A new NASA Special Publication (SP-4703) entitled Remembering the Space Age was released this month and is now available on the NSS website as a 9-megabyte PDF download.
This book is not just another space history. Instead, it examines the meaning of the Space Age in the broadest possible sense. It is an examination of the place of space exploration in human history and how the record of the Space Age has been preserved and represented in the wider culture.
The 480-page book consists of a collection of 21 essays stemming from an October 2007 conference sponsored by the NASA History Division and the National Air and Space Museum to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age.
The essays cover a diverse range of topics from “Robert A. Heinlein’s Influence on Spaceflight” to “Cosmonaut Nostalgia in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film” to “China’s Human Spaceflight Program and Chinese National Identity” to “Cultural Functions of Space Exploration,” and much more.
A hard copy of the book retails for $54, but the PDF version is free and has been added to the online NSS Space Policy Library.