No Requiem for the Space Age: The Apollo Moon Landings in American Culture

During the summer of 1969-the summer Americans first walked on the moon-musician and poet Patti Smith recalled strolling down the Coney Island Boardwalk to a refreshment stand, where "pictures of Jesus, President Kennedy, and the astronauts were taped to the wall behind the register." Such was the zeitgeist in the year of the moon. Yet this holy trinity of 1960s America would quickly fall apart. Although Jesus and John F. Kennedy remained iconic, by the time the Apollo Program came to a premature end just three years later few Americans mourned its passing. Why did support for the space program decrease so sharply by the early 1970s? Rooted in profound scientific and technological leaps, rational technocratic management, and an ambitious view of the universe as a realm susceptible to human mastery, the Apollo moon landings were the grandest manifestation of postwar American progress and seemed to prove that the United States could accomplish anything to which it committed its energies and resources. To the great dismay of its many proponents, however, NASA found the ground shifting beneath its feet as a fierce wave of anti-rationalism arose throughout American society, fostering a cultural environment in which growing numbers of Americans began to contest rather than embrace the rationalist values and vision of progress that Apollo embodied.Shifting the conversation of Apollo from its Cold War origins to larger trends in American culture and society, and probing an eclectic mix of voices from the era, including intellectuals, religious leaders, rock musicians, politicians, and a variety of everyday Americans, Matthew Tribbe paints an electrifying portrait of a nation in the midst of questioning the very values that had guided it through the postwar years as it began to develop new conceptions of progress that had little to do with blasting ever more men to the moon. No Requiem for the Space Age offers a narrative of the 1960s and 1970s unlike any told before, with the story of Apollo as the story of America itself in a time of dramatic cultural change.

Table of Contents:
Prologue Introduction Part I: On Talking about Apollo 1. "The Message of the Spirit of Apollo": Commonplace Reactions 2. The Nihilism of the WASPs: Norman Mailer in NASA-Land Part II: On Mastering the Universe 3. Apollo and the "Human Condition" 4. The Thunder of Apollo: A Benevolent Endeavor in a Century of Brutality Part III: On Rationalism and Neo-Romanticism 5. Turning a Miracle into a Bummer: Squareland, Potland, and the Psychedelic Moon 6. "God is Alive, Magic is Afoot": Moon Voyaging in the Neo-Romantic 1970s Conclusion: In the Wake of Apollo Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Matthew D. Tribbe is a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at the University of Connecticut.

Review :
"A persuasive, rollicking account of the moon landings as the final act in a post-war American love affair with science and rationalism."--The Economist "Matthew Tribbe's examination of American attitudes towards the Apollo space program in the 1960s is a 'giant leap' away from the platitudes that dominate popular memory and too many historical accounts of the era-a first rate cultural history."--Maurice Isserman, co-author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s "No Requiem for the Space Age is a wonderful read. Tribbe's prose is witty, ironic, and at times refreshingly irreverent. His history is also extremely important. By taking readers on an exploration not only of NASA's Apollo program but also of the films, fiction, and even television advertisements depicting space travel during the 1960s and 1970s, Tribbe traces the gradual decline of American's belief in technological progress and the subsequent rise of a new romantic spirit based on individual experience and subjectivity."--Neil M. Maher, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, Newark "Matthew Tribbe's account of the Apollo program and its demise provides a penetrating glimpse at American values and priorities in the 1960s and the years that followed. The energy of the space effort began to dissipate even before the program ended, and this engaging book shows how doubts about technology and reservations about progress itself dominated the larger conversation."--Allan M. Winkler, Miami University of Ohio