posted 06-28-2006 02:07 AM               

Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest by Gerard J. DeGroot

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: New York University Press (November 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0814719953

For a very brief moment during the 1960s, America was moonstruck. Boys dreamt of being an astronaut; girls dreamed of marrying one. Americans drank Tang, bought "space pens" that wrote upside down, wore clothes made of space age Mylar, and took imaginary rockets to the Moon from themes parks scattered around the country.

But despite the best efforts of a generation of scientists, the almost foolhardy heroics of the astronauts, and 35 billion dollars, the moon turned out to be a place of "magnificent desolation," to use Buzz Aldrin's words: a sterile rock of no purpose to anyone. In Dark Side of the Moon, Gerard J. DeGroot reveals how NASA cashed in on the Americans' thirst for heroes in an age of discontent and became obsessed with putting men in space. The moon mission was sold as a race which America could not afford to lose. Landing on the moon, it was argued, would be good for the economy, for politics, and for the soul. It could even win the Cold War. The great tragedy is that so much effort and expense was devoted to a small step that did virtually nothing for mankind.

Drawing on meticulous archival research, DeGroot cuts through the myths constructed by the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations and sustained by NASA ever since. He finds a gang of cynics, demagogues, scheming politicians, and corporations who amassed enormous power and profits by exploiting the fear of what the Russians might do in space.

Exposing the truth behind one of the most revered fictions of American history, Dark Side of the Moon explains why the American space program has been caught in a state of purposeless wandering ever since Neil Armstrong descended from Apollo 11 and stepped onto the moon. The effort devoted to the space program was indeed magnificent and its cultural impact was profound, but the purpose of the program was as desolate and dry as lunar dust.

Gerard J. DeGroot is professor of modern history at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland. He is the author of ten books, most recently The Bomb: A Life, which won the prestigious [2004] Westminster Medal for the best book on a war or military topic.

posted 06-28-2006 11:24 AM               

A politically inspired and driven project undertaken for less than altruistic reasons?

posted 06-28-2006 11:43 AM               

The great tragedy is that so much effort and expense was devoted to a small step that did virtually nothing for mankind.

The effort devoted to the space program was indeed magnificent and its cultural impact was profound, but the purpose of the program was as desolate and dry as lunar dust.

At the great risk of alienating many of you, I agree with some of what he's saying here.

The lunar program did a great many things to further technology as far as astronautics, but what did it do to make the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Every-American any better.

posted 06-28-2006 03:01 PM               

Seriously, I am sure someone can pull up the link for the RAND study that provides the cost-benefit breakdown for the space program and showing the huge payback that we have received. The manned program, I suspect, also helped to drive the unmanned program as well as simple technological development. In an era when everyone seems to have a cellphone in their pocket, a computer in their home and the ability to watch in high definition events as they happen half way around the world, there remain a few of us who recall the problems making a long-distance phone call or the grainy image as we watch Prince Charles invested as the Prince of Wales back in 1968 (?).

posted 06-28-2006 07:55 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by John K. Rochester:
The lunar program did a great many things to further technology as far as astronautics, but what did it do to make the lives of Mr, and Mrs. Every-American any better.

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posted 06-29-2006 06:05 AM               

It is waaaayyy too early to determine the ultimate value of Project Apollo, IMO.

posted 06-29-2006 09:08 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Dennis Beatty:
Well, if nothing else, I'd like to borrow a quote from George Mallory who, when asked why he wanted to be the first to climb Mt. Everest replied... "Because it's there".

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Yes, 1968-69 was the greatest time in our lives, those of us who love space exploration, for the excitement of going to the moon for the first time on Apollo 8, and the landing on Apollo 11... terrific times!!

posted 06-29-2006 11:34 AM            

In their offices they work on their PC's, use an electronic calculator and let their digital wrist watches remind them of appointments. Part of their business may involve shipping and recieving of goods that are tracked world-wide by GPS.

At home on the weekends they may tackle some hobbies or home improvements using battery-operated power tools, talk to friends on a wireless telephone and watch movies on DVD's.

They, or someone close to them may have been saved by medical telemetry from ambulances to hospitals, or found the use of cat scan or NMR imaging devices permitted a disease to be caught and diagnosed before reaching fatality.

