Roadster to Space a Year Ago. It Has Now Traveled Farther than Any Other Car in History.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 1 Mar. 2019. ​ ​

6 flocked to Florida’s “Space Coast” to witness the launch,7 while millions more tuned in online in record numbers.8 Media coverage of the event was extensive, with some reports characterizing the event as an Apollo 11 launch for a new generation. In conversations following the event, many reactions bore a similarity to those expressed during the Space Race. The day after the launch, I attended a meeting with an American woman who had been overseas and watched the event with several members of the international space community. Though she worked for one of SpaceX’s rivals, she expressed how witnessing the launch made her feel “proud to be an American.” Aside from its entertainment value, the importance of this Falcon Heavy launch and the reason for its massive global appeal lies in Elon Musk and his vision for SpaceX. Musk’s stated goal is to make humanity a multiplanetary species by colonizing Mars; he plans to land the first humans on the red planet as early as 2024.9 SpaceX was founded in 2002 to fulfill a key element in this mission: designing, manufacturing, and launching the rockets that would one day transport humans and equipment from Earth to Mars. The Falcon Heavy’s overall successful test launch on February 6 was a milestone for the company’s technical capabilities, and thus represented a major step towards its martian ambitions. Since the Falcon Heavy test, SpaceX has also successfully tested its “Crew Dragon” vehicle, a capsule designed to carry human

7 Chang, Kenneth. “Falcon Heavy, SpaceX's Giant Rocket, Launches Into Orbit, and Sticks Its Landings.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Apr. 2019. ​ 8 Singleton, Micah. “SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Launch Was YouTube's Second Biggest Live Stream Ever.” The Verge, The Verge, 6 Feb. 2018. ​ 9 Mosher, Dave. “Elon Musk Says SpaceX Is on Track to Launch People to Mars within 6 Years - Here's the Full Timeline of His Plans to Populate the Red Planet.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 2 Nov. 2018. ​ ​

7 passengers into space. As another accomplishment towards the future of manned space exploration, the successful test was celebrated as “a new era” in space exploration.10 However, SpaceX is not the only company with ambitious space goals. Companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, respectively, have also been aggressively developing their own launch capabilities. A corporate rivalry has developed between these companies and their founders as they “race to conquer space,” prompting comparisons to the original space between the United States and the Soviet Union.11 In addition to these billionaire-backed rocket-development goliaths, a slew of other companies have emerged, each working to “open the space frontier to ​ human settlement through economic development.”12 Together, these companies of all sizes comprise a nascent global private spaceflight industry, often referred to as “NewSpace,” ​ described as “the term which has come to represent space infused with the spirit of entrepreneurialism and the free market.”13 With companies like SpaceX leading the way, NewSpace has “fired dreams of a new era of 21st century discovery.”14

10 Paris, Francesca. “Space Station Celebrates 'A New Era' In Exploration With Arrival Of SpaceX Capsule.” National Public Radio, NPR, 3 Mar. 2019. ​ ​ 11 Fernholz, Tim. Rocket Billionaires: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race. Mariner Books, ​ ​ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. 12 “Space Frontier Foundation.” Space Frontier Foundation. ​ ​ 13 “About.” Space Frontier Foundation. ​ ​ 14 Yuhas, Alex. “The New Space Race: How Billionaires Launched the next Era of Exploration.” Science, ​ ​ The Guardian, 9 Feb. 2018.

8 The emergence and rapid expansion of NewSpace over the past several years is especially interesting given the recent developments in space exploration. Thirty years after the program began, the last Space Shuttle - officially called the Space Transportation System - mission ended in July, 2011. Though it had been designed to facilitate and encourage sustainable access to space, the success of the NASA program was questionable. It did not revolutionize human spaceflight as some had hoped and had suffered from high costs and tragedies such as the Challenger and Columbia disasters, in which 14 astronauts lost their lives. As a result, the end of ​ ​ ​ the last Space Shuttle mission in 2011 marked a serious contraction. A June, 2011 article in The Economist entitled “The end of the Space Age,” forecasted a bleak future for human spaceflight:

The future, then looks bounded by that new limit of planet Earth, the geostationary orbit. Within it, the buzz of activity will continue to grow and fill the vacuum. This part of space will be tamed by humanity, as the species has tamed so many wildernesses in the past. Outside it, though, the vacuum will remain empty. There may be occasional forays, just as men [and women] sometimes leave their huddled research bases in Antarctica to scuttle briefly across the ice cap before returning, for warmth, food and company, to base. But humanity’s dreams of a future beyond that final frontier have largely faded.15

The article concludes that the year “2011 might, in the history books of the future, be seen as the year when the space cadet’s dream finally died.”16 Ironically, just six years after this article, the Economist hosted a forum called “A New Space Age,” in which it predicted NewSpace will “grow further and grow fast.”17 This dramatic shift is indicative of the fundamental change occurring in spaceflight. The results of this change have important ramifications. Spaceflight has played a critical role in enabling modern life, often in ways we don’t realize, as described by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine: “The reality is, the American way of life has now become dependent upon space - the way we communicate, the way we navigate, the way we produce food, the way we produce energy, the way we do national security and defense, the way we do disaster relief, the way we conduct banking, the way we manage flows of electricity on the power grid. Space is critical.”18 For proof of our dependence on space, consider the consequences if all satellites stopped working. If all satellites shut down at 8 a.m., the globe would descend into an unprecedented state of chaos by that evening, by which time “global business had ground to a halt and governments were struggling to cope, food supply chains would soon break down,” “[leaders feared] of a breakdown in public order” and “governments [introduced] emergency measures.”19 A major satellite disruption could potentially “[propel us] back into the nineteenth century,” according to former U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board member William C. Martel.20 As we continue to improve existing technologies and develop new uses for space, our dependence on outer space will surely grow. Beyond this practical dependence, humanity’s long relationship with outer space has been one of the longest and most significant elements of the human story.

15 “The End of the Space Age.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 30 June 2011. ​ ​ 16 Ibid 17 “A New Space Age.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper. ​ ​ 18 Mims, Christopher. “A Low-Earth Orbit Satellite Is the New Cable Guy.” The Wall Street Journal, 12 ​ ​ Apr. 2019, pp. R2–R10. 19 Hollingham, Richard. “What Would Happen If All Satellites Stopped Working?” Future, BBC, 10 June ​ ​ 2013. 20 Zissis, Carin. “China's Anti-Satellite Test.” ForeignAffairs.com, Council on Foreign Relations, 22 Feb. ​ ​ 2007.

9 Time and time again, our understanding of outer space and efforts to unravel its mysteries have changed the course of history, as discussed briefly in the prologue. For these reasons, our past and present are inextricably linked with outer space; now that we are at the dawn of a possible “new era of 21st century discovery,” it seems likely that outer space and spaceflight will play an important role in our future as well. This space revolution, marked by the emergence of NewSpace, will be critical in determining the future of space exploration efforts. Many have characterized the rise of NewSpace and the shift to privately-funded space activity as an unprecedented phenomenon with respect to American space exploration. In this view, space exploration begins at the inception of spaceflight, thereby limiting the history of American space exploration to the time since the 1950’s. However, works such as Alexander MacDonald’s The Long Space Age have proposed a viewpoint in which spaceflight forms only ​ ​ part of a longer, nuanced history of American space exploration efforts. Analyzing history through this perspective, MacDonald reveals how American space exploration efforts can be understood as the product of two separate motivations: the desire for discovery (innate human curiosity) and the desire to signal (convey information about oneself to others). These two motivators take on a dynamic similar to that of supply and demand, allowing for the application of certain economic tools. In tracing how these motivators have manifested themselves over time, we are able to trace the evolution of this “intellectual marketplace,” out of which space exploration and spaceflight have emerged. This paper builds on the framework established by MacDonald in an attempt to provide a more complete view of modern space exploration. I begin by applying this framework to understand how the intellectual marketplace helped create and shape astronomy. From there, I trace its evolution over time, demonstrating how the various mechanisms by which the marketplace operates have not only enabled space exploration activities but also have played an active role in determining their agendas. I then continue through the origins of spaceflight, which, as a tool of space exploration, emerged and evolved as a product of the same forces. With the proper framework and historical context in place, we then have the tools to more fully understand the New Space Age and emergence of NewSpace.

10

Part I: Early Astronomy

Our journey to understand the full picture of modern space exploration begins in 15th century Europe, a continent emerging from the Middle Ages. Here, we find a world completely different from our own: lords and princes jockeyed for supremacy, the church controlled large swaths of territory as well as the “hearts and minds of an ignorant people,”21 the bourgeoisie clambered to increase its newly-acquired influence, and a dissatisfied peasantry continued to endure political, cultural, and economic subjugation. In this era prior to the Scientific Revolution, society’s understanding of the universe was primitive and had remained largely unchanged since days of Aristotle, nearly two millennia prior. To the extent that it was thought about at all, outer space was typically a subject relegated to the upper echelons of society: the nobility, clergy, and the university. Universities, as centers for higher learning, tended to deal the subject most directly and frequently. However, the “astronomy” taught in 15th century universities is unrecognizable to the scientific discipline we know today. Rather than an independent field of study, astronomy was simply viewed as one of the four “mathematical arts,” that, along with arithmetic, geometry, and music, represented a pillar of the quadrivium. ​ ​ Together with the trivium, the combination of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic that combined to ​ ​ form the three “linguistic arts,” these disciplines comprised the typical university curriculum. The few astronomy textbooks from this time that have survived reveal the focus of astronomical study: “emphasis in university teaching of astronomy was predominantly practical and ​ utilitarian, directed towards the calendrical, navigational, agricultural, and, above all, medical applications of the subject.”22 To modern readers, the concept of “medical applications” of astronomy may seem strange. What was called astronomy in the Middle Ages was a blend of proto-scientific activities, such as the careful observation and recording of the movements of heavenly bodies, and mystical elements that we would refer to today as astrology. Given the emphasis on practicality, astrological elements of medieval astronomy tended to overshadow the scientific aspects of the subject; in fact, pre-Copernican planetary models, which attempted to accurately describe

21 Tankard, Keith. “15th Century Europe.” Society in Europe during the 15th Century - an Overview. ​ ​ 22 Jardine, Nicholas. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” Journal for the History of ​ Astronomy, vol. 29, no. 1, 1998, p. 50., doi:10.1177/002182869802900103. ​

11 the motions of the planets, were created largely in an attempt to enable more accurate horoscopes. The discipline that medieval Europeans called “astronomy” was a curious mélange of fact ​ ​ and fantasy practiced by high society. In this form, however, we can see the elements of this arcane art that allowed it to transform into a science. The first key element is that astronomy was thought to be the “noblest of the mathematical arts,”23 bestowing it with an air of refinement. This status gave astronomy and astronomical discovery a perceived value beyond simply their practicality. To understand the full impact of this value, we must discuss it together with the next element: the social setting of astronomy. The university, church, and the nobility of this era were interconnected and highly stratified; together, they formed the “court,” a consolidation of those with status and authority. Every aspect of daily life, from one’s clothing, where one lived, or what one ate, was a reflection of each individual’s position in the court. Those at the highest reaches of the social ladder went to great lengths to demonstrate their superiority and reinforce that they deserved to be on top. Combining these two elements, we can begin to see astronomical knowledge as a sort of commodity. Just as they collected fine art, built magnificent palaces, and put on extravagant feasts to signal their greatness, elite members of the court saw immense value in astronomy, not necessarily for its intellectual value, but in its ability to bolster their own glory. This presented a great opportunity for those who were adept at astronomy, whose abilities typically earned them appointments as university professors of higher or lower mathematics. Despite their lowly position within the court’s hierarchy, these early astronomers knew that a significant discovery would be seen as extremely valuable by those in power; astronomers could dedicate such a discovery to a superior, thereby giving him or her the glory he or she desired, in exchange for a higher rank and its associated wealth, status, and power. The scarcity of astronomical discoveries and their uniquely poignant ability to serve as signals resulted in the emergence of “economies of honor,” in which rulers and astronomers supported the desires of the other. This system of “courtly patronage” brought about “a new kind of princely and aristocratic involvement in astronomy,” in which “astronomical observations, instruments, models, and ultimately world systems themselves became objects of courtly production, exchange, and competition.”24 Patronage provided astronomers with a means by which to profit from the study of the universe. A single discovery, if important enough, could lift an astronomer to fame and fortune overnight, an otherwise nearly impossible feat in such a rigid society.

23 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 49 ​ 24 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 51 ​

12 Many history of science texts present patronage as a system that enabled astronomy to develop and thrive, providing a stream of funds to support astronomers and their research. While this is certainly true, this view fails to capture the full scope of patronage’s influence in the creation of early modern space exploration efforts.25 The works of Robert Westman, Mario Biagioli, and Nicholas Jardine, among others, have revealed that patronage not only birthed and sustained astronomy, but also actively shaped it according to the “codes of courtly conduct.”26 Within patronage, astronomical discoveries were not assigned value based necessarily on scientific merit, but rather the value that the appropriate (as determined by societal customs) bidder ascribed to it. The bidders, we must remember, valued astronomical discoveries for their ability to signal their glory to the rest of society. Astronomical discoveries that reflected some sort of cosmic approval of the bidder’s authority, beliefs, or aesthetic tastes made for uniquely powerful signals, likely to fetch a hefty reward. Therefore, patronage operated according to an incentive structure influenced by societal factors and the fancies of feudal lords. Turning now to some of the key figures and pivotal moments in early astronomy, we see how early modern efforts of space exploration, the goods exchanged in this “economy of honor,” are the products of a confluence of the desire for knowledge and the desire to send a particular signal. In the fall of 1538, Georg Joachim Rheticus was preparing for a journey. Following his graduation from the prestigious University of Wittenberg, the 24-year-old Rheticus remained at his alma mater as a professor of lower mathematics. Wittenberg was evolving; since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the doors of Wittenberg’s All Saints Church 19 years prior, the city had been the heart of the Protestant Reformation. Influenced by the Reformation’s humanist ideology, the University was in the midst of a change. Within broader curriculum changes, astronomy was given a particular priority. It had become apparent that the classical astronomical texts, such as those by Ptolemy or Sacrobosco, were no longer sufficient; university officials thought their updated astronomy curriculum needed to also include recent discoveries and observations. Rheticus, who taught astronomy as part of the quadrivium, was tasked with meeting ​ astronomers and mathematicians in surrounding lands and acquiring a copy of their recent work. This “grand tour” was a tremendous opportunity for the young Rheticus. Meeting with these great scholars from across the land would not only be intellectually stimulating, but also might improve his own

25 Roberta J. M. Olson and Jay M. Pasachoff 2019, Cosmos: The Art and Science of the Universe, Reaktion ​ ​ ​ Books (London), U. Chicago Press. 26 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 49

13 career prospects. Though only a lowly university professor, the ambitious Rheticus knew that this tour might give him the exposure necessary to tap into patronage and its opportunities for advancement. In the hopes of “[gaining] new astronomical knowledge, [enriching] the astronomical program at Wittenberg, and, most importantly, [advancing] his own career,” Rheticus packed his bags and began his fateful journey.27 While on his grand tour, Rheticus first heard the name of an astronomer-priest, whose recent work might be worth collecting, by the name of Nicolaus Copernicus. A visit to Copernicus likely appealed to Rheticus for two reasons, as described by historians of science Peter Barker and Bernard R. Goldstein:

At the very least it was a way for Rheticus to advance his own career by rendering a service for the individuals who constituted the Nuremberg group, while perhaps providing the opportunity to seek the patronage of Duke Albrecht. These practical motives supported an intellectual motive: an attempt to enrol Copernicus in the network of observers contributing to the ongoing reform of astronomy…28

Rheticus decided to investigate this tantalizing opportunity and made his way to Prussia. Rheticus first met Copernicus in his hometown of Frauenberg in 1539. When he arrived, Rheticus found Copernicus caught at the center of a scandal. The cause of these problems, surprisingly, was not Copernicus’s heliocentric theories. Though the Commentariolus, in which ​ ​ Copernicus first places the Sun at the center of a planetary model, had been distributed a quarter-century prior, it had not circulated beyond his immediate circle. Copernicus, who was not particularly ambitious, did not include a grandiose dedication to some powerful individual, thereby foregoing the customs of patronage. Therefore, the Commentariolus had remained in ​ ​ relative obscurity and Copernicus continued to occupy a low rung on the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The scandal resulted from Copernicus’ alleged impious personal behavior. Accusations emerged that he had engaged in improper relations with his housekeeper. These were serious allegations: as a member of the clergy, Copernicus could be found guilty of heresy, a sentence that could merit the death penalty. Bishop Dantiscus, Copernicus’s superior within the church hierarchy, was to play an important role in the upcoming trial. Since he and the Bishop had a c tenuous relationship, ​ Copernicus found himself in serious need of help. Arriving in the midst of ​ this controversy, Rheticus recognized the opportunity of the moment. With the help of Tiedemann Giese, who had supported Copernicus financially and politically in the past, Rheticus and Copernicus got to work on their mutually-beneficial plan. Their plan culminated in the creation of a new book, called Narratio prima (“First ​ ​ account”). From the contents of the book as well as the timeline of its publication, the ulterior motives behind its creation are clear. The book was comprised of two sections, the first outlining the Copernican planetary model and a second section praising the virtues of Prussia. Though seemingly an odd inclusion in an astronomical text, the lengthy second section, spanning eight pages, was a savvy political tool employed by Rheticus. Indeed, Narratio prima was written with ​ ​ a singular audience in mind: the Duke of Prussia. The glowing encomium of his country, praising the glory of its natural beauty, its towns, and the sagacity of the Duke himself, was an attempt the flatter the Duke. The encomium was then followed by a direct request for the Duke’s patronage:

27 Barker, Peter, and Bernard R. Goldstein. “Patronage and the Production of De Revolutionibus.” Journal ​ for the History of Astronomy, vol. 34, no. 4, 2003, p. 347., doi:10.1177/002182860303400401. ​ 28 Barker and Goldstein. “Patronage and the Production of De Revolutionibus.” p. 352

14 Giese, Copernicus, and I have been studying astronomy and the mathematical arts, not for some vulgar monetary reward, but for their own sake; we would like you, the Duke, the ruler with an harmonious soul, to recognize our value by raising us to a worthy station.29

Though it contained many of the same ideas Copernicus had presented in his Commentariolus ​ long before, this book was tailor-made for patronage; it was specifically designed to maximize its value as a commodity to the Duke of Prussia. The blistering pace with which it was published reinforces that it was created for a specific purpose:

The speed with which Narratio prima was composed is astonishing. We have no ​ ​ reason to think that Rheticus had any detailed knowledge of Copernicus’s system before arriving in Frauenberg in late May, 1539. Nevertheless, the draft of Narratio prima was published four months later on September 23.30 ​

This speed was necessary, considering that with each passing day Copernicus drew ever-closer to the gallows. From this perspective, we can understand Narratio prima to be a perfect ​ ​ example of the “economy of honor” at work. Copernicus, who had been reluctant to publish anything throughout his life, found himself in need of a valuable commodity to catch the eye of a potential “friend in high places.” For his part, Rheticus was after the benefits of patronage, and was happy to leverage the genius of Copernicus’ theories to attract such a lucrative patron as the Duke. For these reasons, Narratio prima was published, spreading the concept of a heliocentric ​ ​ model. Thankfully for Rheticus and Copernicus, the Duke was pleased by their bid for his patronage. The exchange took place in a manner dictated by the economy of honor, with each man receiving what he desired. The Duke provided Rheticus with gifts, letters of recommendation to the ruler of Saxony and to the University of Wittenberg, and the promise of more work and commissions. Copernicus, for his part, received the Duke’s protection. The Duke requested Copernicus’ presence at his court in Königsberg, thereby removing him from the danger looming in Frauenberg. Copernicus remained at court working for some time thanks to the Duke’s multiple successful attempts to extend his stay. When he did return to Frauenberg, Copernicus could count on the Duke’s influence to quell any lingering troubles or accusations. Although Narratio prima represented an initial success in the economy of honor, ​ ​ maintaining the benefits it had afforded would take work:

Patronage had no institutions and little if any formal structure. It embodies no guarantees. The relation between patron and client was voluntary on both sides and subject always to disintegration. Past performance counted only to the extent that it promised more in the future. A client’s only claim on a patron was his capacity to illuminate further the magnificence of the man who recognized and encouraged him.31

29 Barker and Goldstein. “Patronage and the Production of De Revolutionibus.” p. 355 30 Ibid 31 Westfall, Richard S. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” Isis, vol. 76, no. 1, Mar. 1985, p. ​ ​ 29., doi:10.1086/353735.

