NASA and the Decision to Build the Space Shuttle, 1969–72

T he technological prowess of the U nited S tates was symbolized by what became known as the space shuttle, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began to work on in the late 1960s. With the shuttle program NASA planned to facilitate its aggressive space-exploration effort by providing low-cost, reusable transportation to and from Earth's orbit. NASA officials compared the space program's traditional use of expendable launch vehicles to throwing away a railroad locomotive after every train trip, whereas a reusable shuttle would offer cost-effective, routine access to space. Approval of the shuttle initiative required complex political maneuvering by NASA and its supporters between 1969 and 1972. The twists and turns in the approval process actually shaped the final direction that the shuttle program took, demonstrating the pitfalls of decision making by compromise and the challenges of managing large-scale technology programs within the federal government.¹     

In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969

French and Burgess have added yet another book to the enormousliterature on the Space Race. Based partly on oral history interviewsand partly on written and e-mailed statements and other documents,In the Shadow of the Moon focuses on the American side of thesecond half of the Space Race. (French and Burgess dealt withthe first half of the Space Race in a previous work, Into thatSilent Sea.) Between March 1965 and July 1969, the U.S. launched fifteenmanned space missions. In four years and four months, NASA wentfrom     

"I Didn't Do Anything Important": A Pragmatist Analysis of the Oral History Interview

In the course of gathering oral histories from women who servedin the Navy and Coast Guard during World War II, an unusualconversational pattern has emerged. The women almost invariablydiminish the importance of their wartime contributions; a commonrefrain is "I didn’t do anything important." Their individualexperiences, as revealed during the interviews, belie that assertion.In this paper, I will use the women's words to parse what ismeant by this rhetorical move. Do the women really believe theydid not do anything important? If so, why do they find it necessaryto participate in the very public process of oral history, placingtheir names and life stories within the historical record? Consideringboth the content and the context of the women's words from afeminist pragmatist philosophical base will help explain thisseemingly incongruent act. This article demonstrates that thewomen do not really mean to belittle their life experiences(and military service), but instead are using the phrase asa way to acknowledge society's expectations. The oral historyinterview, meanwhile, is used by the women to not only placetheir experience into the historical record but also to affirmthe importance of their wartime work.     

"That Food of the Memory which Gives the Clue to Profitable Research": Oral history as a source for local, regional, and family history in the nineteenth and early twentieth century

Numerous local, regional and family historians in the nineteenthand early twentieth century collected oral narrations and conductedinterviews as a form to document information that otherwisemight have never been preserved. Family historians, in particular,not only practiced interviewing relatives for family histories,but also encouraged the practice in how-to-do manuals amongtheir peers. While advocating the practice, family historiansalso reflected about the value of "traditionary evidence" collectedthrough interviews and other means. These reflections by familyhistorians mirrored the discussions about the value of traditionsand memories as historical sources among several professionalhistorians at the time. These reflections were shaped by a modernizedunderstanding of tradition, which combined a reverential approachto the authoritarian element of tradition with a critical approachquestioning the validity of tradition. In this context, oralhistory was both a tool to negotiate the value of traditionand a mirror to the contemporary understanding of tradition.     

‘I Saw a Nightmare . . .’: Violence and the Construction of Memory (Soweto,June 16, 1976)

The protests on June 16, 1976 of black schoolchildren in Soweto against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in their schools precipitated one of the most pro‐found challenges to the South African apartheid state. These events were experienced in a context of violent social and political conflict. They were almost immediately drawn into a discourse that discredited and silenced them, manipulating meaning for ideological and political reasons with little regard for how language and its absence—silences—further violated those who had experienced the events. Violence, in its physical and discursive shape, forged individual memories that remain torn with pain, anger, distrust, and open questions; collective memories that left few spaces for ambiguity; and official or public histories tarnished by their political agendas or the very structures—and sources—that produced them. Based on oral histories and historical documents, this article discusses the collusion of violence and silence and its consequences. It argues that—while the collusion between violence and silence might appear to disrupt or, worse, destroy the ability of individuals to think historically—the individual historical actor can and does have the will to contest and engage with collective memory and official history.     

