Spacefarers: Images of Astronauts and Cosmonauts in the Heroic Era of SpaceflightMichael J.Neufeld, Editor. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2013.

Abstract

Spacefarers: Images of Astronauts and Cosmonauts in the Heroic Era of Spaceflight Michael J. Neufeld, Editor. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2013.Books based on symposiums or conferences are usually very dry affairs, undertaken with the best of intentions to try to capture the essence of what had transpired in a poorly fluore scent-lit convention hall or auditorium and executed with all of the panache of a 1988 Yugo. In essence, when the book doesn't sell, everyone feigns surprise, rolls their eyes, and moves on.Upon starting (and restarting) Michael J. Neufeld's introduction to Spacefarers: Images of Astronauts and Cosmonauts in the Heroic Era of this reviewer was troubled that this, indeed, would be such a similar undertaking. Thankfully, the introduction is short and perfunctory, providing the reader with the required outline of what follows: an assorted collection of nine essays that, despite their questionably natal origin (the aforementioned poorly-lit conference hall), are indeed a good read.Many reviewers have pointed out that the book is neatly laid out in three sections, each with three essays. first section details the early days of the US side of the Race, those heady days following the revelation that the Soviets forever placed their flag (and their iconic Cyrillic CCCP) into orbit first. second section (despite the promise featured in the text's subtitle), which is the only one to feature cosmonauts, further explores the dynamics of that race. third and final section explores the thirty-plus years of the US Space Shuttle era.At a glance, those other reviewers have showered this thin text with praise; however, they have been remiss in their mutual omission: mainly, that Neufeld fails to add a summative chapter that ties these essays neatly together. As a reader, the last chapter of the last section leaves us adrift-lost in space, if one will (more on this later).The first three essays examine the myth of the astronaut as hero. first of these, Setting the Scene for Human Spaceflights: Men into Space and Man and the Challenge, by Margaret A. Weitekamp, examines two American television programs that aired during the 1959-1960 television season. These two forgotten pre-Gagarin/pre-Sheppard programs looked at the challenges of spaceflight and outlined the model of men and masculinity that were required for such flights (women were not thought to be capable at the time). This theme is further examined in Matthew H. Hersch's 'Capsules are Swallowed': Mythology of the Pilot in American Spaceflight, as well as in James Spiller's Nostalgia for the Right Stuff: Astronauts and Public Anxiety about a Changing Nation, both historical reviews which take us full circle from the Mercury Seven to the last days of the shuttle program.How the Space Race was, and is, portrayed on an international scale is the subject of the middle three essays, the first of which, The Fiftieth Jubilee: Yuri Gagarin in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Imagination by Andrew Jenks, is the only essay to scrutinize only one spacefarer: Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Jenks's study of both pre- and post-Soviet Russia and its obsession with Gagarin's rise, death, and subsequent prominence as Soviet hero (even in a post-Soviet world) is quite thorough and illuminating. …