15 With this in mind, Copernicus began writing his next work, considered to be one of the most important books in history: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (“On the Revolutions of the ​ ​ Heavenly Spheres”). De revolutionibus is a work with tremendous scientific, cultural, and ​ ​ societal significance; for readers interested in a broader discussion of De revolutionibus, I highly ​ ​ recommend Owen Gingerich’s masterful work The Book Nobody Read. However, for the ​ ​ purposes of this paper, we will focus on the role of patronage in shaping De revolutionibus, the ​ ​ magnum opus of a founding father of modern astronomy. Given the rewards that Giese, Rheticus, and Copernicus received as a result of patronage from the Duke of Prussia, we might anticipate that De ​ revolutionibus would similarly feature a dedication to the ​ Duke as well. Indeed, during the early stages of the book’s creation it seems that it was intended to be another “patronage gift” for the Duke.32 When Rheticus completed his tour and returned to Wittenberg with a manuscript of De revolutionibus in hand, he certainly ​ ​ anticipated a dedication to the Duke, along with some acknowledgment of his own role in the book’s creation. We can only imagine Rheticus’ surprise when, upon the publication of De revolutionibus and its supplemental ​ ​ work on trigonometry, De lateribus, in 1543, the work did ​ ​ ​ ​ not contain any mention the Duke nor Rheticus, but rather a dedication to the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Paul III. This curious twist reveals a great deal about the motivations behind the publication of De revolutionibus. ​ At the time Copernicus and Giese made the decision to d dedicate De revolutionibus to the Pope, ​ they already had ​ ​ ​ a reliable and generous patron in the form of the Duke. Dedicating De revolutionibus to the Duke would have ​ ​ been a logical and effective way to spread heliocentrism to a wide audience, thereby achieving the scientific goals behind publishing such a work. However, the decision to dedicate De revolutionibus to the Pope ​ ​ instead reveals the presence of another logic, the logic of patronage, working in tandem with the scientific motivation. “The logic of patronage,” according to Barker and Goldstein, “dictates ceaseless ascent (when it does not entail catastrophic failure).”33 Patronage operated by matching a work’s signalling value with an individual of the appropriate hierarchical rung. The “suppliers” in these economies of honor, in this case Copernicus and Giese, climbed the ladder rung by rung as they pursued the patronage of increasingly important superiors. Having previously secured the patronage of the Duke of Prussia, the pinnacle of a regional geopolitical hierarchy, Copernicus and Giese embodied the concept of “ceaseless ascent” and pursued the more valuable patronage of the Pope, the head of a broader and more powerful hierarchy. In order to maximize the work’s appeal in the eyes of the Pope, the authors of De revolutionibus contextualized the book’s findings: “[Copernicus] ​ ​ promot[ed] his new ordering of the planets as a restoration of lost order and harmony, and as a

32 Barker and Goldstein. “Patronage and the Production of De Revolutionibus.” p. 357 ​ 33 Barker and Goldstein. “Patronage and the Production of De Revolutionibus.” p. 358 ​

16 basis for the repair of the derelict calendar.” 34 In fact, the title itself is an indication of its being shaped by societal forces; recognizing that heliocentrism was extremely controversial, the words orbium coelestium ​ were added to the title by the supervisor of the printing process, Andreas Osiander, in order to present the work as a theoretical and mathematical tool rather than proposing the actual structure of the solar system. In so doing, De revolutionibus ​ transformed from a book that simply ​ ​ conveyed information to one that married this information with an agenda, one dependent on societal and cultural factors. In Copernicus’ story we see an interesting narrative example of the interplay of intrinsically motivated (i.e. scientific) knowledge and patronage. Certainly it was Copernicus’ scientific intellect that produced his heliocentric theories. However, the manifestation of these theories in the form of Narratio prima ​ and De revolutionibus cannot be fully ​ ​ understood without acknowledging the influence of patronage. More broadly, this story reveals how the earliest examples of modern space exploration were not self-contained scientific phenomena, but rather were influenced by social factors as well. Turning now to two other important figures in early astronomy, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, we see the potency of patronage in not only supporting astronomical discovery, but in actively shaping the field. Our discussion of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler begins at a particularly important and emotionally charged moment. Near the turn of the 17th century, Tycho Brahe had become rivals with Nicolaus Reimers Baer. Often referred to simply as “Ursus,” the latinized form of his family name, Baer was a fellow astronomer and an imperial mathematician in the court of Emperor Rudolf II. Though they had once been friends, Tycho and Ursus now found themselves at each other's’ throats. Their dispute centered around the contents of Ursus’ 1588 work Fundamentum ​ astronomicum. In this publication, he proposed a model of the solar system in which the planets ​ orbited the Sun, which in turn orbited the Earth that spun in its place at the center of the system. When he first heard of Fundamentum astronomicum and its theory for the solar ​ ​ system, Tycho was sure that Ursus had stolen the idea from him. Finding himself robbed of a potentially valuable discovery, Tycho Brahe was furious. Tycho publicly declared Ursus to be a “filthy scoundrel,” which Ursus parried by venomously calling Tycho a “noseless syphilitic cuckold.” Sharp words exchanged by sharp minds.

34 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 53

17 Tycho, then in his forties, was a well-established astronomer by this point in his career. He first expressed an interest in astronomy during his time at university, part of which was spent at the University of Wittenberg. Throughout his education, Tycho displayed a passion and talent for astronomical observations, likely a product of the observation-heavy curriculum that Rheticus helped create at Wittenberg. Tycho applied his talents for observation to discover a the sudden appearance of a new point of light in the night sky.35 At that time, the Aristotelian model of the universe, in which the stars were thought to be part of an unchanging celestial sphere, was e thought by many to be true. ​ By observing a change in this supposedly immutable realm, Tycho’s ​ observation flew in the face of society’s understanding of the universe. This momentous discovery, published in Tycho’s work De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii, made Tycho a ​ ​ household name across Europe and earned him the patronage of Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway. The King famously rewarded Tycho by funding the creation of Europe’s finest observatory, called Uraniborg. The observatory was to be situated on the island of Hven, which the King also gave Tycho. The veritable castle that Tycho built at Hven would come to serve many purposes, from astronomical observatory, to printing press, to astronomical instrument factory, to a training grounds for aspiring astronomers. The castle at Hven was also a frequent destination for astronomers of the day, including Ursus. Tycho, upon seeing Fundamentum ​ astronomicum, claimed that the supposedly novel structure it proposed for the solar system was ​ actually one of his own ideas; Tycho accused Ursus of stealing diagrams of planetary models and publishing these ideas as his own. What followed was a lengthy war of words, with each side trading verbal barrages for years. The results of this argument mattered beyond simply pride and reputation. What they were really fighting about was priority, or the right to claim the value attached to the commodity of astronomical discovery. Such discoveries are difficult to achieve, given the specialized skills involved and long hours of observation required, not to mention a little bit of luck. As such, new discoveries were hard to come by and discoveries of significance even rarer; to use the vernacular of economics, these goods exhibited considerable scarcity in these economies of honor. As such, they are of considerable value. From his castle, itself and the island on which it sat both the spoils of patronage, Tycho knew just how valuable these discoveries could be. Determined to win this dispute, Tycho turned to his bright apprentice, Johannes Kepler, for help. Kepler, keen to help his master, tasked himself with creating the most convincing argument. Aside from motivations of loyalty, proving Tycho right was also in Kepler’s own best interest; improving his master’s station would undoubtedly improve his own prospects. Kepler’s argument proved to be masterful, with far reaching implications. In his argument, Kepler created parameters for what can be considered a model of the cosmos. In an unprecedented move, Kepler defined the “nature of a proper world system,” stating that it “must give a mathematically detailed and complete account of the dispositions and motions of the planets, it must be perfectly adequate to the observations, and it must be justified by physical arguments.”36 In order

35 Dunbar, Brian. “Tycho's Supernova Remnant.” Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer Gallery, NASA. ​ ​ 36 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 58 ​

18 to aid Tycho’s claim of priority, Kepler redefined what the argument was really about. He posed the creation of a true model of the cosmos as the goal of astronomy, and described a “proper world system” such that it impinged Ursus’s claims of priority. In so doing, he created a new set of criteria for astronomy that heavily favored the work of philosopher-astronomers, such as Tycho and Copernicus, at the expense of the more technical astronomers, like Ursus, whose work now seemed deficient by comparison. From this moment, we see the most significant influence of patronage on space exploration: “the very setting of a world system - a complete physically grounded model of the cosmos - as the goal of astronomy was a product of the competitive practices of courtly exchange of gifts and novelties.”37 The magnitude of this statement is far greater considering the fact that astronomy continues to operate largely under this same definition and framework to this day, evidenced by, among other things, the ongoing pursuit of a hypothetical “theory of everything.” Not only did patronage set the agenda for astronomy, essentially breathing the discipline into existence, but it also heavily influenced astronomy’s form and style as well. For evidence of this, we take a closer look at the aesthetics of Kepler’s astronomical findings. Broadly speaking, Kepler’s work is characterized by a “grace of form, complexity of workings, unity in variety of movements, difficulty of execution” and a general sense of “extravagance.”38 Nowhere is this better reflected than is his laws of planetary motion, released in publications spanning from 1609 to 1619. Kepler built his laws on the foundations of Copernican heliocentrism. Whereas Copernicus envisioned the planets orbiting in perfect circles, a model that draws beauty from its harmonic simplicity, Kepler saw nuance and complexity. At Kepler’s hands, Copernicus’ circular f orbits were supplanted by ellipses, with the Sun located at one focus. ​ The Copernican vision of ​ simple planetary motion with constant speed was also altered to a model in which planetary orbits swept out area at a constant rate, with the planet’s linear and angular speed varying. Though these laws were the product of Kepler’s advanced mathematical thought and Tycho’s meticulous observation, they were presented with laconic concision. Through these alterations of the Copernican model, Kepler radically changed the understanding of the cosmos. Stylistically, Kepler’s work, most notably his famous laws of planetary motions, embodied the principles of Mannerism, the predominant artistic style of European courts following the High Renaissance. The Austrian art historian Otto Benesch has noted how “Kepler’s move from the uniform circular motion to the surging motion of an ellipse” represents “the deformation of a classical form through Mannerist energy.”39 R. J. W. Evans, the medieval historian, more broadly suggested that “Kepler’s intuition of unity and harmony underlying the multiplicity of appearances [was] typical of the Mannerist vision.” The heavy influence of this particular artistic style in Kepler’s work logically follows the environment in which Kepler produced his theories. Kepler grew up during the apex of Mannerist thought and was known to have closely studied important Mannerist works, such as “Danielo Barbaro’s commentary on Vitruvius’s De ​ architectura, illustrated by Palladio.”40 As a member of the court, Kepler would have been ​ surrounded by Mannerist objects, architecture, and philosophy. Given the status associated with Mannerist ideals, due to the same courtly values and aesthetics that fueled patronage, it is unsurprising that these same ideals manifested themselves in Kepler’s work. From this discussion of Tycho and Kepler, we have seen how non-scientific elements have played an active role in early modern space exploration. As such, the many products of this

37 Ibid 38 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 56 ​ 39 Jardine. “The Places of Astronomy in Early-Modern Culture.” p. 53 ​ 40 Ibid

19 period are best understood as not purely science, but as a marriage of science with courtly influences. Tycho and Kepler not only expanded on Copernicus’ scientific contributions, but also expanded on his legacy of tying astronomy to patronage, thereby conflating space exploration with broader societal values. Moving on now to Galileo, the last subject of this early modern period to be discussed, we get a glimpse of the full scope of patronage. As we will see, patronage shaped Galileo’s life to a remarkable extent, in many ways defining his career and work. In 1591, the 27-year-old Galileo Galilei found himself in a difficult situation. He had recently suffered the death of his father Vincenzo, buried in July of that year. Vincenzo had been a brilliant musician and leading musical figure of the late Renaissance; however, he proved to be no maestro when it came to finances. Upon his father’s death, Galileo was left with a heap of debts and other obligations. He held an important position at the University of Pisa but it offered only a meager salary. With his appointment to the University ending the following year in 1592, Galileo was facing the prospect of destitution. Fortunately, he had an important asset on his side: his wit. What Galileo needed was a way to translate this asset into real marketplace value, a way “to convert wits into the material necessities of life.”41 Galileo found exactly such a system in patronage, which would remain a constant and important influence throughout his life. In 1592, Galileo left Pisa for a new position as professor of mathematics at the University of Padua. Once there, he immersed himself in patronage, taking on clients and making “instrumental friendships” wherever he could.42 Using his wits and familial status, Galileo wove a network of supporters in Padua. When his appointment as professor expired in 1598 and again in 1604, Galileo conducted this network into a choir of support; many of Galileo’s powerful friends paid visits, often multiple times, to the three-member riformati that determined his ​ ​ reappointment. Galileo got the result he wanted: he was reappointed both times, with his salary nearly doubled in 1598 and, after a visit to the riformati by the Grand Duke of Tuscany himself, ​ ​ nearly doubled again in 1604. Despite this success, Galileo was not satisfied, as might be expected giving the ceaseless ascent inherent to patronage. Soon, he turned his sights to a grand prize: the patronage of the Medici, the legendary rulers of Florence. To attract the attention of such a noble family, Galileo prepared a publication on the geometric and military compass and dedicated it to Cosimo de’Medici, the crown prince. The Medici were impressed and offered to have him tutor Cosimo in mathematics. To Galileo’s delight, this engagement continued for several years, allowing him to establish a relationship with the future monarch. In 1609, Ferdinand I, the head of the Medici, died and Cosimo ascended to the throne. This, it seemed, was the moment for which Galileo had been waiting. On February 26 of that year, Galileo wrote to Cosimo with a formal request to engage in the sort of lucrative patronage relationship that he had long desired. In exchange for a substantial salary, Galileo promised to produce several “great works” that would merit “praise for me and for whoever has helped me in the business.”43 This time, however, fortune would not favor Galileo: the newly-crowned Cosimo declined to engage in such an arrangement. It seemed as though Galileo may have reached the limit of what patronage would provide. However, luck would intervene on Galileo’s behalf right when he needed it. Just a few months after Galileo sent his request to Cosimo de’ Medici, a new magnification device first appeared in the streets of Venice. In exchange for the device, which could make images appear two or three times larger, the Venetian Senate paid the Belgian

41 Westfall. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” p. 12 42 Westfall. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” p. 13 43 Galileo to "S. Vesp." (Geraldini?), Feb. 1609; Opere, Vol. X, p. 231-234 ​ ​

20 traveller who brought it a handsome sum, equal to four times Galileo’s yearly earnings. Immediately recognizing its value, both scientific and monetary, Galileo applied his mind to recreating and improving the device’s capabilities. Within months, he had managed an instrument that could magnify an object by nearly an order of magnitude. With it, he dazzled Venetian leaders from the top of the campanile, where they could spy “ships approaching the harbor two hours before they were visible to the naked eye.”44 The city’s military leaders were particularly interested. Galileo offered his device to the Doge of Venice and received a substantial raise on his salary with a lifetime renewal of his contract. News quickly spread about this new marvelous device and soon Galileo had requests to build many more. Though many had discovered how to create magnification devices by this point, Galileo alone was able to make the finest and most powerful telescopes. He maintained his monopoly by working in great secrecy, producing dozens of telescopes in his private workshop. As they continued to improve, Galileo realized that he would be able to see things previously unseen and reap the rewards of discovery. With that in mind, Galileo fatefully turned his telescope to the night sky.

Several aspects of Galileo’s first observations indicate his mixed motives. The first is the time elapsed between the creation of his first telescopes and the first time he used them for astronomy, which historical records indicate was at least several months. It seems Galileo was too busy manufacturing these lucrative devices to use them for science. The second indication is Galileo’s choice of what to observe. Galileo chose targets of convenience like the Moon, the brightest stars, and sections of the Milky Way. Given that Galileo preferred to stay up late to observe than rise early, Jupiter was also visible for observation. From these first observations, we can determine what moved Galileo to observe the heavens, as described by Richard S. Westfall:

The evidence thus suggests that at the time Galileo began his celestial observations, he had not formulated a program of systematic observations designed to settle the Copernican issue. Rather, as I have asserted, he saw the telescope more as an instrument of patronage than as an instrument of astronomy.45

44 Westfall. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” p. 16 ​ 45 Westfall. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” p. 26

21

This claim is further supported by Galileo’s failure to choose Venus as an object of primary observational importance. Given his belief in Copernican heliocentrism, Galileo would have recognized that, given its position in orbit, Venus would appear as a crescent when observed closely. Such an observation would confirm the Copernican theory, still highly disputed and controversial at this point, thereby making it a target with immense scientific value. However, in Sidereus nuncius, Galileo’s famous publication on his early observations, we ​ ​ see only a single mention of Venus as part of a discussion of a theory unrelated to Copernicanism. Rather than a “program of systematic observations,” Galileo simply pointed his telescope at the brightest objects in the night sky and, upon stumbling upon the moons of Jupiter, did not press further. In fact, Galileo continued to observe Jupiter intently for months in order to secure the priority of his discovery, studying the moons’ periods in great detail, as did Simon Marius, whose written notes on the discovery of the moons were one day after Galileo’s, once the differences in calendars from Julian to Gregorian were made. Ironically, during much

22 of the time that Galileo dutifully observed Jupiter, he could also have seen a crescent Venus if he had only thought to look; in contrast, Marius discussed the phases. Eighteen months after his discovering the Jovian moons, Galileo received a letter from his former student Benedetto Castelli. In the letter, Castelli “pointed out that in [Galileo’s] pursuit of celestial novelties to dazzle the grand [he] had neglected a phenomenon of supreme importance (i.e. the phases of Venus), which had been, at the time, virtually asking to be observed.”46 Setting his telescope on Venus, Galileo indeed found that he could detect its phases. He soon announced the discovery as his own and was rewarded in even more glory and material wealth. Castelli was not credited for his contributions; even when the letter was discovered after several centuries, it was greatly overshadowed by Galileo’s imposing legacy. Galileo would later claim that he had observed the phases of Venus some three months earlier than he actually had, thereby concealing Castelli’s contributions and maintaining his own priority on a discovery that would maintain his fame and fortune. The narratives presented thus far of astronomy’s founding fathers offer insight into the pervasive role of patronage in the discipline’s earliest days. Beginning with Copernicus, we saw how patronage determined the content and dissemination of astronomical knowledge. As Tycho and Kepler built on Copernicus’ scientific legacy, they also expanded the extent to which patronage permeated space exploration: with astronomy’s very form and purpose birthed of patronage, the pursuit of astronomy became inherently linked with the pursuit of patronage. This idea was personified by Galileo, whose decisions are characterized by a near-complete devotion to patronage. The role of patronage during this period in “[animating] the worlds of art, music, and literature” has been the subject of frequent study.47 It is curious that astronomy, and indeed science in general, is typically not included among the disciplines influenced by patronage. Perhaps it has something to do with our cultural sense of science as purely rational, sterile of human influences. However, by examining the lives of seminal astronomers we detect the role of patronage in shaping their work. Thus, we have seen how the earliest space exploration efforts emerged and evolved as the products of an intellectual marketplace. Patronage was the mechanism by which this intellectual marketplace operated during this period. Since patronage was a culturally-dependent system, cultural elements became inherent to space exploration efforts. As times changed, the rigid hierarchy upon which patronage depended broke down; patronage ceased to be the mechanism by which the hand of the intellectual marketplace operated. The market itself, however, would not go away. A significant reason for this is the power of natural human curiosity and the allure of space on the human psyche. These factors create a relatively constant supply of people inherently motivated to engage in space exploration, the Copernicuses, the Tychos, the Keplers, and the Galileos of the world. Since space exploration efforts do not generate monetary value on their own, they are beholden to the intellectual marketplace. The necessary funding comes from those with sufficient resources, who may or may not care at all about space or science, but see some value in these efforts for which they are willing to pay. Typically, the value they are paying for is the space effort’s “signaling ability;” in investing in these projects, those who demand (in the economic sense) space exploration do so because they are effective forms of nonverbal communication. By paying for these projects (i.e., “consuming them,” to use the language of economics), they are engaging in “conspicuous consumption” as described by economist Thorstein Veblen, which allows them to send a credible, powerful message to their desired

46 Westfall. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” p. 27 ​ 47 Westfall. “Science and Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope.” p. 29 ​

23 audience.48 In the case of patronage and early astronomy, the message was simple: we are on top of the societal hierarchy and deserve to be. As our story continues, we see how new systems supplant patronage as the mechanism of this intellectual marketplace. Though each new mechanism alters the details of the marketplace (viz., who funds space exploration and what message they want to communicate), the general market structure, one that matches inherently motivated suppliers with signal-hungry consumers, persists despite dramatic cultural and technological change. Therefore, as we move along in our narrative, we are continuing through one long, continuous period of space exploration, the history of this intellectual marketplace.