If they lived within a few hundred miles of any NASA Centers or contractor hubs, no doubt they patronized businesses- contractors, retailers, restaurants, hotels.... that would not have existed without the influx of space monies to those communities- where direct workers and supporting businesses all thrived, bought homes, cars, all manner of goods and put their kids through college thanks to space.

Well- you get the idea. Would many of these items have existed without a 'space race?' Sure. Would they have become small, portable and affordable to most of the public without the space-induced microelectronic and digital revolutions? I doubt it- and the mass production of many of these items have created a massive global economy for Asia from virtually nothing.

posted 06-30-2006 12:04 PM               

There are in fact at least 3-4 left-of-center/liberal critiques of the space race in general and the Apollo program in particular. I admit to not having read any of them. But they can provoke thought by making people defend positions and views that they take for granted.

posted 11-11-2006 12:42 PM               

The shocking aspect of the book is that the author of this "history" relies on an Apollo mission to the moon that never took place as part of his argument that Apollo was an ill conceived rush to the moon. DeGroot believes that Apollo astronauts made three trips to the moon prior to the Apollo 11 moon landing mission, thus making even the Apollo 11 flight to the moon "routine." Showing his lack of knowledge of what actually happened in the Apollo program, DeGroot writes on pages 230-231 -

For NASA, Apollo 8 provided valuable confirmation that the package which would take Americans to the Moon actually worked. Apollo 9 then took on the original profile of Apollo 8, except for the fact that, given the earlier mission's success, there seemed little point in testing the lunar module in Earth orbit. The crew of James McDivitt, David Scott, and Rust Schweickart therefore went to the Moon. After the command module separated from the spent rocket, the crew turned it around and then docked with the lunar module, which was still enclosed in Saturn's final stage. They then pulled away and headed for the Moon.

Once in the Moon's orbit, McDivitt and Schweickart climbed into the lunar module, separated it from the command module, and flew it for the first time.

This story about Apollo 9 going to the moon is fiction, not history. This is no mere typo or misstatement, but an appalling error in scholarship by this historian. Apollo 9 never went to the moon. Astronauts McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart did not orbit the moon in Apollo 9. Apollo 9 was planned and executed (highly successfully) as an Earth orbit mission. One minute of on on-line research can confirm this. The difference between an Earth orbit mission and a lunar obit mission is vast. How vast? Well, since the last Apollo flight to the moon in 1972 there have been over a hundred Earth orbit flights and not a single flight to the moon. Since Apollo 11 was only the second time the lunar module went to the moon and only the third time men traveled to the moon, it was not a "routine" event. In erroneously describing the Apollo 9 mission as traveling to the moon and using that as part of his argument for criticizing NASA, the author seriously undercuts his credibility.

Furthermore, continuing factual errors about the Apollo program show that the author does not have any in depth knowledge of what actually occurred on these missions. For example, in writing about what DeGroot describes as the "well known" Apollo 13 mission, he states "An explosion ripped through the outer skin of the Command Module, which quickly lost electric power." P. 250. In fact, the explosion ripped through the skin of the service module, an entirely different part of the space craft. If the explosion had ripped though the skin of the command module, the astronauts would have immediately died from decompression of the command module. An author of a book about the Apollo missions should better understand the design of the Apollo command and service modules that made up the Apollo spacecraft. Especially if it is a book highly critical of the entire program.

The author also shows that he does not have a clear grasp of the events that took place during the Apollo 11 moon landing. DeGroot describes the exciting events taking place as Neil Armstrong pilots the lunar module to a safe landing spot on the moon as it was running out of fuel. Then, in describing the actual landing on the moon (p. 235) he writes, "Armstrong uttered the magical words: 'Contact.'" Armstrong did not say that; the NASA transcripts of the flight clearly show that Buzz Aldrin spoke the words "Contact Light" when the lunar module Eagle's probe touched the lunar surface and the contact light flashed on control panel. Putting Aldrin's words in Armstrong's mouth may by itself be viewed as a small error, but in this situation of repeated errors it evidences poor scholarship.

posted 11-12-2006 06:15 AM              

I do think it is important to read and understand what detractors say too. People like Walter Mondale have had valid opinions even if we disagree.

posted 11-12-2006 03:10 PM               

That said, most good publishers will normally send a manuscript to at least one qualified reader with a solid working knowledge of the subject whose job it is to read and assess the contents and reliability of the submitted work before a final go-ahead decision is made. Any queries in this reader's report are referred back to the author for checking and correction. The system does not seem to have worked well in this case, with such fundamental errors left in the text.

posted 11-12-2006 03:43 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ColinBurgess:
In defence of editors, they are not in the business of checking all the facts presented by an author.