International Cooperation: The Inter-Agency Consultative Group for Space Science (IACG)

Abstract

In 1981 the four space agencies Intercosmos, ISAS, NASA and ESA formed the Inter-Agency Consultative Group for Space Science (IACG). The objectives of the IACG are to maximise opportunities for multilateral scientific coordination among approved space science missions in areas of mutual interest. The IACG is a multi-agency international forum in which space science activities are discussed on an informal basis among representatives of the member agencies. It concentrates on a single discipline area of approved space science projects as a focal point for a number of years. Until 1986 the IACG coordinated the six space missions to Halley's Comet: Vega 1 and Vega 2 from Intercosmos, Suisei and Sakigake from ISAS, ICE from NASA and Giotto from ESA. Since 1986 the IACG has been coordinating 13 projects involving 20 spacecraft in solar–terrestrial science.     

Chronotope,Story, and Historical Geography: Mikhail Bakhtin and the Space‐Time of Narratives

Abstract: This article studies space‐time as revealed in narrative, especially narrative intended to validate truth claims. Narrative plot is uniquely suited to capturing truths about time, causal complexity, and space. Bakhtin's “chronotope” (space‐time), which bridges plot, narrated events, and the real world, is critical to understanding this capacity, whether in fiction, in histories, or in didactic stories, myths, and parables. The chronotope is underutilized in the social sciences, but disputes over indigenous land in Canada exemplify its potential applications. To fully capture these heteroglot (“many‐voiced”) conflicts, factual verification should not be the only test of a narrative's truthfulness.     

Method and Memory in the Midwestern "Lincoln Inquiry": Oral Testimony and Abraham Lincoln Studies, 1865 1938

This article narrates the role of oral testimony in the fieldof Abraham Lincoln studies from 1865 through the 1930s. Collectedin the form of letters, affidavits, and face-to-face interviews,this mounting body of "eyewitness evidence" dominated the discoursefor two generations and reflective, public practice culminatedin the organization of a "Lincoln Inquiry" in the Midwest duringthe 1920s and 1930s. For a time, practitioners successfullydefended themselves against increasing positivist assaults onthe credibility of oral testimony. Their interests and effortsresonate with later oral history practice and theory about method,authorship, performance, and memory, and their story highlightsthe contingency inherent in the development of oral historicalpractice in America.     

Myths and the "Politics of Exceptionality": Interpreting Chicana/o Narratives of Achievement

Abstract: The author draws from select topical life histories conductedwith individuals who enrolled in doctoral programs at UC Berkeleyduring a ten-year period beginning with 1968. She examines themyths surrounding academic achievement for people of Mexicandescent and how these myths affected her initial interpretationof their childhood stories about their parents' relationshipto their achievements. She considers the interpretation of thesenarratives from the perspectives of various schools of thoughtand argues that the issue of educational achievement by minoritygroups is subject to a "politics of exceptionality." Hence,high academic achievement is not considered normative, and studentswho do achieve are treated as exceptions, not only to the presumedmeritocracy, but as exceptions to their racial/ethnic group.By individualizing their achievements and focusing on theircharacteristics as individuals, the focus of social policieswith respect to educational attainment remains focused on theindividual achiever and not on the institutional processes andstructural opportunities that maximize the possibilities forachievement.     

"If I See Some of This in Writing, I'm Going to Shoot You": Reluctant Narrators, Taboo Topics, and the Ethical Dilemmas of the Oral Historian

This essay argues that in the co-creation of the historicaldocument that is the oral history narrative the oral historianmust balance sensitivity to the interviewee with the professionalresponsibility to preserve history, without abdicating the roleof trained interpreter of the past. During the course of a lifehistory interview with a lightskinned African American woman,Marguerite Davis Stewart, the authors confronted a variety ofethical concerns over the shared authority of the interviewwhen the narrator disagreed over the range of topics to be covered—specificallythe issue of racial identity—and the final product. Theauthors conclude that scholars who employ oral history in theirresearch must confront taboo but historically significant topicsthrough an open dialogue with their narrators, but that theyultimately control the interpretation of the resulting information.     

The Power of International Positioning: The National Woman's Party,International Law and Diplomacy, 1928–34

Between 1928 and 1934, Doris Stevens and Alice Paul of the National Woman's Party (NWP) embarked on a strategy to use international law to gain domestic rights for women in the United States. They sought to pass the equivalent of the 1923 Equal Rights Amendment by treaty at international conferences in Europe and the Americas. The pre‐eminence of the United States in the Americas granted them diplomatic access through the Inter‐American Commission of Women (IACW) that, paradoxically, strengthened the NWP's position when the US administration opposed its proposed reforms. When the US signed the Nationality Rights Treaty in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1934, the NWP won a significant nationality reform, namely the right of US women to transmit citizenship to children born abroad. In exchange for its support, the Roosevelt administration required them to shelve their proposed Equal Rights Treaty. The article also demonstrates a nascent presence of American women in unofficial diplomatic circles. In this, as in other stories, women's history has taught us to search for the influence of women that institutional histories miss.     

