Overview

Revealing the connections between NASA and the United States defense community In this real life spy saga, James David digs through newly declassified documents to ultimately reveal how NASA became a strange bedfellow to the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Central Intelligence Agency. Beginning with the establishment of NASA in 1958, he follows the agency through its growth, not only in scope but also in complexity, exposing the ties between spaceflight and the intelligence community that have historically remained unexplored. David tracks NASA’s early cooperation—supplying cover stories for covert missions, analyzing the Soviet space program, providing weather and other scientific data from its satellites, and monitoring missile tests—and reveals how these extensive interactions eventually devolved into NASA’s reliance on DoD for political and financial support for the Shuttle. This riveting book aptly demonstrates that the hidden connections between these entities were far greater and deeper than previously known.

Full Product Details

9780813080918

Table of Contents

Reviews

“Provides a valuable window into the workings of NASA and the impact that defense and intelligence efforts have on civilian science. . . .A must read for those interested in space history, Cold War security issues, and twentieth-century science and technology.”—H-Net Reviews “Offers one of the best analyses to date of the long, and often difficult, history of interaction between NASA and the national security community.”—The Space Review

Author Information

James E. David is a curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

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