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posted 11-12-2006 04:03 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by ColinBurgess:
That said, most good publishers will normally send a manuscript to at least one qualified reader with a solid working knowledge of the subject whose job it is to read and assess the contents and reliability of the submitted work before a final go-ahead decision is made.

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Colin's right about this. I've served as a manuscript reviewer on a number of occasions. Usually a press will employ at least two reviewers, with the editor serving as a third. Sometimes they'll do more.

Although the review process serves as a screen against crap getting published, it's not perfect. Quite often a person will review a book and write only a page and a half of comments, often at a rather general level--in other words, instead of identifying each fact that is wrong, they might simply say "chapter 3 has a lot of factual errors and should be fixed." That is not always going to work.

I tend to take manuscript reviewing extremely seriously and I consider the reviewer to essentially be an extension of the author-editorial team. So I have occasionally reviewed manuscripts and offered 20-page single-spaced replies, listing not only errors or misinterpretations, but suggestions where the author can get better information. I'm a little obsessive about it, but my goal is to help the author produce a good product. However, I've had both good and bad experiences at this. A good one was several years ago with the NASA book on the development of the Centaur. I offered a very detailed critique along with documents and suggestions. The author was very appreciative and made a number of changes (and gave me a nice acknowledgment too). I thought it was a good manuscript that deserved to be even better.

But I also did the same thing on another book a few years before that and suggested that the publisher not publish it until they corrected what I considered some serious weaknesses. These were not really "mistakes" in the true sense, but problems. Certainly somebody could dismiss them as matters of opinion, but I thought that the book had some major flaws. After spending a lot of time on that, the book sailed into print completely unchanged and I felt like I had wasted my time.

posted 11-13-2006 12:06 PM               

I think that I might have given a mistaken impression of the review process at publishers. The reality is that most manuscript reviewers are asked to provide general comments, not really to fact-check. And publishers normally use these reviews not to correct errors, but to decide whether or not to publish a book. Therefore, there is plenty of opportunity for mistakes to get into print.

posted 11-21-2006 04:20 AM              

Anyway... In my case, I am getting "peer reviews" the easy way. I am posting parts of the book on my blog as I go along and people comment in near real time. You can't beat that for fast feedback. Most authors and publishers are scared of this approach because they fear people "stealing the information". Nonsense. It makes the book the better.

posted 12-13-2006 05:33 PM               

This precocious book stands, and falls, on its cunning sound bites. With cheeky rhetorical flourish, the author, a history professor at the University of St. Andrews, assails the integrity of the American Moon landing program of the 1960s. Thankfully, DeGroot does not venture so far as to suggest that the landings never really occurred but were part of a U.S. government conspiracy to fool the USSR about America's strategic capability during the Cold War, though the book's presentation is almost as fanciful.

posted 12-14-2006 09:47 AM               

The bigger issue appears to be the author's misunderstanding of concepts and relationships. This is harder for people to summarize--it's easier to simply say "he said Apollo 9 went to the Moon; he's wrong!" than it is to explain how he misunderstands cause and effect. But from the reviews I have read, it appears that DeGroot really bends reality in order to conform to his thesis. Hanson's review contains a good example of this when he points to DeGroot's claim that Americans drove to parties celebrating the lunar landing in foreign cars, like Renaults. This indicates to me that DeGroot knows very little of American history, because foreign imports did not account for a significant fraction of American automobile sales until many years later. Anybody familiar with American social history would understand that it was the 1973 oil crisis that led to Americans buying foreign (particularly Japanese) cars with better gas mileage. And the quip about Renault is priceless--I doubt that Renault ever had more than one percent of the US auto market, if that. Even today, most American autos are Chevys and Fords, and only recently has Toyota outsold Ford. (And it is worth noting that many Toyotas are actually primarily manufactured in the U.S.)

posted 12-14-2006 08:14 PM               

I'm currently going through the editing dance with a university-based press on a biographical volume, and yesterday I got a very concise and very incisive critique of my manuscript. It didn't mince any words in basically saying "you got a little ways to go on this one," but I can tell you that I was grateful for it, and my editor is being very good about working with me to improve the book so it'll be worthwhile when it is printed. I wish someone had done that with this volume.