‘Fighting from the fields’: developing the British ‘National Farm’ in the Second World War

The Second World War had a profound impact on British Agriculture, with state intervention at an unprecedented level cementing the idea of a ‘National Farm’ in both the popular and the governmental psyche. Critical attention has recently begun to refocus on this period, adding to the somewhat celebratory meta-narratives written in the official histories. Drawing from the practice of micro-historical research and recent work in geography that seeks to understand the production of the landscape ‘from within’, this paper explores how ‘small stories’ can afford an appreciation of the ‘complications of everyday existence’ and bring greater depth, nuance and understanding to these ‘larger’ historical events and their influence on the British countryside. Utilising oral histories from farms in Devon (UK), the paper explores the micro-geographies which shaped as well as destabilised the national farm message as it was translated into the local context.     

Finding Our Place: Reconstructing Community through Oral History

Abstract "Finding Our Place: Reconstructing Community throughOral History," analyzes how oral histories not only give newmeaning to places, but play a significant role in locating sitesspecific in the development of the Spanish-language music industry.These oral histories chronicle the emergence and growth of businesses,particularly their role in maintaining the economic and socialinfrastructure of Mexican American communities throughout southTexas. The use of oral history interviews proved the only avenueof documenting Mexican American rural communities, singers,and businesswomen finding that culture means turning our attentionto parks, church halls, cantinas, and dance halls. These placesgather significance when an experience is attached, and embodya sense of communal or shared space. Focusing on women in themusic industry, cantantes [singers] and businesswomen illustratedhow they negotiated travel, interaction with audiences, andexperiences on the stage. Though many of the interviewees expressedtheir distrust of the oral historian initially, stemming frompoor treatment in the music industry, their reluctance gaveway after hours of interviewing by the oral historian. Importantto this study, their narratives pinpointed the existence ofpopular socializing spots in south Texas small towns and surroundingcommunities.     

"He didn't have no cross": Tombs and Graves as Racial Boundary Tactics on a Louisiana Barrier Island

This is a story about a Louisiana gulf-coast community's attemptto rediscover its history of racial diversity. The focus isan almost-forgotten, now-hidden indigent graveyard where peopleof color allegedly were buried prior to the Great Depression.The graveyard, now defunct, sets in stark contrast to the officialCatholic cemetery where whites,or those who could pass for white,have been entombed above ground throughout the community's history.Because of the absence and unreliability of official recordsregarding race, births, deaths, and burials in post-Reconstructionsouthern Louisiana, oral history was essential to this story.Moreover, the oral testimony about the graveyard evokes a meta-narrativeabout community identity transformation through the redrawingof local racial boundaries. The indigent graveyard has becomethe ultimate boundary marker; islanders used it as a tacticin establishing a purely white community identity. This processunfolded under the scrutiny of non-islanders when the developmentof the Louisiana offshore oilfield shattered the community'sisolation in the 1930s. This graveyard thus assumes a generalhistorical and theoretical importance.     

A history of NASA remote sensing contributions to archaeology

During its long history of developing and deploying remote sensing instruments, NASA has provided scientific data that have benefitted a variety of scientific applications among them archaeology. Multispectral and hyperspectral instruments mounted on orbiting and sub-orbital platforms have provided new and important information for the discovery, delineation and analysis of archaeological sites worldwide. Since the early 1970s, several of the ten NASA centers have collaborated with archaeologists to refine and validate the use of active and passive remote sensing for archaeological use. The Stennis Space Center (SSC), located in Mississippi USA has been the NASA leader in archaeological research. Together with colleagues from Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), SSC scientists have provided the archaeological community with useful images and sophisticated processing that have pushed the technological frontiers of archaeological research and applications. Successful projects include identifying prehistoric roads in Chaco canyon, identifying sites from the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery exploration, and assessing prehistoric settlement patterns in southeast Louisiana. The Scientific Data Purchase (SDP) stimulated commercial companies to collect archaeological data. At present, NASA formally solicits “space archaeology” proposals through its Earth Science Directorate and continues to assist archaeologists and cultural resource managers in doing their work more efficiently and effectively. This paper focuses on passive remote sensing and does not consider the significant contributions made by NASA active sensors. Hyperspectral data offers new opportunities for future archaeological discoveries.     