48 Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Dover Publications Inc., 1994. ​ ​

24

Part II: Space Exploration in the New World

As we have seen in the previous section, the early history of astronomy established the discipline as one with important cultural and scientific connotations. The legacy of the early great astronomers, accomplished through their grand models and discoveries as well as their proximity and association with the period’s great leaders, gave space exploration a perceived status, an aura of grandeur. Just as the early patrons buttressed their social status by associating themselves with astronomical discovery, those who could afford astronomical technologies often paid great sums to collect such items. Particularly interesting was the telescope, the iconic symbol of astronomy. In the decades since Galileo first improved the device and turned it to the heavens, craftsmen around the Continent worked to recreate and refine the telescope. Before long, telescopes became a necessary ornament to adorne the halls of any reputable nobleman. Displays of social status were important ways of signalling one’s wealth, power, and devotion to lofty ideals, which endured even as the traditional European power structures disintegrated. As social, political, and religious upheaval drove people across the oceans in search of a better life, they brought their astronomical devices with them. As we will see, these devices have a long and dynamic history in the development of the New World and its settlers’ attempts to gain respect and recognition. The continuation of the intellectual marketplace in this period, though the market’s mechanism evolves, is critically important given that it establishes the themes from the previous chapter in what would become the world’s leading spacefaring nation. In his groundbreaking work The Long Space Age, Dr. ​ Alexander MacDonald points out that the history of American space exploration actually begins long before NASA, with the arrival of the first telescopes in 1660. The purchasing of these telescopes, as might be expected from what has been discussed thus far, was the product of both an intrinsic interest in space and a desire to signal. Though he certainly exhibited a strong interest in astronomy, the well-established and ambitious purchaser of the first telescopes, John Winthrop Jr., was happy to be associated with the exalted status and principles inherent to astronomy at that time; his reputation would earn him the office of governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as well

25 as the status of the first American to earn membership in the Royal Society.49 Winthrop’s acquisition of these telescopes would have been well-noted in colonial society, which expressed a remarkable popular interest in astronomy. In the eyes of Puritan colonists, to study astronomy was to directly study “the heavens” that God had created. The religious fervor with which they approached astronomy was stoked by leaders of the clergy, a legacy of astronomy’s roots as a subject for the hierarchical elites. Communities would often gather to engage in casual astronomical observations, though serious astronomical study was largely conducted by individuals working in isolation. In this environment, interest in space exploration soared; before long, “colonial interest in astronomy [became] more pronounced than in any nonagricultural science.”50 As the young colonies developed, their keen interest in space exploration manifested accordingly. Collections of important and rare astronomical treatises were commonplace in wealthier intellectual circles. Presidents of America’s burgeoning colleges, such as Ezra Stiles of Yale and Joseph Willard of Harvard, were often frequent practitioners of astronomy. Despite the general interest in astronomy in the New World during this period, the region produced little in terms of new discoveries. This fact did not go unnoticed by skeptical European intellectuals and was a point of embarrassment for the colonists themselves. Just as an astronomical discovery can venerate individuals, rulers, or communities, the lack thereof can send an equally strong signal in the opposite direction. Therefore, the astronomically inclined American colonies were eager to have their societal development reflected in the form of new space discoveries. In the mid-1760’s, the colonies would get two remarkable opportunities to signal their newfound strength to the Old World. By this time, models of planetary motion were sophisticated enough to predict when Mercury and Venus would pass directly in front of the Sun from the Earth’s perspective, a phenomenon known as a transit. Not only were transits of Venus interesting and relatively rare astronomical events, they also were unique opportunities to study the geometric proportions of the solar system. By precisely measuring Venus as it moved across the disk of the Sun, one could determine the relative speeds and angles, and correspondingly deduce the size of the solar system. Determining definitively the size of the solar system had eluded even the greatest minds of previous generations, making it a prize in the global scientific community. The status and grandeur associated with such a discovery meant that these events transcended the realm of science and became charged with international political meaning. As such, these transits can be thought of as the first real “space race.” For the 1761 transit, monarchs of France, England, Russia, and even the directors of the East India Trading company sent observing expeditions.51 For its part, the United States only managed a small expedition in the form of Harvard’s John Winthrop and his assistants, who observed from a site in Newfoundland. However, the 1769 transit was much more readily observable for American viewers and the colonies were eager to prove themselves to their European counterparts, especially given the rising trans-Atlantic political tensions. Private families, colonial assemblies, and universities purchased telescopes and funded expeditions in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Canada. The results, compiled in the first edition of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, raised eyebrows in European courts. ​ ​ From their astronomical pursuits, the colonists had sent a strong political message, signaling a

49 MacDonald, Alexander. The Long Space Age: the Economic Origins of Space Exploration from ​ Colonial America to the Cold War. Yale University Press, 2017. p. 21 ​ 50 Ibid 51 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 22 ​ ​

26 “new stage of maturity in the development of America.”52 It is only fitting that the Declaration of Independence, another strong political message to European powers, was first announced to the crowds in Philadelphia’s State House Square from a platform built to observe the transit of 1769 seven years prior. After gaining independence, the newly-formed American states found themselves especially eager to signal their prowess. The unique ability of space-related activities to serve as effective signals of economic, intellectual, and technical strength made them especially appealing. Time and time again, the young America would leverage astronomy’s refined aura to bolster its own reputation. In response to European doubts of America’s virtues, Thomas Jefferson cited the work of noted colonial astronomer David Rittenhouse as evidence of the nation’s merits; this is all the more remarkable given the fact that Jefferson mentioned Rittenhouse as one of three men exemplifying the greatness of America, along with none other than George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. An important trend that developed during this period was the increasingly heavy emphasis on the creation of observatories. Within the framework of the intellectual marketplace, the appeal of observatories makes sense: they are tangible, highly visible, and effectively permanent. They can also be tailored to fit the funder’s budgetary specifications. The religious connotations associated with astronomy imparted observatories with a sense of piety, making them an appropriate way to display wealth in Puritan society. In effect, the building of an observatory sent a strong signal, one that resonated with the values of the day. In this middle period of modern astronomy, bookended by the early Enlightenment and the birth of liquid-fueled rockets, the observatory supplanted dedicated-manuscripts as the choice commodities in the intellectual marketplace. Just as lords and princes competed to collect astronomical discoveries in the days of patronage, competitions emerged in the creation of observatories. In America’s earliest days, this often took place at universities as they jockeyed for prestige and supremacy. As he drew up plans to establish the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson allocated a massive sum, between $10,000 and $12,000 ($6.9 million - $8.3 million in today’s currency), for a university observatory. This constituted 6-7.5% of the cost of the entire university for the observatory

52 Hindle, B. The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, 1956) pg. 165 ​ ​

27 alone, not to mention the cost of his vision for a planetarium for the grand university rotunda.53 Not to be outdone, Harvard would attempt to raise funds for an improved observatory on five separate occasions from 1805 to 1825 alone.54 Only after Williams College’s Hopkins Observatory was completed in 1838, and Halley’s Comet went by, did the people of Boston, in part out of jealousy, provide funds for the Harvard College Observatory.55 The wave of astronomical activity during this period, as well as the underlying forces and motivations responsible, are especially evident here at Williams College, an institution that has had a remarkable relationship with astronomy over the years. The first evidence of astronomy at Williams appears in the minutes of the College’s Board of Trustees meeting in September, 1802, in which they voted to “procure a telescope for the College.”56 Despite this, it appears that the young College, less than a decade old at the time, may have been primarily interested in acquiring a telescope for the sake of reputation rather than education. Before having as much as a single telescope on campus, the first of which would appear in 1806, the College adopted a new seal in 1805 that prominently features a telescope, along with “a globe, an inkstand and pen, a ​ scroll, [and] a spray of laurel” that, together, represent the quadrivium.57 ​ The next evolution of astronomy at Williams would take place in 1834, a time at which the American Observatory Movement was gaining significant momentum. In that year, the Trustees decided to make a significant investment in astronomy and sent Albert Hopkins, the College’s professor of natural philosophy and brother of famed educator and College President Mark Hopkins, to Europe with $4,000 to acquire sophisticated scientific equipment. This decision took place at a critical point in the College’s history; then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore’s infamous attempt to relocate the school to another location in Massachusetts had all but crippled the College 13 years prior. In sending Albert Hopkins to Europe, the Trustees hoped to leverage the signaling power of astronomical devices, which was growing rapidly during that period, in order to demonstrate that the College had not only recovered from its recent bisection, but was superior even to Harvard in studying the “noblest of the mathematical arts.”

53 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 24 ​ ​ ​ 54 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 24-25 ​ ​ ​ 55 Pasachoff, Jay M. “Williams College's Hopkins Observatory: the Oldest Extant Observatory in the United States.” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, June 1998, pp. 61–78. ​ ​ 56 Ibid 57 “College Seal.” Special Collections, Williams College. ​ ​

28 Hopkins, on the other hand, was more interested the devices insofar as their contributions to the study of astronomy itself. Albert Hopkins was a deeply metacognitive educator and believed that “nature ought to be studied rather than books.”58 Also a minister, Hopkins ascribed the same religious connotations to the study of the heavens that was common at that time. In his dedication address of the aforementioned Hopkins Observatory, built to house the recently-purchased astronomical equipment and still the oldest extant American observatory, in 1838, Albert Hopkins blended these scientific and religious motivations: “It is the desire for those whose contributions and whose care have aided in the erection of this building that it may subserve the interest, not only of sound science, but of spiritual religion.” This connection with religion translated into the physical building itself, which bore the inscriptions “Lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these” and “For thus saith the Lord, yet once it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.” For Hopkins, the Observatory was a tool to educate the mind and the soul, a place where students could draw inspiration from “that fathomless fountain and author of being, who has constituted matter and all its accidents as lively emblems of the immaterial kingdom.”59 It was these motivations that led Hopkins to contribute $500 of his own funds towards the Observatory’s construction and to physically assist in its erection, including even working in the local quarry to extract building materials.60 Built using a combination of funding from the intrinsically motivated Hopkins and the signal-conscious Trustees, the Hopkins Observatory is a physical manifestation of the intellectual marketplace at work here on the campus of Williams College and an important, enduring icon of early American space exploration. As American universities sparred for recognition, one man envisioned the nation as a whole employing the same technique to signal national progress: John Quincy Adams. One of the most intellectual and well-educated American presidents, Adams was an outspoken and eloquent proponent of astronomy throughout his long political career. John Quincy Adams’ astronomically-inclined disposition presented a unique opportunity in the history of space exploration; though the intellectual marketplace typically operates by matching the intrinsically-motivated with those of means, Adams’ tenure of immense political power made it possible for him to serve as both the supply and demand. Adams envisioned the creation of a grand national observatory to serve as a strong signal of the young nation’s rising prominence. This vision presented a possible new mechanism for the American intellectual marketplace, one in which the nation as a whole would fund space exploration. Despite his political power as senator and president, Adams could not accomplish this on his own; he knew he would need to convince the nation. The sentiments expressed in his first annual presidential address in 1825, in which he pitched his vision of a national observatory, reveal his appeal to nationalist sentiments to convince the nation of space exploration:

Connected with the establishment of a university, or separate from it, might be undertaken the erection of an astronomical observatory, with provision for the support of an astronomer, to be in constant attendance of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens; and for the periodical publication of his observations. It is with no feeling of pride, as an American, the remark may be made that, on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe, there are existing upward of one hundred and thirty of

58 Rudolph, Frederick. Mark Hopkins and the Log. Yale University Press, 1956. ​ ​ 59 Ibid 60 Safford, Truman Henry. The Development of Astronomy in the United States, Williams College, 1888. ​ ​

29 these lighthouses of the skies; while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is not one. If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which, in the last four centuries, have been in the physical constitution of the universe by the means of these buildings, and of observers stationed in them, shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation? And while scarcely a year passes over our heads without bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at second-hand from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of the returning light for light, while we have neither observatory nor observer upon our half of the globe, and the earth revolves in perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes?61

At a glance, these remarks bear a striking similarity to some issued over a century later by another American president, John F. Kennedy, as he attempted to convince the nation of an other space exploration effort. The similarity of Adams’ remarks to Kennedy’s lends credence to the existence of an expanded space age, one much broader than the conventional NASA-centric narrative; this concept of a “long space age,” first proposed by Dr. MacDonald, is a central theme of this thesis. In fact, the parallels between America’s first nationalist-inspired space exploration efforts and the Cold War era “Space Race” go even deeper. The establishment of the extravagant Pulkovo observatory in St. Petersburg in 1839 by the nationalistically-minded Tsar Nicholas I sent the exact kind of signal for Russia that Adams had hoped to send with an American national observatory. The supremacy of Russian space exploration abilities greatly bothered Adams. Again leaning on nationalist sentiments, which Dr. MacDonald points out bear striking similarity to the rhetoric of Congress in the 1950’s and 60’s during the Space Race, Adams sought to drum up support for American space exploration:

Here is the sovereign of the mightiest empire and the most absolute government on earth, ruling over a land of serfs, gathering a radiance of glory around his throne by founding and endowing the most costly and most complete establishment for astronomical observation on the face of the earth… and this event is honorably noticed in the National Institute of France, one of the most learned and talented assemblies upon the globe noticed as an occurence [sic] in the annals of science noticed for honor and for emulation. The journalist of a free country, applauding the exertions of a land of serfs to promote the progress of science, avows that he should blush for his own country, had he not at hand the evidence of her exertions not less strenuous for the advancement of the same cause. The committee of the House, in applying to their own country that sensibility to the national honor with which the French journalist attributes to self-love, would gladly seek for its gratification in the same assurance that she is not lagging behind in the race of honor; but that, in casting their eyes around the whole length and breadth of their native land, they must blush to acknowledge that not a single edifice of the name of astronomical observatory is to be seen.62

61 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 26. Originally: United States, President, The Addresses and ​ ​ ​ Messages of the Presidents of the United States from 1789 to 1839 (New York, 1839) pg. 299 ​ 62 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 30-31. Originally: Rhees, W. J., “Congressional Proceedings, ​ ​ ​ Twenty-Sixth Congress, 1839-41,” in The Smithsonian Institution: Documents Relative to Its Origin and ​ History (Washington, DC, 1879) pg. 221-222 ​

30 Ultimately, Adams would never succeed in creating an observatory of the magnitude and grandeur of his dreams. Those who opposed such a display of strong Federal authority, particularly the increasingly resistant Southern states who would make up the Confederacy, proved to be powerful opponents to the national observatory. He would, however, succeed in creating the Naval Observatory, located in Washington, DC, which would prove to be an important institution in American science. More significantly, his frequent efforts to promote and organize space exploration, which up to this point continued to operate largely in isolation, played an important role in further conflating space exploration with Americans’ sense of identity. These poignant, lasting societal impacts are evidenced in the 1888 speech titled “The Development of Astronomy in the United States,” given by Williams College’s Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Truman Henry Safford, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the dedication of the Hopkins Observatory:

America is the great republic; every man is born equal to every other; if the bricklayer’s son exhibits the genius of the century in mathematics, he needs no petty Grand Duke’s favor, but will be recognized and helped by his fellow citizens and the organizations for study which have grown up during our few centuries; while the experience of the past fifty years has shown that these organizations will have an unexampled growth in the next fifty years so far as predictions in any human affairs are possible. American astronomers and American instrument makers - few indeed half a century ago - are now known by reputation and respected in the whole civilized world. The first permanent American Observatory [the Hopkins Observatory] is still standing, to show by its modest dimensions how great a growth has been possible in half a century.63

Safford’s comments, in alluding to “reputation and [respect],” reflect the increasing significance of signaling in American astronomy as well as the major evolution in American space exploration throughout the 19th and 20th centuries brought about by the American Observatory Movement. The early American observatories discussed thus far are linked by several themes: “the importance of leading individuals in establishing observatories, the preeminence of private funding, the role of signaling and signal emulation, the growth of intrinsic interests in exploring the heavens, the religious undercurrent behind much of the support for astronomy, [and] the sense of civic identity and support that observatories could engender.”64 Prompted by cultural and technological changes, a new mechanism would arise beginning in the 1830’s, one of public subscription campaigns to create observatories, that would operate largely as the product of these same themes. American popular interest in astronomy, which had already been high, was stoked by the press, who were keen to translate this interest in astronomy into sales. Newspapers, pamphlets, and nearly every form of publication inundated the eagerly awaiting public with reports of astronomical discoveries, both real and fictional. Publications of groundbreaking scientific work, such as John Herschel's 1834 text A Treatise on Astronomy, and of fantastical stories, such as ​ ​ reported observations of alien lunar colonies in New York penny-paper The Sun, worked in ​ ​ tandem to dazzle the public’s imagination. Such stories were so popular, in fact, that the series on lunar colonies published in The Sun made the paper the most highly circulated New York ​ ​ newspaper at the time. In Eclipses, Transits, and Comets of the Nineteenth Century: How ​

63 Safford, Truman Henry. The Development of Astronomy in the United States, Williams College, 1888. ​ ​ 64 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 44 ​ ​ ​

31 America's Perception of the Skies Changed, Stella Cottam and Wayne Orchiston describe how ​ “the press of that era extensively covered rare or spectacular astronomical occurrences — for example, solar eclipses, transits of Venus, and grand meteor showers — as important, newsworthy events.”65 At the hands of the popular press, the initial interest that characterized early American attitudes towards astronomy developed into a true cultural phenomenon. The ​ public’s interest in space was coming to the fore and becoming a force capable of mobilizing significant resources. Riding this wave of interest, in 1842 Professor Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel of Cincinnati College offered a visually stunning public astronomy lecture series, entitled “The Planetary and Stellar Worlds.”66 In front of an audience of thousands, Mitchel discussed the most recent advances in astronomy accompanied by dazzling depictions of nebulae and galaxies. At the end of his final lecture, Mitchel presented his vision for the creation of a new, public observatory where the audience could see these phenomena with their own eyes. He set a goal of $7,500 for observing facilities and equipment, which would be raised through $25 shares purchased by the public. Each shareholder would become a card-carrying member of the “Cincinnati Astronomical Society,” allowing them the privilege of using cutting-edge astronomical equipment. Mitchel’s public subscription campaign represented a new mechanism of advancing space exploration, one in which “prestige and civil patronage” as well as general curiosity about space would generate the necessary funds. Mitchel’s charismatic appeal to the rapidly-growing middle class of 1840’s Cincinnati was largely successful; he received nearly $10,000 in pledges for the telescope, $6,500 for the observatory, and even had someone donate a plot of land on which it would be built.67 The observatory opened to the public, a few years after Williams College’s observatory opened in 1838, with great fanfare and civic pride, featuring none other than the now aged John Quincy Adams as the keynote speaker. However, there were many who had reservations about this observatory and the mechanism that funded its creation, including John Quincy Adams himself. To those primarily interested in the science, the Cincinnati Observatory and its associated Astronomical Society seemed too much like a public-relations stunt than the setting for space exploration. Their claims were not unfounded: of all the funds provided for the public telescope and observatory building, very few donations provided for any other critical scientific equipment nor a real salary for the resident astronomer.

