646 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Space Technology and Planetary Astronomy. By Joseph N. Tatarewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Pp. xvi+190; illus trations, tables, notes, appendixes, index. $29.95. Joseph Tatarewicz inquires how the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) shifting fortunes during the two decades after Sputnik affected both the support for and organization of planetary science. He examines the endeavors of officials and committees who represented the specialty’s interests to acquire re cruits and resources and the consequent changes in the planetary community’s size, composition, and standing. He finds, in brief, that when the United States’s civilian space program was instituted in the late 1950s, only a few professional astronomers were interested in the planets. Those managers at NASA and NASA-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory who were enthusiastic about using space technology for planetary exploration came to believe by the mid-1960s that success would depend on a revitalization of planetary astronomy. Before the decade was out, they and their allies in planetary astronomy managed to secure funding not only for ambitious planetary missions but also for ground-based planetary facilities and observing programs and for graduate and postdoctoral planetary training. The result, according to Tatarewicz, was that a fairly large, diverse, and respected commu nity was optimistically advancing knowledge of the planets during the early and mid-1970s. Never since those prosperous times, however, has NASA so generously supported the planetary community that the agency had called into being. Understandably, this community has been bitter about what it regards as the federal government’s betrayal of earlier commitments to planetary science. In developing his interesting narrative, Tatarewicz makes extensive use of archival sources as well as a wide range of published materials. But, unlike Pamela Mack in Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System (MIT Press, 1990), he chooses not to frame his account as a case study of one or another theory of technology or science policy. In his view, “no single such framework can fully explain the [story’s] complexity.” Consonant with this position, Tatarewicz does not provide an explicit theoretical rationale for his approach to the relationship between “space technology”—NASA, NASA-funded contractors, and their space-oriented personnel, facilities, missions, and activities—and “planetary astronomy”—planetary scientists and their facilities, associations, and activities. He is clearly being quite selective in focusing attention on the space agency as patron and the planetary community as client. His detailed history does a fine job of showing how the creation and evolution of this liaison affected the values, styles, and outlooks of NASA managers and planetary scien tists alike. However, as Tatarewicz himself recognizes, there have been other sides to space technology’s relationship with planetary science. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 647 In what ways, for instance, have planetary scientists participated in the complex process of defining, funding, and operating the nation’s many missions to the planets? And how did they use the new opportunities provided by the space program to transform both scientific and public understanding of the solar system? Anyone attempting to answer these questions will be confronted by mountains of information towering above those that Tatarewicz has scaled. I anticipate that success will depend on a greater willingness to rely on theory for guidance. Indeed, I suspect that if we are ever to attain a picture of the fruitful nexus between space technology and planetary science that is at once comprehensive and robust we will need not only theoretically informed historical studies but also pertinent historically oriented theoretical debates. Karl Hufbauer Dr. Hufbauer teaches courses on the history of science, astronomy, and the nuclear age at the University of California, Irvine. His Exploring the Sun: Solar Science since Galileo was published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System. By Pamela E. Mack. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. Pp. xii + 270; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $27.50. In recent years, many sociologists of scientific knowledge have turned their attention increasingly to technology. Just as sociologists of science needed, it was claimed, to demonstrate the “social construc tion of scientific facts,” so sociologists of technology...
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Jan 1, 1997
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