Important for understanding the trajectories that the space and planetary sciences took, was the reality that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed not as a scientific agency, but as an engineering one. This chapter illuminates some of the ways NASA's early focus on engineering has influenced its evolution as a scientific enterprise. Within NASA's shadow engineering network, tensions exist between a desire for innovation and the demand for reliability. Ambitious missions resolve all these tensions favorably, save one: the desire for cost control. After the loss of Shuttle Challenger and its crew in 1986, the links between space and planetary sciences and human space flight were largely broken. A final aspect of the growth of the space sciences was the role of existing specialist societies in adapting to the opportunities afforded by new technologies and greatly expanded funding.
Space and Planetary Sciences
2015-10-06
13 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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