Though the subscription campaign had succeeded in raising substantial funds and purchasing a state-of-the-art telescope, it is clear that the donations were largely motivated by the possibility of personally using the telescope rather than actually producing anything of

65 Rumstay, Kenneth S. “HAD 2019 Osterbrock Book Prize Goes to Cottam & Orchiston.” Historical ​ Astronomy Division, American Astronomical Society, 8 Oct. 2018. ​ 66 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 55 ​ ​ ​ 67 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 56 ​ ​ ​

32 scientific value. In a sense, the Cincinnati subscription campaign had been a Faustian bargain: by using subscription as a mechanism to pursue space exploration, Mitchel had only truly succeeded in creating a venue for the public to pursue their own interest in “space tourism.” In his book Dollars for Research, historian Howard Miller ​ ​ describes the Cincinnati Observatory as “an important symbol in the place of science in American life.”68 For the ordinary citizens of Cincinnati who helped fund the Observatory, the stonemasons and judges and steamboat-owners and grocers and plumbers,69 achieving this symbolic signal was certainly a primary motivator. However, it seems that the observatory’s real usefulness may have been limited to its value as a symbol, at least from a scientific standpoint. But was this outcome a product of the mechanism of public subscription or did Mitchel simply lose sight of his original goal? To better understand this question and the implications of this mechanism, we turn now to several notable examples of observatories built using public subscription during this period. News of the Cincinnati Observatory’s creation quickly spread across the country, engendering a spirit of civic rivalry in any town in which the Observatory graced headlines. This was especially true among the proud, intellectual communities of the East Coast, who were upset that a young industrial city like Cincinnati possessed a more impressive monument to their dedication to science. This was particularly true in Boston, where many began to grumble about the relative inferiority of the city’s astronomy facilities, not only to Cincinnati’s but also to those of Williams College. Though many attempts to raise funds for an observatory had been made in the past, as mentioned earlier in this paper, they had largely failed to create the kind of impressive facilities that many had hoped for. However, the wave of superior observatories recently erected across the country, punctuated by the Cincinnati Observatory, generated a surge of support from Boston’s populace for the creation of their own grand observatory. The contrast between the earlier attempts to create an observatory and this era of Bostonian support was vast, both in the motivations behind these attempts and the outcomes. Whereas prior attempts were geared towards creating a primarily research-focussed, scientific observatory and resulted in sporadic support in the form of lump sums from individual donors, the motivation behind this new push for an observatory was birthed of civic pride. Though both incorporated the mechanism of public subscription, the difference in motivators proved to make all the difference in generating funds from intellectual marketplace. Contributions for the observatory, which was to be built at Harvard College, poured in from all over, often in sizeable quantities: nineteen of Boston’s forty wealthiest

68 Miller, Howard S. Dollars for Research: Science and Its Patrons in 19th-Century America. University ​ ​ of Washington Press, 1970. p. 32 69 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 56 ​ ​ ​

33 families donated, businesses and societies contributed $4,000, and various individuals dispensed huge sums. In all, ninety-five sources would combine for nearly $140,000 over the course of the 1840’s, making the Harvard College Observatory the most expensive in the Western Hemisphere and one of the best equipped centers for space exploration in the world.70 This presented donors and average Bostonians with the remarkable opportunity to freely use the largest refracting telescope in the world, a 15-inch Merz and Mahler equatorial telescope. Though this open access was appealing to the public and was significant to spurring public funding, it was decidedly less popular with research astronomers, whose work was often sidelined in the name of access for donors. However, the research-centric university setting in which the telescope was housed allowed these career astronomers to successfully protest for increased priority in using this state-of-the-art equipment. As a result, the Harvard College Observatory was far more productive in terms of advancing space exploration than its Cincinnati corollary, which was was among those that prompted the former’s creation. At Williams, one of those trained had been Edward W. Morley an undergraduate, who later went on, as a professor of chemistry at Western Reserve University, to work with A. A. Michelson on measurements of the speed of light in different directions, with a result that apparently and somewhat controversially had a major effect on Einstein’s finding his general theory of relativity. In the wake of the Cincinnati and Boston observatories, the city of Albany tasked itself with creating its own impressive observing facility. In the 1850’s, Albany was a city in the midst of exciting economic and cultural growth; this new observatory was to be the crown jewel of a series of efforts to signal the city’s prosperity and refinement. The observatory’s origins showed great promise: the public subscription campaign raised over $25,000 for the so-called Dudley Observatory in only a few months, including funds providing a generous salary for the resident research astronomer. However, the circumstances surrounding the Dudley Observatory began to devolve due to conflicting motivations behind its creation. The details of these disputes offer a great deal of insight into the consequences of the disparate and often conflicting motivations inherent to producing space exploration via the intellectual marketplace, particularly with respect to the mechanism of public subscription. That the observatory was primarily the product of civic pride and a desire to signal is evident given its creation as a response to similarly motivated observatories as part of this era’s “civic space race.” This notion is reinforced by the fact that the observatory’s donors had little intrinsic interest in space, but rather were frequent boosters of other public-works projects to signal Albany’s greatness. This signalling motivation dictated the funding priorities for the different aspects of the observatory. For instance, only after the ornate and impressive observatory building itself had been constructed did those in charge turn to the question of the scientific equipment it would house. In fact, for years during the observatory’s early stages there was no input from anyone with a scientific background, let alone from an astronomer. When a council of scientific advisors was finally convened, they were hardly enthused about the Dudley Observatory’s priorities and direction. This advisory council and the Dudley’s controllers clashed frequently over decisions resulting from different visions for the observatory. The advisory council prioritized real science over signalling, leading them to select a less imposing and aesthetically pleasing design for the observatory building. They also opted for a heliometer, a device used to determine angular distances, as a primary scientific device rather than the eye-catching optical telescope that would allow for visitors to be dazzled as they gazed up at the night sky. Though the observatory certainly did not lack funding, and actually received significant supplementary donations over the next few years, vitriolic clashes soon erupted between the businessmen who funded Dudley and the scientists who operated it.

70 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 59 ​ ​ ​

34 In response to the near-incessant stream of visitors, whose desire to use the equipment frequently interrupted research, the scientists began turning away the donors and their friends, treating them with palpable hostility. In response to this indignation, 15,000 public pamphlets were made, no less than 173 pages each, besmirching the behavior and character of these scientists.71 In turn, they responded by locking themselves in the observatory in an attempt to assert their priority as scientists on these scientific facilities. In a dramatic climax, the Dudley’s trustees bashed down the observatory door, took hold of the scientists, and threw them into a nearby snowbank. In the end, the Dudley’s greatest contribution to space exploration would be as a cautionary tale of the dangers of bringing together incompatible motivations in the intellectual marketplace.72 The use of public subscription as an early driving mechanism of the American Observatory Movement brought mixed results. During this age of civic expansion and intra-city competition, the use of public subscription proved to be an effective means of leveraging these sentiments into funds for space exploration. The public who funded these observatories, however, were clearly motivated by the capacity for these observatories to serve as signals and made no attempts to disguise their intentions. As we have seen, this signalling motivation often was at odds with the scientific purposes of an observatory and detracted from the observatory’s scientific output. Herein we see an evolution in the role of the mechanism in the intellectual marketplace and yet another reminder of just how critical these mechanisms are in creating and shaping space exploration. Whereas patronage incentivized scientific discovery, both promoting and shaping astronomical activity, public subscription incentivized the proliferation of observatories rather than the pursuit of scientific knowledge. To the extent that it created an outlet for astronomical activity that circumvented bona fide space exploration, public subscription demonstrates that increased astronomical funding and activity does not necessarily mean increased progress in terms of space exploration efforts. As we’ve seen thus far, the appearance, evolution, and disappearance of intellectual marketplace mechanisms are propagated by societal change. Patronage was birthed out of a highly stratified society, with the early astronomers exchanging their discoveries for rewards from their hierarchical superiors. With the spread of people and ideas to the New World, Puritan values conflated astronomy with religious sentiment, which both popularized the discipline and gave it an ecclesiastic flavor. As America expanded further west, cities at and near the frontier became prosperous and looked to signal their wealth and virtues. Public subscription allowed citizens, particularly those of means, to band together to invest in a strong signal, much in the same way that John Quincy Adams had envisioned signalling for the nation as a whole. With time came major socioeconomic changes. An economic boom brought about the Gilded Age, punctuated by the concentration of extreme wealth in the hands of the so-called “robber barons.” These titans of industry found themselves at the pinnacle of a socioeconomic hierarchy that in many ways echoed that of astronomy’s earliest days. These societal changes brought about a new mechanism for the intellectual marketplace, that of the single benefactor. The dramatic concentration of wealth meant that single robber barons could provide sufficient funds for space exploration on their own. It was up to the intrinsically motivated to convince these titans of the Gilded Age that observatories dedicated to scientific observation were the best way to establish their legacy. These intrinsically motivated individuals took on a role similar to the earliest astronomers, as they looked to motivate funds from wealthy individuals towards space exploration. The parallels between this period of single benefactors and that of patronage

71 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 62 ​ ​ ​ 72 “History of Dudley Observatory.” Dudley Observatory. ​ ​

35 in terms of societal structure and space exploration efforts are remarkable. This is especially true given the extent to which the continuity of the intellectual marketplace applies considering that these period unfold oceans apart, hundreds of years apart, and in different cultural settings. This period was punctuated by the establishment of several significant observatories, the Lick, Yerkes, Mt. Wilson, and Palomar Observatories, which will be discussed next. The phenomenon of wealthy benefactors was not entirely new at the time of the Gilded Age. In fact, each of the observatories mentioned thus far as part of the discussion of New World astronomy had benefited from support from single, wealthy benefactors to varying degrees. The shift in wealth distribution brought about by the Golden Age meant that individuals could embark on much more ambitious space exploration efforts and exert total control over these efforts. The numerous recent advancements in astronomy during this period, enabled by technological improvements, gave observatories an especially strong value during this period, associating them with discoveries that were considered to be significant advancements in human knowledge. This signalling value caught the attention of the aging California real-estate magnate James Lick. Though he had considered other monumental structures, such as “gigantic statues of his parents that would overlook the San Francisco Bay, and a giant pyramid to be erected in the middle of the city,” several astronomers persuaded him that an observatory would best serve his legacy.73 An observatory, they argued, would continue to produce groundbreaking discoveries for decades to come, thereby glorifying his name even from the grave. In addition to signalling, Lick also exhibited an interest in genuine space exploration, a sentiment likely nurtured by the influence of astronomers over the years. His commitment to actual discoveries is evidenced in the details of the construction of the Lick Observatory, the details of which set it apart from the decidedly flawed public subscription observatories. For instance, Lick chose a mountaintop setting given its propensity for favorable observing conditions. Also, after a disagreement with the observatory’s board of trustees about the vision for the site, Lick simply replaced them all. Given that Lick was the sole benefactor, the project’s budget was fairly certain, allowing for the observatory to be built according to a grand plan rather than a more unsure, piecemeal approach. In short, Lick exhibited total control over the plans for his observatory and crafted it as a site for real space exploration. In this instance, the single benefactor mechanism not only saved the observatory from the pitfalls of public subscription, but proved to be extremely effective in directing resources towards space exploration: Lick dedicated roughly $700,000 to the observatory, an unprecedented sum.74 By combining a strong direction that prioritized science and

73 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 62 ​ ​ ​ 74 Gingerich, Owen. Astrophysics and Twentieth-Century Astronomy to 1950. A ed., vol. 4, Cambridge ​ ​ University Press, 1984. p. 127

36 sufficient resources to achieve its mission, the Lick observatory became “one of the central institutions of American astronomy and astrophysics in the decades after its construction.”75 The resounding success of the Lick Observatory in the mid-1870’s created an impressive precedent and set the stage for the creation of more observatories during the Gilded Age. At the same time that the newly-finished Lick Observatory was revolutionizing American astronomy, a promising young scientist was rising to prominence. The Chicago native George Ellery Hale had demonstrated a pronounced talent for science from a young age. In Hale’s early years, his father nurtured his intrinsic scientific curiosity, providing him with microscopes, telescopes, and even a small personal laboratory. Hale developed an intense interest in astronomy and in studying the sun in particular, due in part to his observation of a partial solar eclipse in his teenage years. Through his meticulous study of solar phenomena, Hale quickly became a leader in his field. A key to his success was his thorough technical understanding of astronomical equipment, evidenced by his creation of a telescope at just 14 years old. Combining his knowledge of equipment and interest in the Sun, Hale invented the spectroheliograph while still an undergraduate student at MIT. At the outset of his career, Hale demonstrated a clear interest in developing the field known as “New Astronomy,” what we today call astrophysics.76 Possessing all the talent, direction, and motivation required to significantly advance human space exploration, Hale needed funding to create the state of the art facilities where he would conduct his research. Right on cue, the intellectual marketplace would intervene in the form of a single benefactor. Just as Hale was beginning his professional career, another Chicagoan by the name of Charles Tyson Yerkes found himself in need of some image management. The shrewd, avaricious tactics that had earned Yerkes heaps of wealth also brought him an extremely negative perception amongst Chicago’s populace. Via the University of Chicago, Yerkes and Hale met and discussed the possibility of building a world-renowned observatory. Yerkes was enamored by the idea of being associated with a renowned institution such as the observatory Hale described, which was to house the world’s largest telescope. Despite hiccups in the observatory’s creation, the result of Yerkes’ desire to appear benevolent and generous despite maintaining a firm grasp on the observatory’s pursestrings, the Yerkes Observatory came to fruition. Charles Tyson Yerkes’ speech at the Observatory’s grand opening makes an interesting allusion to the necessity of the intellectual marketplace: “One reason why the science of astronomy has not more helpers, is on account of its being entirely uncommercial. There is nothing of moneyed value to be gained by the devotee of astronomy; there is nothing he can sell.”77 These comments express a limited view of the real value and output of space exploration efforts, a view that dominates conventional thought on such matters. Space exploration is

75 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 74 ​ ​ ​ 76 “Our Story.” Mount Wilson Observatory, 6 Mar. 2017. ​ ​ 77 Miller. Dollars for Research. p. 109 ​ ​ ​

37 married with societal influences; the nature of this marriage results in space exploration efforts that exhibit not only some abstract (and largely non-quantifiable) scientific value, but also a cultural value. As we’ve seen throughout this paper thus far, people have invested significant resources throughout history to associate themselves with the often-profound cultural impact that these activities produce, thereby signalling certain messages about themselves. As indicated by Dr. MacDonald in his seminal work The Long Space Age, ​ the cultural value of space exploration efforts, including astronomy, gives rise to the possibility of an exchange value for such efforts. In the right cultural conditions, this gives the intrinsically-motivated a commodity to sell, contrary to Yerkes’ statements; in the hands of the right “devotee of astronomy,” these commodities can attract massive quantities of resources. That a shrewd businessman like Yerkes, who himself purchased the signalling value of a space exploration efforts for an exorbitant sum, did not realize astronomy’s ability to motivate resources is indicative of the lack of understanding regarding the intellectual marketplace, even among those who populate it. Thanks to Hale’s guiding hand and the research-focussed environment provided by its affiliation with the University of Chicago, the Yerkes Observatory became a critical center for astronomy and the incipient field of astrophysics, building on the Lick Observatory’s legacy. Only in 2018 did the University of Chicago relinquish its link. Hale recognized that the Yerkes site alone would not be sufficient to accomplish his space exploration goals. Before the final stones were laid on Yerkes’ impressive structure, Hale was already formulating plans for the construction of a new, grander site, one purpose-built to study the subject of Hale’s fascination, the Sun. Hale had ambitious plans, including large, mountaintop reflecting telescopes, that would represent an important transition in course of astronomy. Such audacious plans would require significant funding that only the industrial behemoths of the early 20th century could provide. The

38 Carnegie Institute of Washington and the Rockefeller’s General Education Board, as modern corollaries to the princely patronage of centuries prior, would prove to be a good match to fuel Hale’s ambitions. Using his reputation as a brilliant astronomer and as the driving force behind the Yerkes Observatory, Hale made his vision for a new observatory a priority for both philanthropic groups. Hale’s success as a salesman of astronomy and his influence on wealthy patrons is evidenced by Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth,” in which Carnegie “singled out astronomy as one of the ‘Best Fields of Philanthropy’.”78 Hale’s influence and close connection with generous benefactors made real scientific progress a priority of this new generation of observatories, which proved to be an effective means of motivating funds with Hale as its mouthpiece. His vision of a center for advanced astrophysical study of the Sun culminated in the impressive Mount Wilson Solar Observatory, later renamed to simply the Mount Wilson Observatory.79 Mount Wilson was unquestionably the “world’s foremost astronomical research facility” upon its completion in 1904, with an eye-watering price-tag of $1.4 million.80 By the mid-1920’s, humanity’s understanding of the universe had dramatically expanded in just a few short decades. The new wave of advanced American observatories had made dramatic contributions. Yerkes, home of the world’s largest refractor, had already proven to be a workhorse of astronomical photography. In the course of the 20th century, over 170,000 astronomical photographs would be taken, captured by astronomers such as a young Edwin Hubble, Gerard Kuiper, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, and even Carl Sagan.81 After his time at Yerkes, Hubble moved on to Mount Wilson where, using its mammoth 100-inch telescope, th whose 100 ​ birthday was celebrated in 2017, he proved that the universe extended beyond our ​ galactic home, the Milky Way. At the same site, Hubble would later find evidence that the universe is expanding. Also at Mount Wilson, in a study of galaxy clusters Fritz Zwicky discovered the first signs of dark matter just a few years after Hubble’s discoveries. Not to be outdone, the Lick Observatory would contribute a sweeping series of discoveries throughout the late 19th century, including the discovery of a Jovian moon, the first of which since Galileo centuries prior. Hale played a critical role in bringing about this newfound momentum in astronomical discovery. In addition to his astrophysical research, Hale had been critical to creating the world’s largest telescope on three occasions: “the 40-inch refractor at Yerkes in 1897; ​ ​ the 60-reflector on Mt. Wilson in 1908; and the ​ ​ 100-inch Hooker reflector on Mt. Wilson in 1917.”82 ​ In the Gilded Age, space exploration had entered a new golden age. With each remarkable discovery that graced the front pages of national newspapers, the American populace and potential benefactor