Unfortunately, DeGroot's book isn't the only book by an academic to have come out from a renowned publisher, only to have its methods and conclusions shot full of holes. The worst part of it all is that someone who has the same axe to grind will see in this book a confirmation and legitimization of what they want to believe. Sort of like the moon-hoaxers did when Fox aired that so-called "special" a few years back.

posted 12-15-2006 01:53 PM               

Thank you very much for drawing our attention to several factual errors in Gerard DeGroot's Dark Side of the Moon.

As a university press, we make it a central part of our process to have each book manuscript carefully vetted by experts before we decide in favor of publication. But despite review by these experts, as well as by the acquiring editor and the copyeditor, errors still occasionally make their way into a finished book. That is why we are always grateful to have attentive readers such as you.

Professor DeGroot is very embarrassed about these errors and has rewritten the sections in question. The corrected text will be included in all reprints and future editions of the book.

Thank you again for taking the time to write.

posted 12-15-2006 03:19 PM               

As a university press, we make it a central part of our process to have each book manuscript carefully vetted by experts before we decide in favor of publication. But despite review by these experts, as well as by the acquiring editor and the copyeditor, errors still occasionally make their way into a finished book. That is why we are always grateful to have attentive readers such as you.

posted 12-15-2006 03:21 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by SRB:
It is nice to know that this publisher is responsive to readers, and that they thought it worthwhile to have the factual errors corrected.

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posted 12-18-2006 09:09 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by freshspot:
If the reviews are any guide, the first edition won't sell enough copies to warrant any reprintings...

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posted 03-06-2007 02:31 PM               

As the United States revs up the engines for a return to the moon by 2020 and further travel to Mars, a solid look at the costs and benefits of the nation's earlier experiences with lunar exploration seems especially timely. Was Neil Armstrong's "giant leap for mankind" in July 1969 worth the billions spent to make it happen? Did it fire the imagination in any long-lasting and positive way that subsequent unmanned missions could not? One might expect that Dark Side of the Moon, Gerard J. DeGroot's new look at the Apollo space missions of the 1960s and '70s, would offer valuable insights into these questions. Unfortunately, it does not.

From its first pages, the book bristles with hostility toward virtually everything associated with America's drive to the moon. The lunar quest that DeGroot, a historian at Scotland's University of St. Andrews, describes is scientifically barren, unconscionably costly and absurdly risky -- little more than an ill-conceived Cold War race to outshine the Russians in space. The semi-heroes of the book are President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who saw no reason to race into space, and Alexei Leonov, the cosmonaut of the 1960s and '70s tapped to lead the first Soviet mission to the moon, who is liberally quoted saying enlightened things -- including recalling that his fellow cosmonauts applauded when Armstrong first touched the lunar surface. The goats are just about everyone else -- especially John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Walter Cronkite (a great space buff) and the leadership of NASA.

There certainly was a lot of hyperbole associated with America's early trips to the moon, but by focusing so relentlessly on the "dark side" of the quest, the author becomes blind to its wonder and value. There is, of course, no "dark side" of the moon that never experiences sunshine. There is a far side that we never see. But it, too, is sometimes bathed in light.

posted 03-06-2007 02:37 PM               

The semi-heroes of the book are President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who saw no reason to race into space, and Alexei Leonov, the cosmonaut of the 1960s and '70s tapped to lead the first Soviet mission to the moon, who is liberally quoted saying enlightened things -- including recalling that his fellow cosmonauts applauded when Armstrong first touched the lunar surface.