Country stories: the use of oral histories of the countryside to challenge the sciences of the past and future

Abstract

In the context of recent media, governmental, academic and popular attention and enthusiasm for debates surrounding the construction and meaning of the British countryside, this paper outlines the potential for oral history to make a contribution. Drawing on work in Devon, UK, we outline how an oral history methodology can engage with the fields of archaeological science and heritage management of landscape resources from the past, before outlining how such lay narratives may also inform present policies for the landscapes of the future. On the one hand we note the potential of oral histories for animating existing scientific narratives of landscape development. Moving from a position of scientific complicity towards one of critical engagement, we then go on to argue that oral histories may also challenge the authority of scientific knowledge, serving to destabilise existing assumptions, and offering in their stead more complex, meaningful and community-led narratives of landscape.     

“Killing time” in rural Ireland,c.1881–2013

This article explores the way in which episodes that took place during the “long” land war of 1879–1909 have been remembered or forgotten in Craughwell, Co. Galway, between 1881 and 2013. By exploring those episodes and individuals that are remembered locally in monuments, published oral histories and in oral histories conducted by the author, this article explores the complex patterns of remembering in rural Irish communities. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of this study for how we interpret oral histories, and on how a culture of remembering and not remembering might have affected twentieth-century Irish society.     

‘The Men Have Come’: Gender and Militarisation in Kampala, 1966–86

This article explores the gender implications of the militarisation of the Mengo neighbourhood of Kampala. It analyses how the hyper‐militarisation under post‐colonial regimes, particularly those of Milton Obote and Idi Amin, marked a significant gender reversal. The military presence in Mengo emasculated civilian men, who were attacked and abused by soldiers, and led women to assume the roles of ‘protectors’ who safeguarded men, children and their homes. Women volunteered for the most dangerous tasks at the household and community levels and faced constant dangers, including rape, violence and other forms of abuse. Using oral histories collected from the residents in Mengo in 2014, I examine this reconfiguration of gender roles and its reverberations in contemporary Mengo. Interviews with the women and men from Kampala describe the various ways women protected people and spaces and at the same time stress men's vulnerability. This article therefore challenges popular conceptions of women as weak and vulnerable and in need of men's protection in militarised situations.     

Recovering a "Lost" Story Using Oral History: The United States Supreme Court's Historic Green v. New Kent County, Virginia, Decision

Abstract In 1965, New Kent County, located just east of Richmond,Virginia, became the setting for the one of the most importantschool desegregation cases since Brown v. Board of Education.Ten years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared "separate butequal" unconstitutional, both public schools in New Kent, theGeorge W. Watkins School for blacks and the New Kent Schoolfor whites, remained segregated. In 1965, however, local blacksand the Virginia State NAACP initiated a legal challenge tosegregated schools, hoping to initiate desegregation where theprocess had yet to begin and to accelerate the process in areaswhere token desegregation was the norm. In 1968, the U.S. SupremeCourt decision in Charles C. Green v. the School Board of NewKent County forced New Kent County and localities across thestate and nation to fulfill the promise of Brown. While thecase has been part of the court records since it was decidedin 1968, it has remained largely unknown to the general publicand many scholars of the era. This article is an attempt touse the tool of oral history to present the people and the storybehind Green v. New Kent County and to add another piece tothe puzzle that was school desegregation in this country.     

Women's International Thought in the Twentieth-Century Anglo-American Academy: Autobiographical Reflection,Oral History and Scholarly Habitus

Methodologies of textual and linguistic analysis have long held sway in Anglo-American practices of intellectual history. Such approaches tend to decouple the ideas being traced from the human subject, or scholar, producing the thought. Taking the lead from the rich theorising work done in feminist, gender, race and cultural histories, this article asks what changes in our understanding of intellectual histories of international thought when we connect the lived and bodily realities of the human subjects producing the ideas to the ideas themselves. In so doing, the article makes a case for the importance of fleshing out what the author calls ‘scholarly habitus’ and suggests the potential utility of oral history as a methodology for reconstructing ‘scholarly habitus’. The article will draw upon an oral history archive comprised of twenty interviews conducted with senior women International Relations scholars from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom to flesh out this argument. The article argues that oral history, as a medium for autobiographical practice, can reveal aspects of how gender, race and class shaped the scholarly practice and career trajectories of these women, as well as shed light on the historical dynamics of the discipline of International Relations as a whole.