78 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 90 ​ ​ ​ 79 “Our Story.” Mount Wilson Observatory, 6 Mar. 2017. ​ ​ 80 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 91 ​ ​ 81 Oppenheim, Oren. “Seeing Stars on the Shore of Lake Geneva: A History of Yerkes, the University's Moribund Observatory.” The Chicago Maroon, University of Chicago, 16 Apr. 2018. ​ ​ 82 “A History of Palomar Observatory.” History of Palomar, California Institute of Technology. ​ ​

39 millionaires alike were dazzled by the advent of a new age of discovery. The signalling value of astronomy was at a premium; the capital provided by robber barons funded new generations of scientific instruments, which astronomers wielded to probe deeper into the nature of the physical universe. Each new instrument, larger and more powerful than the last, enabled further discovery, thereby perpetuating a series of self-actualization in the intellectual marketplace. Hale, from his unique position as both an engine of the intellectual marketplace and its observer, sought to push this mechanism to its limits and, in the process, maximize the output of space exploration. In the late 1920’s, Hale poised himself to add the pièce de résistance to the ​ ​ gemlike observatories that had crowned American astronomy. In 1928, Hale penned a letter to his longtime patron, Rockefeller’s General Education Board, proposing the creation of a telescope of unprecedented magnitude. Leveraging the full momentum of the American Observatory Movement, his relationship with Rockefeller, and every ounce of his own credibility, Hale confidently suggested a 200-inch reflecting telescope to be housed in the Palomar Mountains of San Diego County. Such a telescope would not only be the largest in the world, but also would be fully double the size and four times the collecting area of the day’s most advanced device, the 100-inch that Hale had procured for Mount Wilson. It is difficult to convey to modern readers just how remarkable this request was given the unprecedented technical challenges that would need to be overcome to create this unique device. The fact that Hale’s request was granted, let alone taken seriously, is a testament to the 20th century American appetite for space exploration efforts, the strong signalling value of such efforts (evidenced by their ability to attract significant resources), and Hale’s bravura in conducting the intellectual marketplace. It would take a Herculean effort to bring Hale’s monolithic telescope to life, including 21 years of planning and manufacturing (interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War), years of trial and error, a $6 million price tag, and a 23-ton block of solid glass. Upon its completion in 1949, the Palomar Observatory was the home of the most advanced and powerful telescope in the world, a title it would hold for 30 years, an astoundingly long period of time given the pace of technological advancements during the period. It was so large and so powerful, in fact, that a scale model of the observatory a whole order of magnitude smaller was able to make its own important g astronomical discoveries. ​ Under ​ the control of astronomers such as Hubble, who was the first to observe using 200-inch telescope, the Palomar Observatory enabled breakthrough after breakthrough in astronomy and astrophysics. The apotheosis of the American Observatory Movement and human space exploration to this point, Palomar made unparalleled contributions to the understanding a myriad of questions pertaining to the physical universe. In the American Observatory Movement, we see the maturation of New World space

40 exploration, whose roots trace back to earliest Puritan colonists. Through both dramatic societal evolution and astronomical advancement, America maintained a consistent appetite for space exploration, as evidenced by the constant presence of space exploration efforts throughout its history. Factors largely unrelated to astronomy, such as religious, cultural, political, and economic forces, ended up playing a significant role in the intellectual marketplace. Astronomical advancements in the form of new discoveries and new technologies influenced popular perception of space exploration, the signaling value of such efforts, and the budgets necessary for cutting-edge space exploration. These societal and astronomical influences, which are interrelated, come together in the intellectual marketplace as demand and supply for space exploration respectively. The history of American astronomy demonstrates that this marketplace is not consistently effective or efficient, but rather fluctuates over time given its operating mechanism. In Colonial America there existed a strong general interest in astronomy due in part to its perceived connection with religion. Though this laid the foundations for an astronomically-inclined society, there lacked any real intellectual marketplace, thereby initially precluding the colonies from a framework for space exploration. Political changes swept the colonies and combined them into a new nation, one eager to disprove its perceived inferiority. The infant nation turned to astronomy as a means of signaling its merits on the global stage. It competed against the European powers for the glory of the next great discovery and the title of world’s best telescope. Observatories became both centers of exploration and powerful symbols for those who had constructed them. In his bid to create a National Observatory as a symbol for the United States, John Quincy Adams sought to signal the superiority of America’s ideals and capabilities. Adams’ eloquent and long-winded support of observatories as signals helped propagate a wave of new observatories. America developed over time; so did inter-city and inter-university competition, with each institution looking to observatories to build their prestige. This competition brought about the American Observatory Movement and the new mechanism of public subscription. This mechanism garnered significant funds for astronomical activity, but not necessarily for scientifically productive ones, often resulting in palpable tension between the purchasers and the intrinsically motivated. Economic changes brought about the robber baron class, which operated effectively as a one-man public subscription campaign. The single-benefactor mechanism simplified the intellectual marketplace, allowing for h mutually-better matching (i.e. a Pareto improvement). ​ Earlier, modest exploration efforts ​ proved to be immensely productive both in terms of scientific output and signalling. Each success built upon the last and encouraged the next. The once-faltering American Observatory Movement of the public subscription era transitioned to a fecund one of remarkable discovery. The success of the single benefactor era demonstrates “the significant resources that can be mustered by the private sector for the exploration of space, based solely on an individual’s personal interest and desire for legacy.”83 A key word in the previous quotation is “individual” as opposed to a group or committee. In the history of astronomy, the most striking periods of discovery seem to occur when individuals are acting as the buyers and sellers in the intellectual marketplace, as is the case during patronage and single benefactors. When groups that are not inherently astronomical convene in the interest of signaling, such as Congress during John Quincy Adams’ presidency or public subscription, the matching seems to be less effective, degrading the scientific merit and making the funding less secure. In this review of American space exploration, the single-benefactor system seems most similar to the mechanism of the New Space Age. The “rocket billionaires” of today’s world are not necessarily intrinsically motivated, but rather are dispensing massive amounts of funds in

83 MacDonald. The Long Space Age. p. 74 ​ ​

41 the pursuit of some other value. Whereas the original “space exploration barons” sought signalling, the new funders of space exploration are pursuing profit, suggesting an entirely new mechanism. As we enter the era of “rocket billionaires,” the legacy of the original “space exploration billionaires” of the Gilded Age and their indirect contributions to space exploration is thought provoking. This paper has now progressed to a critical historical moment in human space exploration: the advent of spaceflight. In enabling physical access to outer space, spaceflight represents a quantum leap in the history of human space exploration. Despite this important role, spaceflight is the product of the same intellectual marketplace that birthed all previous space exploration efforts. In the forthcoming discussion of spaceflight, we will see how its trajectory is subject to the same framework of influences and motivations that we have seen throughout this paper. Demonstrating that the birth and evolution of spaceflight is the product of the intellectual marketplace is critical to this paper. Doing so connects the New Space Age to our discussion of the intellectual marketplace, allowing us to use the lens of history to more fully understand and contextualize the present moment in space exploration.

42

Part III: Spaceflight

While the great American observatories of the early 20th century were being built, many intrinsically motivated individuals began contemplating the possibility of accessing space itself. Up to this point in human history, the possibility of leaving the Earth’s atmosphere had been i relegated to myths and science fiction. ​ The presence of these stories, which date back thousands ​ of years, gave spaceflight a longstanding cultural presence. As we’ve seen throughout the history of modern space exploration, science and society are constantly in conversation and combine to produce space exploration efforts. Astronomy’s dramatic progress throughout the 19th century, marked by a series of revolutionary discoveries, fueled society’s imaginations and increased space’s cultural significance. Public interest in fantastical space stories soared; stories about space, which combined science and fantasy in some of the first examples of science fiction, flew off shelves and newspaper stands around the world. Literary greats produced masterful and wildly popular space narratives, notably Jules Verne’s 1877 work De la terre à la lune (From the ​ j ​ ​ Earth to the Moon) and H. G. Well’s 1901 piece The First Men in the Moon. ​ These significant ​ ​ ​ ​ works had a demonstrable impact on culture; they impacted language, creating words like “space-ship” and “spacecraft,”84 and were even the inspiration for some of the earliest and most influential movies, including the iconic 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon). ​ ​ ​ The highly-visible presence of space exploration in popular culture not only influenced society, but also had a pivotal role in influencing the rocket pioneers who would transform dreams of spaceflight into reality. In fact, three of the traditional “fathers of spaceflight,” Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, and Wernher von Braun, have credited Jules Verne’s De la terre à la lune as ​ ​ ​ ​ having a profound effect on their fascination with space. Such instances demonstrate the inextricable nature of society and space exploration: not only do cultural influences have a pronounced role in determining the intellectual marketplace, they also impact the quantity, quality, and direction of a given society’s intrinsically motivated population. The importance of popular culture in creating an environment fertile for the seeds of exploration is undeniable. The origins of spaceflight, traced through the lives of several of its founding fathers, provide compelling evidence that the intellectual marketplace continued to define space exploration efforts. This is a critical point and not one that may seem obvious a priori. The ​ ​ advent of spaceflight was the most significant breakthrough in the history of space exploration capabilities since the creation of the telescope three centuries prior. Accomplishing the miracle of spaceflight would require the introduction of entirely new actors in the realm of space

84 “What Year Was the Word Spaceship First Used in?” How Things Fly, The Smithsonian Institution. ​ ​

43 exploration, including new scientific disciplines and new procurement structures. Despite these changes, spaceflight was at its core a product of matching motivations and a continuation of the long history of space exploration. This chapter illuminates how, in the roots of the “Space Age,” we see a continuation and evolution of the intellectual marketplace. The structure and influence of the marketplace during this period is especially important to our understanding of the present moment in spaceflight. Determining a definitive start for the beginning of advanced rocketry is not straightforward. The great irony of rockets, as apogees of technological achievement, is that they k have existed for over a millennium. ​ The first evidence of rockets traces back to 9th century ​ China and invention of gunpowder, which the Chinese used to create fireworks. This general design for rockets, which used a simple fuse system and solid fuel, persisted relatively unaltered for centuries on end. Rockets appeared on the American continent generations before the birth of American rocket pioneer Robert Goddard. Those familiar with the American National Anthem, the “Star Spangled Banner,” will note the lines “And the rocket’s red glare, the ​ ​ bombs bursting in air.”85 The rockets referenced in the lyrics of this iconic American song, penned by Francis Scott Key in 1814, were iron-cased 32-pound missiles targeting Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.86 Though these rockets were certainly more advanced than the fireworks of Chinese antiquity, they bore a remarkably similar design. It would take a brilliant Russian theorist by the name of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky to bring the first fundamental change to rockets in nearly a thousand years. His work, which began a revolution in rocket flight, serves as an appropriate marker for the era of spaceflight and a good place to begin our discussion of the subject. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was born in 1857 in the small Russian town of Izhevskoye, located 300 kilometers southeast of Moscow. Tsiolkovsky had a difficult childhood. At the age of 10, he contracted scarlet fever, which rendered him nearly deaf for the rest of his life. Due to difficulty hearing, he was forced to drop out of school. At 13, the young Tsiolkovsky lost his mother. These experiences shaped Tsiolkovsky into an introverted, reclusive individual. With traditional schooling impossible, he spent his days at home reading everything he could get his hands on. Despite his lack of schooling, Tsiolkovsky proved to have a brilliant mind, particularly in mathematics and the sciences. The works of Jules

85 “The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem.” National Museum of ​ American History, 7 Feb. 2019. ​ 86 Winter, Frank. “The Rockets That Inspired Francis Scott Key.” Air & Space Magazine, The Smithsonian ​ ​ Institution, Sept. 2014.

44 Verne had a particularly strong impression on Tsiolkovsky. As he read in his cramped home, inhabited by his father and 17 siblings, the young man was amazed by Verne’s stories of fantastical adventure. Verne’s De la terre a la lune set Tsiolkovsky’s imagination ablaze and ​ ​ altered the course of his life forever. The story approached spaceflight in a methodical, scientific manner; by mirroring the style and contents of the period’s cutting-edge science, Vernes transformed spaceflight into a serious possibility in the eyes and minds of a captive audience. Inspired, the scientifically-minded Tsiolkovsky became fascinated with the subject. He began writing scientific papers and works of science fiction alike, exploring all elements of the possibility of space travel. Even in his early works, Tsiolkovsky presented a bold, ambitious vision for humans in space. He looked beyond human spaceflight, already a revolutionary notion at this time, and prophesied a future in which humanity extensively colonized outer space. His family recognized his promise and sent him to pursue formal study in Moscow at the age of 16.87 Though he was enrolled in a college, Tsiolkovsky continued to be primarily an autodidact, spending most of his time embracing his voracious appetite for books at the The ​ Rumiantsev Library. It was there that his life would take another meaningful turn. The Rumanistev’s librarian at the time was noted Russian philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov, a founder of the Cosmism movement in 19th and 20th century Russian philosophy. At its core, Cosmism was a transcendent philosophy that believed in the ethical use of science to aid humanity; it saw technology as the means of providing infinite resources, expanding humanity’s reach, and even bringing an end to death itself. Outer space was seen as a realm of limitless potential and played a critical role in Cosmist ideology, as noted by the philosophy’s eponym.88 Cosmism was an important movement during this period of Russian history, influencing the works of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. The impressionable Tsiolkovsky found himself at its epicenter. From this moment on, Tsiolkovsky would dedicate his life to science, technology, and spaceflight in particular in the pursuit of a Cosmist utopia: “My main purpose in life is to do something useful for my fellow ​ men, not to live my life in vain, to propel mankind forward, if only by a fraction. That is why I became interested in that which gave me neither bread nor power, but I am in hopes that my work, perhaps soon, perhaps only in the distant future, will yield society heaps of grain and vast power.”89

87 “KONSTANTIN E. TSIOLKOVSKY: The Father of Astronautics and Rocket Dynamics.” International ​ Space Hall of Fame, New Mexico Museum of Space History. ​ 88 Groys, Boris. Russian Cosmism. MIT Press, 2018. ​ ​ 89 Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin. Dreams of the Earth and Sky: Collected Works of Tsiolkovsky. Jiahu Books, ​ ​ 2017.

45 Following these formative years in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky became a schoolteacher. He remained in this role for the next 48 years, changing locations several times. His main passion continued to be research and writing, to which Tsiolkovsky devoted as much time as possible over the course of his career. In his eyes, scientific research and imaginative science-fiction writing went hand in hand. Tsiolkovsky often engaged in both simultaneously, allowing both elements to feed into one another. He was a prolific writer: over the course of his career, he would produce over 500 scientific papers covering a broad range of space-related subjects. In his many works of science fiction, Tsiolkovsky mused on the many challenges and considerations that would be inherent to human spaceflight. The novel ideas and solutions, such as multi-stage rockets or using gravitational fields to alter trajectory, that he introduced in his science fiction have proven to be key principles in modern spaceflight. His most important contribution was his theoretical work on rocket dynamics. In 1903, he published an equation that described a rocket’s flight based on certain physical parameters. Often referred to as “Tsiolkovsky’s equation” or simply “the rocket equation,” it is the foundation of spaceflight and continues to be relevant to current rocket l design. ​ In addition to his theoretical work, Tsiolkovsky sought to bring the rockets he dreamed ​ of to life. He created designs for flying machines, built Russia’s first wind tunnel,90 and drew plans for liquid-fueled rockets, propelled by liquified hydrogen and oxygen.91 Throughout his life, Tsiolkovsky displayed undeniable brilliance and zealous devotion to space exploration. He expressed the knowledge, skill, and motivation necessary to bring about his Cosmist visions for the future. Despite this, Tsiolkovsky would ultimately fail to put his brilliant theories into practice; he would never successfully build or launch the liquid-fueled rockets about which he wrote extensively. This failure was not due to lack of opportunity: Tsiolkovsky lived for 32 more years after publishing the rocket equation and even received a government pension for the last 14 so that he could pursue research full-time. It was also not due to technical challenges; the first liquid-fueled rockets, launched in 1926, would use designs and technologies that Tsiolkovsky could have had available. Even his groundbreaking theories and works of science fiction had little impact outside of Russia. Despite its release to the general public, Tsiolkovsky’s research was completely unknown on the world stage, even by the era’s other rocket pioneers who were engaging in similar research. By his own admission, Tsiolkovsky recognized that his work was incomplete: “My entire ​ life consisted of musings, calculations, practical works and trials. Many questions remain unanswered; many works are incomplete or unpublished. The most important things still lie

90 Dunbar, Brian. “Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky.” Rocketry, NASA, 5 June 2013. ​ ​ 91 Redd, Nola Taylor. “Konstantin Tsiolkovsky: Russian Father of Rocketry.” Science and Astronomy, ​ ​ Space.com, 27 Feb. 2013.