As Jim Oberg demonstrated years ago, Leonov spent many years lying about the Soviet moon program, denying that it existed. In fact, I believe that Oberg noted that Leonov was pretty vociferous about this. Once he was allowed to talk, he took a 180 and started claiming that he would have been the moonwalker.

posted 03-07-2007 04:18 AM              

It isn't fair to criticize it unless you have read it. As an author of 3 books I can say with certainty that when people slam a book based on something other than reading it for themselves, it is not only unfair, but insulting. If somebody doesn't like my book, that's fine. Sure it hurts. But if they explain why, then I learn from it. If they slam the book without reading it, I'm pissed.

Yes, there are factual errors in Dark Side of the Moon as were expertly pointed out by Steve who started this thread. That is a shame because I do think that the author's alternative opinion on the space race should be read by all of us. No, I do not agree with the author. No, I do not think that going to the moon was a magnificent folly. No, I don't think that putting humans in space had no rational purpose. But that doesn't mean I should dismiss the book without reading it first. And yes, after reading it I still do disagree with the author.

However, there were many things that I found interesting in the book. The alternative view actually strengthened and enhanced my thinking and understanding of the space program and that is valuable and a reason to read it. Even though I disagree with the author I learn something.

I wish in our current divided political climate in the US people would read and understand the political views of the other side before slamming others views as "wrong". In the past month I have read "What a Party!: My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals" by Terry McAuliffe (a top Clinton aide) AND "Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years In The White House" by Ari Fleischer (a top Bush aide). Without saying anything about my political learning, reading these two books one after the other was an important exercise in understanding. I don't want to just read the stuff I agree with.

The author of "Dark Side of the Moon" has an incredibly cynical way of telling history that I found worked well for him and that I found enjoyable to read. For example:

"Leave It To Beaver, that iconic portrayal of white middle class suburban contentment, premiered on CBS the same night as Sputnik, proof that history has a talent for irony. The coincidence was of course accidental, but no less striking. In the new age of space, a high standard of living suddenly seemed an indicator of cultural inferiority." P. 73.

posted 03-07-2007 01:19 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by freshspot:
It isn't fair to criticize it unless you have read it.

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posted 03-07-2007 02:26 PM              

But speculating on what the author did or didn't mean based on just the reviews of the book rather than the book itself is insulting to the author in my opinion and doesn't make for a very lively or productive discussion.

posted 11-23-2009 03:54 PM               

Consider, for example, DeGroot's analysis of Neil Armstrong's famous quote upon stepping onto the Sea of Tranquility. "Armstrong could have said 'the Moon's a balloon' and millions would have praised his profundity...Armstrong provided a freeze-dried slogan, something prepared earlier and then taken into space along with the Tang and the tubes of hamburgers" (p. 240). I find this quite offensive. Armstrong most certainly did not prepare the statement earlier and then "take it into space." Armstrong formulated the statement in the time after the landing and before the first step. To say that his words were "freeze dried" and not a thoughtful and very personal evaluation of the hard work accomplished by 400,000 Americans, is just lazy and demeaning.

DeGroot also makes this statement, along with several other similar statements to the same effect throughout the book: "...so much beauty and imagination was invested in to a trip to a sterile rock of no purpose to anyone" (241). Well, guess what? DeGroot may not be interested in the effort to explore the lunar surface, but there are indeed plenty of professional scientists who have an interest in geology. Before the Apollo program, there really was a debate between the so-called "cold mooners" and "hot mooners" as to the nature in which the Moon formed. The samples returned by the astronauts revealed that the Moon formed 4.6 billion years ago, in an environment of searing heat created by a magma ocean. The space agency went to the expense of lengthy geological training programs for the later crews in particular, realizing the importance of having trained observers on the lunar surface in the midst of an extremely tight timeline.

posted 11-23-2009 11:39 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Tyler:
In short, knock it off with this conclusion that Apollo was an "ego trip" to a "sterile rock of no purpose to anyone."

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But at first, it was an "ego trip" to show that the US was more technology advanced than the USSR, wasn't it? The US didn't go the Moon for scientific reasons- but since astronauts were to go there, might as well do some science.The Moon is sterile, its formation still unknown. "No purpose to anyone" is certainly false but the number of people interested in the Moon's physical structure and origin is relatively small compared to the vast amount of ressources the Apollo program required to satisfy their curiosity.