The End of the Army Space Program: Interservice Rivalry and the Transfer of the von Braun Group to NASA, 1958-1959

Abstract

The Army–Air Force struggle over ballistic missiles and space policy in the late 1950s was one of the worst episodes of U.S. interservice strife during the Cold War. The papers of General J. B. Medaris provide an important new window onto the process by which the Army avoided transferring its ballistic missile and space capability to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, and then reluctantly did so in 1959, in part to prevent the Air Force from obtaining it. Medaris's papers illustrate how interservice rivalry shaped the actions of the Secretary of the Army and the leadership of Army Ordnance.