46 ahead.”92 Tsiolkovsky’s inability to translate his work into any real space exploration efforts ​ serves as an important narrative reminder of the importance of the intellectual marketplace in producing such efforts. Tsiolkovsky’s story parallels that of Copernicus: both men produced revolutionary space-related breakthroughs, which initially had little impact. Whereas Copernicus would eventually make use of the intellectual marketplace via Rheticus’ intervention, Tsiolkovsky, who lived and worked in isolation, did not. With Tsiolkovsky’s story in mind, we turn now to two other influential rocket pioneers, Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun. Though these men were similar to Tsiolkovsky in many ways, their use of the intellectual marketplace enabled them to make liquid-propelled rocket flight a reality. In contrasting their stories with Tsiolkovsky’s, as well as one another’s, we see the intellectual marketplace’s influence in the origins of spaceflight Robert H. Goddard was born in 1882 in Worcester, Massachusetts, a quarter-century after Tsiolkovsky and a world away. Despite this separation, Goddard’s early years were remarkably similar to those of his Russian counterpart. Both became seriously ill at a young age, Tsiolkovsky with scarlet fever and Goddard with tuberculosis.93 Due to these health problems, both took extended leaves from formal education, spending their formative years reading extensively. In their youth, they both expressed a strong natural curiosity and an inclination towards science. As he read newspapers from his childhood home, Goddard was fascinated by stories describing the electrification of whole cities and the instillation of electric street lights. Goddard’s father, Nahum Goddard, showed his son that electricity could be generated by shuffling across the rug, prompting Goddard to conduct his first experiment. Already fascinated with flight, Goddard hoped to levitate by removing the zinc from a battery, holding it in his hand, and rubbing his feet across the carpet. The failure of this first experiment reinforced Goddard’s infatuation with flight, a sentiment fostered by Goddard’s parents. With the aid of a telescope from his mother and father, he carefully studied the dynamics of birds flying through the air. He took diligent notes, comparing them with any publication he could find on the subject. In fact, upon reading the published findings of Samuel Langley, aviation pioneer and competitor of the Wright Brothers, Goddard disagreed with some of its conclusions; he even attempted to publish his opposition to this giant of early aviation. Goddard read volumes of such scientific works in these early days, notably Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia ​ Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) whose famous “Third Law of ​ m ​ ​ Motion” is the basis of rocket flight. ​ However, the readings that had the most profound impact ​ on Goddard’s life were not these great scientific texts, but works of science fiction instead. The stories of spectacular space adventures like H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and Jules Verne’s De ​ ​ ​ la terre à la lune opened Goddard’s eyes to futuristic concepts of flight. Goddard was transfixed. ​ On October 19, 1899, while seated in the top branches of the family cherry tree, he had a vivid daydream of powerful devices capable of launching humans beyond the atmosphere, to Mars and beyond. The experience was profound, as described by Goddard later in life: “I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended. Existence at last seemed very purposive.”94 From that moment on, Goddard committed himself to making spaceflight a reality. The inspired Goddard, still in high school, submitted an article to Popular Science News entitled ​ ​ “The Navigation of Space.” Though it was not published on grounds that it was significant to

92 “KONSTANTIN E. TSIOLKOVSKY: The Father of Astronautics and Rocket Dynamics.” International ​ ​ Space Hall of Fame, New Mexico Museum of Space History. ​ 93 Wills, Matthew. “Robert H. Goddard, the Forgotten Father of Rocketry.” Science and Technology, ​ ​ JSTOR Daily, 16 Oct. 2017. 94 Sierra, Walter. Beyond the Saga of Rocket Science: the Dawn of the Space Age. Xlibris, 2017. ​ ​

47 “the near future,” the article, written over a half-century prior to manned spaceflight, demonstrated Goddard’s remarkable foresight. This visionary foresight would be a hallmark of Goddard’s career. Though it was his greatest strength in designing and testing rockets, it also led to misunderstandings of his work and of the man himself, as we will see. After graduating as valedictorian of his high school class, Goddard brought his passion for flight to Worcester Polytechnic Institute as an undergraduate then to Clark University for his graduate studies and PhD, both located in his hometown. Returning to Clark University as a professor and research fellow, Goddard dove deeper into the nuances of rockets and began to investigate innovations that would be central to his career. In a 1907 article published in Scientific American, Goddard discussed the use of ​ gyroscopes in stabilizing flight. Not only would this be a key aspect to Goddard’s devices, but it was also a topic that Tsiolkovsky discussed four years prior in his article “The Investigation of Space by Means of Reactive Devices."95 Two years later, Goddard first mentioned the potential benefits of liquid-fueled rockets, another subject that both he and Tsiolkovsky arrived at independently. Goddard saw tremendous potential in these kinds of rockets and made them the focus of his research. After several years of study and experimentation, Goddard was awarded his first two patents in 1914 for novel rocket designs. These patents would prove to be the first of many: in total, Goddard would be credited with 214 patents, most awarded after his death. Goddard’s early research efforts showed promise, particularly in improving rocket design and efficiency. He recognized, despite this early success, that there was only so much he could accomplish in his role at Clark University. If he was to create the rockets from his cherry tree daydream, Goddard knew that he would need more substantial funding than Clark could provide. With this in mind, Goddard set out to secure the funding he required, which would turn out to be a lifelong quest. Two large institutions would come to Goddard’s aid early on: the U.S. Military and the Smithsonian Institution. These entirely different organizations would be the primary supporters of Goddard’s work over the years, each with different visions for the use of Goddard’s rocket technology. The Smithsonian Institution, created in 1846 as “an establishment for the increase ​ and diffusion of knowledge among men,"96 was interested in the potential contributions of such rocket devices to the advancement of science. In his first funding request to Secretary of the Smithsonian Charles Greely Abbot in 1916, Goddard stressed the potential scientific applications ​ of his rockets, stating “the device will, I am certain, be of very great importance to pure science,

95 Lytkin, Vladimir V. “The Life and Work of Tsiolkovsky.” The Foundations of the Space Age, Tsiolkovsky ​ ​ Museum. 96 “Legal Nature of the Smithsonian.” Legal History, The Smithsonian Institution. ​ ​

48 especially to meterology [sic].”97 The Institution and its leadership were impressed by Goddard’s research and his commitment to science and awarded him $5,000 to continue his work. In writing to the Smithsonian in 1916, Goddard not only secured the necessary resources during a pivotal time in his research but also established a patron-client connection with an important, well-endowed institution. In the same letter, Goddard interestingly also discusses potential military uses for his rocket technology:

My device will be capable of propelling masses, such as expolsives [sic], for very great distances, and hence would very likely be useful in warfare… although [my research] may indeed have [military] applications, I feel that its possibilities in warfare may be somewhat limited. In short, the exclusive use of the device for warfare would, I am certain, be a loss to science.98

Herein, we are offered a glimpse into Goddard’s mindset as he first enters the intellectual marketplace. Even in his first letter to the Smithsonian, we find evidence of Goddard’s willingness to use his devices as tools of patronage, regardless of the source of funding or use for his rockets. Goddard’s primary concern, above all else, was advancing his research. The American entrance in the First World War in 1917 brought about pronounced interest in advancing military technology and a surge of available funding. Goddard jumped at this war-time opportunity and partnered with the Army to weaponize his rocket devices. Though these efforts would result in a prototype of a portable rocket launcher, a precursor to the “bazooka,” this partnership with the military would not turn into the long-term funding pipeline that Goddard had hoped for; the prototype was demonstrated just a week before the war’s end and the Army declined to purchase any. Though constantly searching for potential uses for rockets as a means of funding his research, Goddard remained, at his core, committed to science and space travel. Following the war, Goddard returned to Clark University to conduct his research. Goddard used this time to compile his research results and spacefaring ambitions into a single, grand document. Published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1919, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes was Goddard’s ​ ​ magnum opus and a seminal work in rocketry. The National Air and Space Museum describes it ​ as “a serious engineering study filled with quadratic equations and tabular data designed to ​ prove that existing solid-propellant rockets could carry instruments into space.”99 Goddard, reclusive by nature, tended to publish only what he thought necessary; though in a private ​ document to the Smithsonian around the same time he outlines such revolutionary applications ​ as ion-powered spaceflight, photographing other planets up close, and using solar energy for ​ ​ ​ spacecraft, Goddard chose not to include such ideas in A Method of Reaching Extreme ​ Altitudes.100 He did, however, mention the possibility of launching a payload to the dark side of ​ the moon, which would explode on impact and be visible from telescopes on Earth. The brief ​

97 Goddard, Robert. “Goddard's Proposal to the Smithsonian.” Received by Charles Greely Abbot, Smithsonian Institution Archives, The Smithsonian Institution, 27 Sept. 1916. p. 2 ​ 98 “Goddard's Proposal to the Smithsonian.” p. 1-2 99 Crouch, Tom. “Robert Goddard and the Smithsonian.” National Air and Space Museum, The ​ ​ Smithsonian Institution. 100 Goddard, Robert. “ ‘Report Concerning Further Developments’ in Space Travel” Received by Charles ​ Greely Abbot, Smithsonian Institution Archives, The Smithsonian Institution, March 1920. ​ ​

49 inclusion of this theoretical moon mission, just eight lines out of a 69-page document, might increase general interest in his research, Goddard thought, and inspire more funding. To Goddard’s amazement, national and international newspapers fixed on his publication, making him a household name. As far away as Russia, the public reading of Goddard’s work drew such a crowd that members of the guard were summoned to maintain order; ironically, most in attendance were likely unaware of their own rocket pioneer, Tsiolkovsky, located just a few hundred miles away. Much of this attention was due to the fact that his work was published by the Smithsonian Institution, a large, well-known, and well-respected scientific organization. Their publishing his work allowed it to transcend the circles of like-minded individuals, unlike Tsiolkovsky or Copernicus prior to Rheticus’ arrival. The news seized on Goddard’s possible moon mission and largely ignored the rest of the document’s lengthy, dry, and technical language. To many, such an idea seemed preposterous, especially since most believed it n impossible for rockets to leave Earth’s atmosphere. ​ Though few ​ questioned Goddard’s scientific results, the popular press painted him as a mad scientist, whose grandiose visions of spaceflight had no bearing in reality. A particularly vicious and damaging attack came from the New York Times in the form of a January 13, 1920, article ​ ​ written by the editorial board. The article, entitled “A Severe Strain on Credulity,” personally attacked Goddard and his credibility as a scientist:

That Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action and reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.101

Though Goddard attempted to defend his name, the reputational damage had largely been done. Goddard had been so slandered and so misunderstood that even his hometown newspaper 1 102 ​ began to mock him, running headlines like “Moon rocket misses target by 238,799 ⁄2 miles.” ​​ ​ ​ Eventually, Goddard would be vindicated by the same papers that once attacked him with such rancor. On July 17, 1969, a day after a rocket had successfully launched the Apollo 11 astronauts ​ on their trip to the Moon, The New York Times ran a brief article, barely 60 words, simply titled ​ ​ “A Correction,” stating simply: “Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th Century and it is now definitely established a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.”103 Unfortunately for Goddard, it came too late: when the Times issued its correction, 49 years had passed since ​ ​ the original article and Goddard had been dead for nearly a quarter-century.

101 New York Times Editorial Board. “A Severe Strain on Credulity.” The New York Times, 13 Jan. 1920. ​ ​ 102 Potter, Christopher. The Earth Gazers: on Seeing Ourselves. Head of Zeus, 2017. ​ ​ 103 “A Correction.” The New York Times, 17 July 1969. ​ ​

50 These articles and their impact on his reputation only compounded the difficulties Goddard faced in his quest for funding. He remained in his academic post, slowly improving his rocket research and designs, while constantly appealing for funds to enable his more ambitious plans. During this time, he leaned particularly on the Smithsonian Institution, who continued to provide a steady stream of money. In a 1930 letter to Abbot, Goddard reflected on the Smithsonian’s important role during this period: “[I am] particularly grateful for your interest, encouragement, and far-sightedness. I feel that I cannot overestimate the value of your backing, at times when hardly anyone else in the world could see anything of importance in the undertaking."104 However, the Smithsonian could only provide Goddard with so much funding and progress was relatively slow. It would take until 1926 for Goddard to successfully launch a liquid-fueled rocket, the first of its kind. Though certainly a landmark moment in rocket history, the contraption only managed to fly a few dozen feet in the air. He continued similar rocket tests for several years until, upon burning down a field in the neighboring town of Auburn in 1929, he was asked to desist.105 Around this time, Goddard attracted the attention of famed aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh. The two shared a similar passion for aviation and both men dreamed of a fantastic future for flight. Following Goddard’s harsh treatment in the papers, Lindbergh was one of the only people Goddard felt he could open up to. His friendship with Lindbergh proved to be extremely useful. Lindbergh had many powerful and wealthy friends. He also possessed a name that commanded respect, something that Goddard decidedly lacked. Thanks to Lindbergh’s support, Goddard managed to find a generous benefactor in the form of the Guggenheim family. Their donation of $100,000 (roughly $3,000,000 currently) allowed Goddard and a small research team to relocate to Roswell, New Mexico in 1930. There, shielded from public scrutiny, Goddard refined his rocket designs, building larger, more elaborate, and more powerful devices. Unlike the “hoopskirt” rockets he built at Clark University, these devices took on a shape more familiar to modern viewers: pointed tip, smooth and elongated body, and aerodynamic fins. During this time, Goddard made important innovations, many of which would be critical elements of modern rockets. Among other refinements, Goddard applied gyroscopes for improved steering, multiple combustion chambers for improved thrust, and turbopumps for lighter, more powerful rockets. Despite the engineering successes achieved at Roswell, Goddard’s work continued to be plagued by challenges throughout the 1930’s. The Great Depression greatly reduced the number of benefactors who might fund the dreams of a rocket pioneer. Even those who had agreed to fund him, such as the Guggenheim family, found themselves less inclined to acquiesce to Goddard’s ever-increasing budgetary needs. In addition, Goddard’s original benefactors, namely the Smithsonian Institution and the military, were reluctant to spend resources so that a “mad

104 Goddard, Robert. “Goddard to Secretary Abbot Thanking Smithsonian for its Support” Received ​ ​ ​ by Charles Greely Abbot, Smithsonian Institution Archives, The Smithsonian Institution, May 28, 1920. ​ ​ 105 Wills, Matthew. “Robert H. Goddard, the Forgotten Father of Rocketry.” Science and Technology, ​ ​ JSTOR Daily, 16 Oct. 2017.

51 scientist” could build explosives in a secluded corner of the American Southwest. Consequently, Goddard consistently lacked the budget he desired and felt he desperately needed. For nearly two years, he lost funding altogether and had to return to his post at Clark University. Even when he had enough support to pay his staff and acquire parts, adequate funding was always a constraint on rocket development. When the Guggenheim’s funding resumed in 1934 after a two year hiatus, it was only for $18,000 per year and required annual renewal.106 This sum not only precluded Goddard from many of the advanced technologies upon which he relied, but the structure of year-by-year renewal prevented the long term planning and purchasing schedules that are necessary to robust rocket development. Though Goddard never called the experiences at Roswell a failure, and indeed much was achieved during his time there, this period was characterized by frequent frustration and, at best, qualified success. In the decade he spent at Roswell, Goddard would launch 30 rockets in total and only manage to reach a maximum altitude of roughly 9,000 feet.107 To put this in perspective, Germany’s rocket scientists had reached heights of nearly 10 kilometers by the time of Goddard’s highest flight, over three times as high, and would push to well over 100 kilometers just a few years later.108 With the outset of the Second World War and the American war machine roaring into life, Goddard sought out military applications for his research and technologies. From his past funding woes, Goddard realized that only the Federal Government, and the Department of Defense in particular, had the capacity to endow Goddard’s ambitious goals. He sought out military contacts wherever he could find them and appealed as best he could for the construction of long-range missiles. Even with support from his powerful friends, Goddard was unable to convince the military to invest in the ambitious plans for his rockets. In the end, Goddard would sign a relatively minor contract with the Navy to develop the “Jet-Assisted Take-Off” (JATO) program, which would use rockets to help planes take flight. During this period, it seems, the American government simply was not interested in Goddard’s devices or his grand ideas and was immune to his solicitations. Goddard was a sickly man his whole life, a remnant of his childhood ailments. The choice of Roswell as a testing site was due in part to his physician’s recommendations, as a means of easing his respiratory difficulties. Despite protests from his wife and friends, Goddard agreed to

106 Gainor, Chris. To a Distant Day: the Rocket Pioneers. University of Nebraska Press, 2008. ​ ​ 107 “Goddard Rocket Launching Site (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. ​ ​ Department of the Interior 108 Neufeld, Michael J. The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile ​ Era. Harvard University Press, 1996. ​

52 move to Annapolis, Maryland, to partake in the JATO project. In Annapolis, Goddard’s health deteriorated, leading to his death in 1945 at 63 years old. Robert Goddard’s death attracted little public attention; a quarter-century had passed since the release of A Method of Achieving ​ Extreme Altitudes, most of which Goddard had spent researching in private, avoiding unwanted ​ attention. Though he had more of a direct impact than Tsiolkovsky in terms of directly advancing spaceflight, Goddard’s contributions were limited and largely unappreciated at the time. NASA historian J.D. Hunley characterized Goddard’s legacy as follows:

On the whole, his technical and theoretical achievements, while impressive, did not contribute significantly to American rocketry … he failed to have more than an ​ inspirational influence on most specific developments in modern rocketry […] even though he anticipated a great many of these developments in the patented components of his rockets.109

Though several factors contributed to Goddard’s ultimate inability to create a device capable of extreme altitudes, such as his consistently poor health and his “personal inclination to mysticism,”110 the lack of ample or consistent funding was pivotal. When Goddard’s dreams of spaceflight came to fruition in the decades following his death, it was the result of “large-scale organization and lots of government spending” and not “brilliant and quirky inventors” such as himself.111 In short, it was Goddard’s inability to adequately stimulate the intellectual marketplace, thereby negating the necessary resources for costly research, that fettered his contributions to spaceflight. This is not to say that he was entirely unsuccessful in attracting resources; the fact that Goddard achieved substantially more in terms of concrete contributions to spaceflight than Tsiolkovsky did, despite the pair’s many similarities, can largely be attributed to Goddard’s more active presence in the intellectual marketplace. Throughout his life, however, Goddard was sure that he could have more successfully brought about his dreams of spaceflight had he simply had more resources. Goddard would come face to face with this sentiment in dramatic fashion in 1945 when he first laid eyes on a captured German V-2 rocket. At his research site in Annapolis, Goddard examined the inner workings of this fearsome weapon and was astounded by what he saw. The V-2 was filled with many of the same technological innovations and improvements that Goddard had worked so hard to achieve independently over the course of his career. Despite several technological similarities, the V-2 bore almost no

109 J. D. Hunley, “The Enigma of Robert H. Goddard." Technology and Culture Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), ​ ​ p. 327-350 110 Ibid 111 Wills, Matthew. “Robert H. Goddard, the Forgotten Father of Rocketry.” Science and Technology, ​ ​ JSTOR Daily, 16 Oct. 2017.

