Thursday, October 28, 2010

In Class Work 10/28: An Article and My Opinion.

In Today's Class discussion We focused on articles that led up to events that were important to our research topic. There was one New York Times article that in fact stuck out to me and answered some inquiring questions that I intentionally had set out to figure out through the process of my research. The Article was entitled "The Race for Space II- Country's reverses traced primarily to Organization and Primary Efforts" by Hanson W. Baldwin. I was not in fact so much intrigued by how the Times covered the article but was more intrigued by the responses and further commentary made by some U.S officials on their views regarding their role in the Space Race.
There was one comment made by Dr T. Keith Glennan that responded toward the criticism the U.S. faced regarding their role in The Space Race due to the success of the USSR reaching the moon. An admission on the U.S part that further damaged their  reputation which states:  "The reasons for our reverses in the space race lie primarily in the field of organization and planning not in inadequate technology." Which leads me to believe that the U.S. feared that because the were so great of a nation and had all the necessary resources and funds they would be looked at as a weaker opponent and their reputation would be caught at a standstill. His comment not only lacked facts as of why and what took them so long to beat the USSR but then to only blame the reason and only reason they were unfortunate in making an grand victory was due to a lack of organization and adequate planning by NASA officials and the U.S. Government. This news article was very much informative and was directly on point as to stating what could have been the distraction or what was the governments reason as to why they lulled behind Soviet Russia to space. I would like to say that this article didn't indeed sway the opinion I had originally about the U.S role in the space race but indeed opened my eyes to the key partners that were involved in the space race and how they looked at it outside of just the United States; How not only Russia looked at it but how they interpreted their accomplishment and how the U.S dealt with the backlash from critics and peers.

The Race for Space-- II Article

1 comment:

  1. Interesting! One factual point: had the USSR gotten to the moon? Look again.

    I'm interested in what you're saying about the argument of the article: in addition to its arguments about why the U.S. is behind, does it give us a sense of why the writer things it's so important for the U.S. to be successful in this area: is going to space about scientific advances - discovering new things? Is it for economic development? Or is it mostly about the relationship with the USSR, and if so, how is beating this country in space supposed to help? OR even think about this: What does the assumption that science be divided by countries tell us?

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