53 resemblance to the rockets built by Goddard and his Roswell team. Over four stories tall and wider than a grown man, the V-2 was a behemoth. Weighing nearly 34,000 pounds at liftoff, it carried its payload past the limits of the atmosphere and into space before descending once again to strike targets hundreds of miles away.112 As Goddard inspected the V-2, he was looking at what he had dreamed of creating, at what was possible when the intellectual marketplace operates at full force. The V-2 missile, this great and terrible machine, was the brainchild of the brilliant German engineer Wernher von Braun, the final rocket pioneer to be discussed in this paper. Turning now to von Braun’s fascinating career, the embodiment of “large-scale organization and government spending,” we see what is possible, for better or for worse, when the intellectual marketplace is fully activated. Wernher von Braun was born in 1912 in Wirsitz, Germany, located in present-day Poland. From an early age, von Braun expressed an interest in outer space. His well-off, aristocratic family supported his passion, supplying him with a telescope and encouraging him when he struggled with mathematics early on. When he first came across Die Rakete zu den ​ Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Planetary Space) by the German rocket pioneer Hermann ​ Oberth, von Braun was stricken. Suddenly, after reading Oberth’s work, von Braun’s dreams of space exploration seemed possible. Newly inspired, von Braun set about mastering physics and mathematics. He proceeded to graduate at the top of his class and, after graduating from high school, he went to Berlin to study mechanical engineering. During this time, von Braun pursued his spacefaring ambitions wherever possible. In 1928, he joined the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel), ​ ​ which, though technically an amateur rocket organization, boasted remarkably talented members, including several future inductees into the Space Hall of Fame and even Hermann Oberth o himself. ​ Founded just a year prior to von Braun’s joining, the ​ Society was created by an eclectic group, (“church administrator Johannes Winkler, rocket experimenter Max Valier and science writer Willy Ley”) as part of the wave of interest in spaceflight resulting from Oberth’s Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ​ publication in 1923.113 Though the Society took on a wide range of functions, including as advisors for the landmark 1929 science-fiction film (“Woman in the Moon”), its primary goal was ​ ​ making spaceflight a reality. von Braun’s passion and immense ​ ​ talent were immediately recognized and put to use during his years at university. For a young engineer, the Society was a dream come true: von Braun found himself working side-by-side with Oberth developing advanced, liquid-fueled rockets as a member of a well-funded, well-organized group of nearly 500 rocket devotees. Around the same time Robert Goddard was packing his things for Roswell, circumstances began to change for the Society for Space Travel and its talented member Wernher von Braun. By 1931, the Society’s rocket experiments, comprised mainly of

112 Kranzberg, Melvin. “The Highway to Space.” This New Ocean, NASA. ​ ​ 113 “Verein Für Raumschiffahrt (VfR, Society for Space Travel).” Verein Für Raumschiffahrt (VfR, Society ​ for Space Travel) | Pioneers of Flight, The Smithsonian Institution. ​

54 static engine tests and a few launches, had caught the attention of the German Army, who saw tremendous potential in such devices. Despite the Treaty of Versailles’ harsh limitations of German military strength, it did not include any specific provisions on rockets; evidently the Allied forces saw little potential military value in rockets, much to the frustration of Robert Goddard. The German Army gathered a small group of the Society’s engineers, including the 21-year old von Braun, to design and build rockets with potential military use. With full access to adequate facilities and necessary funding, von Braun and his team achieved remarkable progress during this period. Their research efforts culminated in a launch reaching an altitude of two miles and formed the basis of von Braun’s doctoral thesis on liquid-fueled rocket capabilities.114 As von Braun and his team worked diligently to improve their rockets, Germany was in the midst of a dramatic transformation. By the time von Braun submitted his thesis in 1934, Adolf Hitler had been named Chancellor of Germany. The Nazi party made rocket societies like the Verein für Raumschiffahrt illegal and consolidated its work ​ ​ under the auspices of the military. With the Nazis in power, all rocket research took the form of weapons development. von Braun, who had been working with the German Army for several years, did not seem to mind. After all, the Nazis viewed rockets as potentially valuable tools of warfare and, as von Braun was about to discover, were prepared to go to extreme lengths to support the development of advanced rockets. In 1936, the German military purchased a portion of land on Germany’s northern coast, located on a remote peninsula jutting into the Baltic. There on the island of Usedom, the military established two cutting-edge research facilities: the “Air Force Test Site” (Erprobungsstelle der Luftwaffe) and the “Peenemünde Army Research Center” ​ ​ (Heeresversuchsanstalt Peenemünde).115 In creating this facility, described as the “world’s ​ ​ largest and most modern rearmament center,”116 the Nazis hoped to create the futuristic weapons that would allow them to signal German superiority and spread their influence. Though still a young man, von Braun found himself as the Technical Director of the Peenemünde Center. This was both a major responsibility and a tremendous opportunity. Peenemünde was a large, robust research facility that the German military had spent roughly $700 million (in today’s currency) to establish. It was extensive and complex, comprised of nine departments and thousands of workers. Thanks to the nearly unlimited budget with which Peenemünde operated in its early years, it became a world-leading center for technological development. From the biggest, most advanced wind tunnel, capable of reaching several times

114 von Braun, Wernher. “Lot 3212: VON BRAUN’S PH.D. DISSERTATION.” Bonhams, 4 Dec. 2007. ​ ​ 115 Chen, C. Peter. “Peenemünde Army Research Center.” World War II Database, Dec. 2017. ​ ​ 116 Ramani, Madhvi. “The German Village That Changed the War.” BBC Travel, BBC, 30 June 2017. ​ ​

55 the speed of sound, to the world’s first closed-circuit television apparatus, the site was a remarkable testbed for innovation. Its most impressive developments, however, belonged to its military devices, the creation of which were the site’s primary directive. At Peenemünde, von Braun and his team created a slew of advanced missiles. Many of these weapons, such as the radio-guided, winged missile Schmetterling (“Butterfly”), were far p ​ ​ ​ ahead of their time, often taking on a mythical quality. ​ Though Peenemünde produced a ​ spectrum of armament technologies, its crown-jewel was its long range ballistic missile program. Though technically titled the A-4 (Aggregat 4) by German Army Ordnance A-4, it was ​ ​ given a new title when Joseph Goebbels and his Propaganda Ministry announced the rocket’s existence: the Vergeltungswaffe Zwei ("Vengeance Weapon Two"), or simply V-2.117 The V-2’s ​ development began in 1938 when German Army Chief Walther von Brauchitsch ordered that alterations be made to Peenemünde to enable the ​ missile’s construction. Though the rocket’s development was not always smooth over the next several years, including acts of sabotage by British intelligence agencies, the project meant a great deal to von Braun. Described by a German artillery officer as an “engineer’s dream,”118 the V-2 program allowed von Braun to build the spaceflight technologies he had always imagined. That these rockets carried explosives to and from outer space rather than astronauts was just a technicality to von Braun. In fact, this spacefaring focus got von Braun into trouble during this period. In discussing the rocket’s development with colleagues, von Braun made comments suggesting that his primary interest in the V-2 was its future application to enabling space travel rather than the ongoing war effort. When an informant who overheard the conversation reported these comments to the Gestapo, von Braun was detained for several weeks. By 1943, the V-2 was ready. Initially, Hitler was skeptical about using rockets as effective weapons, which had led to delays in the V-2’s development. Hitler’s attitude towards them altered wildly after being shown footage of successful V-2 tests, at which point he made the q creation of these weapons a priority. ​ Before long, a stream of missiles were being launched at ​ Allied cities in England and on the Continent; nearly 4,000 V-2’s would be used, usually to attack civilian populations, causing roughly 12,000 casualties.119 von Braun appeared indifferent to the fact that his beloved spaceflight technology was being used to terrorize noncombatants, a notion musically expressed by the satirist Tom Lehrer in his biting 1965 song “Wernher von Braun”:

117 “Missile, Surface-to-Surface, V-2 (A-4).” National Air and Space Museum, The Smithsonian ​ ​ Institution, 10 June 2018. 118 Ramani, Madhvi. “The German Village That Changed the War.” BBC Travel, BBC, 30 June 2017. ​ ​ 119 “Missile, Surface-to-Surface, V-2 (A-4).” National Air and Space Museum, The Smithsonian ​ ​ Institution, 10 June 2018.

56 Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun A man whose allegiance Is ruled by expedience Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown ‘Nazi, Schmazi!’ says Wernher von Braun

Don't say that he's hypocritical Say rather that he's apolitical ‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!’ says Wernher von Braun120

The process by which these V-2 rockets were created is horrifying. To keep up with production demand, Nazi leadership ordered thousands of slave laborers from concentration camps to assist in the creation of V-2’s. Conditions for these tens of thousands of workers, both at Peenemünde and other sites, were appalling and inhumane, as overseers literally worked the slave laborers to death. Though it is certain that von Braun was aware of the use of slave labor, the extent to which he bears responsibility for the atrocities that occured in the production of V-2’s remains controversial.r ​ By the end of 1944, it had become clear to Wernher von Braun and his team of Peenemünde scientists that Nazi Germany was going to lose the war. As the situation continued to deteriorate and the Allies marched ever-closer, von Braun began to formulate a plan to continue his work after the war. He decided that the best option was for he and his large science team to surrender to the Americans. By this time, the V-2’s existence was major world news and von Braun was sure that the Americans would value his services. He and his team had demonstrated the rocket’s tremendous potential; with tensions between the Soviets and other Allies rising rapidly, each side scrambled to capture as many of these German rocket scientists as possible. The advancing Soviets raced to capture Peenemünde, securing the site in May, 1945, less than a month after the site’s last V-2 launch. To their dismay, they arrived to find Peenemünde in ruin, destroyed by the many scientists who had fled. When informed that most of von Braun and his team had eluded Soviet capture, Stalin furiously described the situation as “intolerable.”121 Though Soviet forces would eventually capture and make use of hundreds of Nazi rocket scientists, the United States struck an early blow in these early stages of the Space Race. s Through “Operation Paperclip,” ​ the Americans ​

120 Tom Lehrer. Wernher von Braun, Jimmy Hilliard, San Francisco, California, July 1965. ​ ​ 121 Kranzberg, Melvin. “The Highway to Space.” This New Ocean, NASA. ​ ​

57 captured over 1,600 high-priority scientists,122 including von Braun, listed as the #1 target on blacklists of Nazi scientists, and 118 of key members of the Peenemünde team. Soon after his capture, von Braun found himself in White Sands, New Mexico, continuing his rocket research, this time for the U.S Army Ordnance Corps. He and his team had a tremendous impact on developing American rocket capabilities during this post-war period. With the Cold War and spaceflight taking center-stage in global geopolitics, von Braun became the focus of national and international attention. In his role as chief of the Army’s ballistic-weapons program, he moved in 1952 to Huntsville, Alabama, a town now referred to as “the Rocket City.” With NASA’s creation in 1958, von Braun finally had the opportunity to do what he had always dreamed: build rockets for the purpose of going to outer space. As the director of the Hunstsville-based NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, von Braun was a driving force behind the agency’s Space Race-era mission, from Mercury, to Gemini, to Apollo, and beyond.t ​ It is at this point that our discussion of space exploration rejoins the traditional Space Age narrative. There exists a vast, high-quality body of work surrounding this traditional ​ narrative. The story of this period relatively well-known, punctuated by key elements: the Space Race, the first Moon landing, the International Space Station, the Shuttle missions, and various NASA robotic missions like Hubble, the Mars rovers, the Voyager missions, and many others. This period is a cultural touchstone intimately familiar to much the American public, many of whom have witnessed some, if not all, of it firsthand. A lengthy discussion of the complexities of this period is beyond the scope of this paper; restating the conventional narrative would do little to advance its arguments. This paper looks to contextualize NASA-era space exploration within the historical context of its predecessors, demonstrating that they all operate as products of the same intellectual marketplace. For readers interested in a discussion of space exploration during this period as a product of the intellectual marketplace, I highly recommend Alexander MacDonald’s The Long Space Age. ​ ​ With the stories of Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, and von Braun now completed, the role of the intellectual marketplace in the origins of spaceflight is apparent. In contrasting these rocket pioneers, we see the importance of mechanisms in determining space exploration outputs. Though the three men were remarkably similar in many ways, the extent to which they differentially affected progress is indicative of just how important mechanisms are. This represents a continuation of a trend we saw in earlier periods of patronage, public subscription, or single benefactors. In addition, this period demonstrated the marriage of intrinsic motivation with others more dramatically and catastrophically than we saw in previous periods. Though other motivations have always manifested themselves in modern space exploration efforts, as demonstrated in this paper, the possible consequences have compounded exponentially as technology has improved. Nowhere is this more evident than the use of space exploration technologies for military purposes over the years, a topic discussed at length in Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s book Accessory to War. For instance, in the story of Galileo, we saw Venetian military ​ ​ leaders invest in the telescope, the period’s cutting-edge technology, for its strategic use in defense and warfare. A few hundred years later, space technologies developed by Nazi leaders led to the V-2, which was used to intentionally kill civilians by the thousands and terrorize entire countries. As technologies continue to improve, understanding the important influence of these other motivations is essential. As a byproduct of both motivations for exploration and warfare, spaceflight has been engaging in a Faustian struggle since its inception. While spaceflight has enabled amazing space telescopes, satellites that have revolutionized the modern world, and put men on the Moon, it also has created weaponry capable of unfathomable destruction. In

122 Chen, C. Peter. “Peenemünde Army Research Center.” World War II Database, Dec. 2017. ​ ​

58 addition to revolutionizing war on Earth, spaceflight has also opened up outer space as a potential new battlefield. The discussion surrounding the militarization of space has been ongoing since the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967, but has become increasingly pressing in recent years due to the proliferation of these technologies and our ever-increasing societal dependence on satellites, and thus a safe space environment. "[The Russians and the Chinese] ​ have been building [space] weapons, testing [space] weapons, building weapons to operate from the Earth in space, jamming weapons, laser weapons, and they have not kept it secret," said General John Hyten, the Head of United States Strategic Command, in a speech in 2018. With the ongoing militarization of outer space, the threat of “space war” looms larger with each passing year, as discussed in the ominously titled Popular Mechanics article “No Treaty Will ​ ​ Stop Space Weapons” : “The reality is that a slew of interesting, martial systems have been researched, tested, and even fielded over the decades. Orbit is already a pivotal battleground. And there’s not a piece of paper in the world that can stop it.”123 The interwoven nature of spaceflight and the military serves as a backdrop for our discussion of the current era in spaceflight. As we’ve seen thus far, each new mechanism is reflected in the emergence of a new output: patronage produced manuscripts, public subscription produced civic observatories, single benefactor produced major research observatories, and so on. It is reasonable to expect that a new mechanism, if established, would bring about a new output as well. Given the military’s role as a principal “buyer” of spaceflight from its inception to present day (jump started its creation, shaped its trajectory, and continues to play an important role), the future of this role will be key question in determining what the output of the New Space Age will be.

123 Pappalardo, Joe. “Space Weapons Are Coming and Nothing Can Stop Them Now.” Satellites, Popular ​ ​ Mechanics, 15 Feb. 2018,

59 Looking Back & Looking Ahead

Now that we’ve completed our analysis of modern space efforts, let us briefly review the contents of this thesis before returning our attention to the New Space Age. Our analysis of the intellectual marketplace and its role in producing space efforts opened at the roots of modern astronomy. We began in 16th century Europe, discussing Nicolaus Copernicus and the publication of his heliocentric theories. Though Copernicus had created his revolutionary model for the solar system long before Rheticus’ arrival, his ideas were all but unknown until the intervention of the intellectual marketplace via the mechanism of patronage. In closely examining Copernicus’ life and the details of his publications, we saw how patronage not only brought modern astronomy into existence, but also gave it a specific form in accordance with courtly ideals. Moving then to Tycho Brahe and his protégé Johannes Kepler, the influence of ​ ​ patronage on early astronomy developed further. Not only did astronomy’s style reflect the aesthetic principles of European courts, but astronomy’s ultimate purpose, as defined by Kepler, emerged as a result of a patronage dispute. Advancing chronologically to Galileo, we saw the marriage between early astronomy and patronage become complete. Galileo’s invention of the telescope and subsequent discoveries with the device were characterized by a complete pursuit of patronage. Next, we traveled to early America, a country that would later lead the pursuit of space exploration. Throughout American history, space exploration activities took on increasing societal significance in the New World, which corresponded with increases in their perceived signalling value. As America matured, the observatory established itself as the preeminent means of space exploration and underwent a fascinating evolution throughout the course of the American Observatory Movement. This brought us to the origins of the next great development in cosmic discovery: spaceflight. From the stories of influential rocket pioneers Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, and Wernher von Braun, we saw how the lives of these men, though quite similar at first, would be molded by the intellectual marketplace, leading them on vastly different trajectories with dramatic consequences. In tracing this remarkable history, several central themes have become apparent. The first is the concept of the intellectual marketplace, which this paper has discussed at length. The intellectual marketplace has shown itself to be an inherent and inextricable component of modern space exploration, dating back at least as far back as Copernicus. As such, the various iterations of space exploration over the years have been manifestations of the intellectual marketplace, which has brought them into existence and given them shape. The necessity of the intellectual marketplace is predicated on the fact that space exploration, historically speaking, is not an activity that has been capable of generating resources in and of itself, and actually has tended to require significant sunk costs. By matching the intrinsically motivated, those interested in space exploration but who lack resources, with sources of funding, who are willing to divulge resources to these endeavors based on some ascribed monetary value, the intellectual marketplace has been an engine of exploration. This marketplace has not operated arbitrarily, but rather has matched the “suppliers” and “consumers” via societally-determined mechanisms. By matching these separate yet interdependent groups, mechanisms produce outputs that blend each group’s motivations. In this way, no instance of space exploration is “purely scientific,” but also exhibits some other appreciable qualities, which may or may not be correlated to its scientific merit. As society continuously evolves, so do these “sellers,” “buyers,” and the links between the two factions. With technological innovation, the intrinsically motivated dream of new ways to investigate the

60 universe and devise new devices with which to unlock its secrets. At the same time, cultural interest in space changes and the signalling value of space endeavors fluctuates, as well as the exogenous shifting of resource availability. Since mechanisms are contingent upon societal forces, shifts tend to dissolve old mechanisms and allow new ones to form. In this paper, we have seen this process of new mechanisms have supplanting the old repeat several times since the days of Copernicus. We have also seen pronounced differences between these mechanisms; each mechanism is unique in its ability to motivate resources and different mechanisms lend themselves to different forms. The framework of the intellectual marketplace and its societally-dependent mechanisms is critical to the emergence of formalized space exploration in the modern era and the evolution of purpose, style, and scope of space exploration products. Equipped with this framework, we find ourselves better able to make sense of the seemingly enigmatic New Space Age that has emerged in recent years. By comparison, the conventional Space Age narrative appears somewhat myopic. In limiting its definition of space exploration to the period defined by the mechanism of federally-funded space agencies, this narrative ignores key elements and trends examined in this thesis. With a more complete view provided by this thesis’ framework, we can interpret the conventional Space Age, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 62 years ago, to be a recently-developed mechanism with respect to the nearly 500 years of history discussed in this paper. That the traditional narrative is an incomplete one is evidenced in part by the erroneous predictions of the “end of the space age.” Now that we find ourselves transitioning into a critically-important New Space Age, one the conventional narrative largely fails to explain, this paper serves to contextualize this New Space Age and elucidate the longstanding forces that have propagated its emergence. In so doing, it is my hope that this paper allows for a more complete understanding of the present moment in spaceflight and a greater degree of clarity for those attempting to navigate the New Space Age. A crucial and novel aspect of the New Space Age is the entrance of corporations motivated by profit. As such, this period has the potential to not only result in a new mechanism, but the fundamentally impact the role of the intellectual marketplace in the production of space exploration efforts. Though it certainly will not cease to exist in the New Space Age, the intellectual marketplace is likely to undergo dramatic changes as more and more companies pursue so-called “non-traditional space activities.” With these likely changes in mind, how will the New Space Age impact space exploration? This is question is extremely important, yet difficult to answer at this early stage in the period’s development. We have seen how each new mechanism has brought about its own corresponding form of space exploration. What new products will the New Space Age bring? Already, there have been remarkable developments during this period. For instance, in 2007, Google announced the creation of its “LunarX Prize,” offering $30 million in prizes to privately-funded and operated teams capable of sending a probe to the Moon. Teams from around the world competed in this challenge, attracting significant investment and global attention. In addition to stimulating space exploration activities, the “LunarX Prize” also demonstrated the uncertainties and challenges that characterize the current moment in the New Space Age: no teams were able to meet Google’s 2018 deadline and the leading team, Israel-based Team SpaceIL, saw their Beresheet (Hebrew for “Genesis”) spacecraft crash catastrophically on the lunar surface. Despite ​ these challenges, the New Space Age has also promoted revolutionary approaches to space exploration, including proposals for radio-wavelength telescopes on the dark side space-station in lunar orbit allowing for a sustained lunar presence, and, of course, the colonization of Mars led by Elon Musk and SpaceX. In addition to these more ambitious plans, the New Space Age has brought about the rise of a new class of nanosatellites, miniature research satellites known as “CubeSats.” These spacecraft, typically ten centimeters on each side and weighing three

61 pounds, have been used for a wide variety of exploratory and research-based activities, including missions to other planets. With over 2,100 launched as of 2018, the proliferation of CubeSats have been an early indication that the New Space Age may produce new, creative forms of space exploration, evidenced by the Space.com article “CubeSats: Tiny Payloads, Huge Benefits for Space Research.”124 Perhaps the most important product that has emerged out of this period thus far have been the new rockets developed by companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic in order to dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight. In bringing down the prohibitive cost of accessing space, a wide range of space exploration activities become possible. The four categories of activities, as identified in the space analytic consulting firm Bryce Space and Technology’s 2018 “Start-Up Space” report, likely to be especially important in the coming years each are heavily dependent upon low-cost space access: small satellite launch ventures, manned commercial missions, space tourism, and exploratory missions. Now, at the nascent stages of this New Space Age, the future of this period is relatively uncertain. The extent to which we will experience the new “golden age for space exploration”

124 Howell, Elizabeth. “CubeSats: Tiny Payloads, Huge Benefits for Space Research.” Spaceflight, ​ ​ Space.com, 19 June 2018.

62 that some have prophesied depends on a wide variety of factors. Given the importance of the private sector in today’s space landscape, economic factors and principles will likely take on a new significance in determining the future of human space exploration. The principle of “demand” may be the most pressing question in the economics in space, as reflected in the following question posed by space economist and Harvard Business School professor Matthew C. Weinzierl: “How, and from where, will we get sustainable demand for activity in space?”125 With over $18 billion privately invested in space startup ventures since the year 2000, $2.7 billion of which in 2018 alone, demand for activity in space appears to be strong and growing rapidly.126 In fact, the global space industry was valued at $360 billion in 2018 and is projected to grow to roughly $560 billion by 2026, according to the 2018 Global Space Industry Market and Technology Forecast. However, by no means is this question dependent upon private sector alone. With humanity’s future of space exploration in the balance, a host of interdependent stakeholders, including businesses, national governments, the United Nations, and academia to name a few, are attempting to navigate the nuances and challenges of this unprecedented period together. In addition to economic factors, stakeholders will need to balance public and private space activities, maintain a safe orbital environment, and balance the pursuit of science with the many other burgeoning uses for outer space. The decisions made now and in the coming years will play key role in determining whether the New Space Age will emerge as a historic and revolutionary period in the story of human space exploration. Our spacefaring future is unclear, but one thing is certain: we are in the midst of an exciting chapter of the long history of humanity’s relationship with outer space, the exploration of which President John F. Kennedy described as “one of the greatest adventures of all time.” Realizing the potential of this period will “require the best of all mankind,” require the overcoming of new and difficult challenges, many of which we have yet to even begin to understand. Though these challenges are great, the rewards for overcoming these challenges is far greater. The present moment offers the opportunity to realize the dreams of the rocket pioneers, using outer space to expand our minds as well as our reach and reap the benefits for all people. Once more “the eyes of the world now look into space, to the Moon and to the planets beyond,” as they did at the dawn of the Space Age. As we enter a New Space Age, the words of President Kennedy ring true once more:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.127

125 Rosseau, Brendan, and Matt Weinzierl. “Interview with Matt Weinzierl (Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School).” 28 Jan. 2019. 126 Start-Up Space: Update on Investment in Commercial Space Ventures. Bryce Space and Technology, ​ ​ 2018. 127 Kennedy, John F. “TEXT OF PRESIDENT JOHN KENNEDY'S RICE STADIUM MOON SPEECH (September 12, 1962).” John F. Kennedy Moon Speech - Rice Stadium, NASA. ​ ​

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APPENDIX

Endnotes

a. Though the modern understanding of the universe has greatly evolved since the days of the Ancient Greeks, their influence is evident through our nomenclature. The words “planet” and “cosmos” are derived from the greek for “wanderer” and “order,” respectively. Many constellations, particularly those in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, have names from Greek mythology.

b. Though currently too small to be viewed with a telescope, the car’s orbital trajectory puts it on a path such that it will be visible again in 2091.

c. Friction between Copernicus and Dantiscus began while Dantiscus was still serving as Bishop of Kulm, with the former refusing invitations from the later in 1533 and 1536. With the death of the Bishop of Ermland in 1537, Dantiscus was elected Bishop from a pool of candidates that included Copernicus. By late 1538, concerns regarding Copernicus’ alleged conduct with his housekeeper had reached Dantiscus, who issued first a verbal warning then a more serious written reprimand. When Dantiscus received word in early 1539 that Copernicus had not complied with his directions, tensions rose and Copernicus faced the prospect of serious legal action against him.

d. By this time, Rheticus had already returned to Wittenberg. Therefore, he was not involved in the decision and had no knowledge of it.

e. We now know that Tycho was not observing a new star, but rather the luminous explosion of an existing star, called a supernova, the remnant of which (SN 1572) is still observable today. It is often referred to as “Tycho’s Supernova” or “Tycho’s Nova.”

f. Kepler’s three laws of planetary motions represented a major improvement on the Copernican model. These laws were based on his analysis of Tycho Brahe’s careful observations of the night sky. He published the first and second laws in 1609 and published the third law in 1618. The first law states that all planets orbit the sun in an ellipse, with the Sun at one focus. The second law states that as a planet travels through its orbit, a vector connecting the planet at the Sun sweeps out equal area in equal time. The third law states that the squared value a planet’s period is proportional to the cubed value of its average distance from the Sun. Kepler’s laws would play an important part in the creation of Sir Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation in 1687.

g. The scale model of the Palomar Observatory was located in Corning, New York, the site of Corning Glass Works, now known as Corning Incorporated, who created the glassworks for Palomar. Using this scale model, astronomer A. J. Cecce discovered the minor planet 34419 Corning (M 46112) in the year 2000. For more information, please refer to The Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Volume 1 by Lutz Schmadel. ​ ​

64 h. A Pareto improvement is an aspect of the economic concept of Pareto efficiency, created by the 19th and early 20th Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. This concept deals with utility derived from various distributions of resources. A Pareto improvement denotes a change in resource distribution in which the utility of one or both parties improves, while no one experiences a decrease in utility. Plainly put, at least one person is “better off” and no one is “worse off.” i. Though the earliest examples of science fiction can be traced back to the Epic of ​ Gilgamesh, written in ancient Sumer around 2000 BCE, the genre took on a new form ​ following the Scientific Revolution. Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic Frankenstein was the first ​ ​ to feature several elements typically associated with science fiction and is often denoted as the first modern example of the genre. Over the course of the 19th century, science fiction would become an immensely popular genre across the globe, culminating in the immensely influential works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. j. Jules Verne’s De la terre à la lune (From the Earth to the Moon) was part of his 64-novel ​ ​ series “Les Voyages Extraordinaires” (The Extraordinary Journeys). Though published nearly a century before the first human space flights, Verne’s prophetic depiction of space travel proved to be remarkably realistic, reflecting the scientific elements typical of Verne’s work. H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon was first published chapter by ​ ​ chapter in The Strand Magazine from 1900 to 1901. As opposed to Verne’s more ​ ​ scientific approach, Wells described characters using an antigravity device to reach the moon, where they encountered strange creatures. The different styles adopted by each other was a cause of tension between the two; Verne expressed hostility towards Wells due to the commercial success of the latter’s work despite his choice to incorporate ​ science into his writing. k. From their inception in medieval China until the mid-1920’s, all rockets had been solid-fueled. These rockets operated by lighting a fuse which ignited a combustible substance (usually gunpowder) contained within the body of the rocket. Liquid rockets are more complicated, but offer several distinct advantages such as controllable thrust and a much higher efficiency. The first of these liquid-fueled rockets would be launched by Robert Goddard in 1926. Most modern rocket engines are liquid-fueled. l. Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation is represented by the following equation:

Δv = VE * ln(ML / ME) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Δv : Rocket’s final velocity (m/s)

VE: Exhaust velocity (m/s) ​ ​

ML: Mass of rocket when full of propellant, also called its “wet mass” (kg) ​ ​

ME: Rocket’s mass when fuel is fully expended ​ ​

65 m. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This principle is what allows rockets to fly. By spewing out hot gasses at extremely high speeds in the form of exhaust, the rocket experiences an equal and opposite force that pushes it up away from the Earth’s surface. n. The following excerpt from the New York Time’s article “A Severe Strain on Credulity” ​ ​ describes the period’s conventional wisdom regarding extra-atmospheric rocket flight: “...for after the rocket quits our air and and really starts on its longer journey, its flight ​ would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that.” o. In addition to Wernher von Braun and Hermann Oberth, the Rocket Society included, Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Petrie (French theorist and proponent of spaceflight), Franz von Hoefft (Austrian rocket pioneer), Guido von Pirquet (Austrian scientist known as the “father of the space station”), Nikolai Rynin (Russian aviation and spaceflight researcher), and Walter Hohmann (German engineer who pioneered studies on orbital dynamic & the namesake for the Hohmann transfer orbit maneuver). p. Though the Peenemünde site would become as the “Cradle of Spaceflight” for its role in developing high-powered rockets like the V-2, it was home to a wide variety of advanced weapons developments. Among its notable achievements are the world’s first jet-powered aircraft (Me 262), the first rocket-powered aircraft (Me 163 Komet), and many advanced missile systems, including the Taifun, Schmetterling, Enzian, ​ Wasserfall, and Rheintochter missile types. ​ ​ ​ ​ q. Hitler initially expressed ambivalence towards the idea of rockets. After visiting Kummersdorf West, a Nazi rocket test site 25 kilometers south of Berlin, Hitler demonstrated little interest and did not provide the increased resources that the site’s research team requested. However, elite members of the SS, including Heinrich Himmler himself, were extremely interested in the rocket program and ensured its development. Hitler’s interest in the V-2 appears to only begin in earnest after the tide of the war has shifted in favor of the Allies in 1943. As the German war effort became increasingly desperate, Hitler began to view the V-2 as the Nazi’s salvation. He gave the rocket development program top priority and personally dealt with many of its details. Ultimately, Hitler’s faith in these long-ranged weapons would become so great that he approved the development of a V-3 weapon, a massive cannon intended to fire projectiles hundreds of miles. r. von Braun’s affiliation with the Nazis and the thousands of slave laborers who died building the V-2 rockets has been the subject of much consternation among those who have evaluated his life and legacy. According to Michael Neufeld, chair of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Space History Division, von Braun appeared to have little problems with the Nazis until late in the war, when encounters

66 with Hitler and being arrested by the Gestapo rendered him “disillusioned” with the regime. He was also made a member of the SS at the request of several of the groups high-ranking members, though he declined their initial request. There is also little doubt that he was aware of the widespread use of slave labor as part of the V-2’s development. He is known to have visited the slave work site “12 to 15 times” and to have seen their appalling living conditions. Neufeld characterizes von Braun as having “sleep-walked into a Faustian bargain—that he had worked with this regime without thinking what it meant to work for the Third Reich and for the Nazi regime.” Neufeld concludes by stating “there’s a lot of room for ethical debate about what you can hold him responsible for and what you could have expected him to do.” s. For more details on the fascinating story of “Operation Paperclip,” I highly recommend Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program to Bring Nazi Scientists to America by Annie Jacobsen. ​ t. Though von Braun’s contributions allowed the Americans to land on the Moon, he had much grander ambitions. In the wake of the Apollo program, von Braun created a series of ambitious proposed missions, including a convoy of rockets that would carry astronauts to Mars and back. In the Space Task Group’s 1969 proposal, von Braun envisioned a series of Mars missions in 1981, 1983, 1986, and 1988 in order to create a permanent base on the martian surface by 1989. Needless to say, this proposal was all but eliminated by the Nixon administration’s Office of Management and Budget. Wernher von Braun would leave NASA a few years later in 1972.

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About the Author

Brendan Rosseau is a senior at Williams College majoring in Astronomy and Economics. His passion for outer space began at a young age and led him to Phillips Exeter Academy, where he received the MacKenty Prize in Astronomy. At Williams College, Brendan chose to major in both Astronomy and Economics in order to study the privatization of spaceflight and the New Space Age. To better understand the landscape of the modern space industry, Brendan has crafted space policy with the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and worked as an astronautical consultant for Andart Global. His independent research has focussed primarily on space economics, his work on which has received national and international recognition. Other research efforts on various astronomical topics have been presented at meetings of the American Astronomical Society. He is extremely grateful for the guidance of his advisor Dr. Jay Pasachoff, as well as the many others who have helped make his dreams of studying outer space a reality.

During his time at Williams, Brendan has been an active participant in student life. Brendan was a member of the Varsity Football Team and served as co-president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. He also worked as an astrophysics teaching assistant and gave planetarium shows in the historic Hopkins Observatory, allowing him to share his love of astronomy with the community.

Brendan was born and raised in Chicago, where he lives with his mother, Gail; his father, ​ Richard; and his sister, Natalie. After graduating in 2019, Brendan will be joining the ​ commercial space industry.

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76 Image Credits

Image 1 (pg. 7): Wall, Mike. “SpaceX's 'Starman' and Its Tesla Roadster Are Now Beyond Mars.” Space.com, 3 ​ ​ Nov. 2018, www.space.com/42337-spacex-tesla-roadster-starman-beyond-mars.html. ​ ​

Image 2 (pg. 8): Pescovitz, David. “Astronaut's Magnificent Photo of SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule Approaching the International Space Station.” Boing Boing, 4 Mar. 2019, ​ ​ www.boingboing.net/2019/03/04/magnificent-photo-of-spacex-cr.html. ​

Image 3 (pg. 11): Kepler, Johannes. De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii. Paul Sessius, 1606. Collection of Jay and ​ ​ ​ Naomi Pasachoff, on deposit in Williams College’s Chapin Library.

Image 4 (pg. 12): “Œuvre L'Astronome.” Musée Du Louvre, www.louvre.fr/oeuvre-notices/lastronome. ​ ​ ​ ​

Image 5 (pg. 13): Clavius, Christoph. In Sphaeram Ioannis De Sacro Bosco Commentarius. Bernardo Basam, ​ ​ 1596. Collection of Jay and Naomi Pasachoff, on deposit in Williams College’s Chapin Library.

Image 6 (pg. 16): “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.” Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, ​ ​ NASA Astrophysics Data System , www.ads.harvard.edu/books/1543droc.book/. ​ ​

Image 7 (pg. 17): Ibid ​

Image 8 (pg. 18): Kepler, Johannes. De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii. Paul Sessius, 1606. Collection of Jay and ​ ​ ​ Naomi Pasachoff, on deposit in Williams College’s Chapin Library.

Image 9 (pg. 21): “Galileo's Telescope.” Virtual Museum, Museo Galileo, ​ ​ www.catalogue.museogalileo.it/object/GalileosTelescope.html. ​

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Image 10 (pg. 22): Galilei, Galileo. Sidereus Nuncius. Thomas Baglioni, 1610. Collection of Jay and Naomi ​ ​ ​ Pasachoff, on deposit in Williams College’s Chapin Library.

Image 11 (pg. 25): Nguyen, Austin. “Hopkins Gates at Williams College.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 22 Dec. 2011, ​ ​ www.flickr.com/photos/_austin/6553038229. ​

Image 12 (pg. 27): “David Rittenhouse.” National Portrait Gallery, ​ ​ https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.98.73?destination=edan-search/default_search%3 Freturn_all%3D1%26edan_q%3Drittenhouse

Image 13 (pg. 28): Pasachoff, Jay M. “Williams College's Hopkins Observatory: the Oldest Extant Observatory in the United States.” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, June 1998, pp. ​ ​ 61–78.

Image 14 (pg. 32): “About the Observatory.” Cincinnati Observatory, ​ ​ www.cincinnatiobservatory.org/about/our-history-2/. ​

Image 15 (pg. 33): Ibid ​

Image 16 (pg. 36): Baldridge, Rick. “Lick Observatory Moonrise.” Astronomy Picture of the Day, NASA, 10 Mar. ​ ​ 2012, www.apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120310.html. ​ ​

Image 17 (pg. 37): “Historical Collections.” The Lick Observatory Collections Project, University of California, ​ ​ 1998, www.collections.ucolick.org/archives_on_line/bldg_the_obs.html. ​ ​

Image 18 (pg. 38, top): University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf6-00296, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

78 Image 19 (pg. 38, bottom): “Yerkes Observatory.” Atlas Obscura, 17 Feb. 2010, ​ ​ www.atlasobscura.com/places/yerkes-observatory. ​

Image 20 (pg. 39): “Mount Wilson Observatory.” Mount Wilson Observatory, Mount Wilson Institute, ​ ​ www.mtwilson.edu/. ​

Image 21 (pg. 40): “A History of Palomar Observatory.” Palomar Observatory, California Institute of Technology, ​ ​ www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/about/history.html. ​

Image 22 (pg. 43): “A Trip to the Moon.” BFI Player, ​ ​ www.player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-trip-to-the-moon-1902-online. ​

Image 23 (pg. 44): Paslow, Steve. “Wan Hu Rocket to the Moon in the Year 1500 A.D.” Mystic Sciences, ​ ​ www.mysticsciences.com/2016/09/29/475/. ​

Image 24 (pg. 45): “Tsiolkovsky and His Elevator to Heaven.” Red Kalinka, ​ ​ www.redkalinka.com/Russian-Blog/133/_Tsiolkovsky-and-his-elevator-to-heaven/. ​

Image 25 (pg. 46): “Tsiolkovsky Rocket Concept Illustration.” National Air and Space Museum, The Smithsonian ​ ​ Institution, www.airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/6470hjpg. ​ ​

Image 26 (pg. 48): “Goddard with the Vacuum-Tube Apparatus.” Pioneers of Flight, The Smithsonian Institution, ​ ​ www.pioneersofflight.si.edu/content/goddard-vacuum-tube-apparatus. ​

Image 27 (pg. 50): “Cover of A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.” National Air and Space Museum, The ​ ​ Smithsonian Institution, www.airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/6500hjpg. ​ ​

79 Image 28 (pg. 51): “Goddard's ‘Hoopskirt’ Rocket.” Pioneers of Flight, The Smithsonian Institution, ​ ​ www.pioneersofflight.si.edu/content/goddard%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Choopskirt%E 2%80%9D-rocket-2. ​

Image 29 (pg. 52): “Harry Guggenheim, Goddard, and Lindbergh at Rocket Launch Tower.” Pioneers of Flight, The ​ ​ Smithsonian Institution, www.pioneersofflight.si.edu/content/harry-guggenheim-goddard-and-lindbergh-rocket- launch-tower. ​

Image 30 (pg. 53): Winter, Frank H. “Robert Goddard Was the Father of American Rocketry. But Did He Have Much Impact?” Air & Space Magazine, The Smithsonian Institution, 8 May 2018, ​ ​ www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/robert-goddard-was-father-american-rocketry-did- he-have-much-impact-180969029/. ​

Image 31 (pg. 54): “Fritz Lang | Die Frau Im Mond (Woman In The Moon) .” Pinterest, 9 Mar. 2019, ​ ​ www.pinterest.com/pin/418271884115570733/. ​

Image 32 (pg. 55): “Hermann Oberth and His Liquid-Fuel Rocket Engine.” Pioneers of Flight, The Smithsonian ​ ​ Institution, www.pioneersofflight.si.edu/content/hermann-oberth-and-his-liquid-fuel-rocket-engine

Image 33 (pg. 56): Ibid ​

Image 34 (pg. 57): Dunbar, Brian. “100 Years of Possibility: Celebrating the Centennial Birthday of Dr. Wernher von Braun.” NASA, www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/vonbraun.html. ​ ​ ​ ​

Image 35 (pg. 62): Howell, Elizabeth. “CubeSats: Tiny Payloads, Huge Benefits for Space Research.” Space.com, 19 ​ ​ June 2018, www.space.com/34324-cubesats.html. ​ ​

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