Destined for the Stars (eBook)

<b>Divine Destiny and the Popularization of Space Exploration in America </b>

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Where did humanity get the idea that outer space is a frontier waiting to be explored? <i>Destined for the Stars</i> unravels the popularization of the science of space exploration in America between 1944 and 1955, arguing that the success of the US space program was due not to technological or economic superiority, but was sustained by a culture that had long believed it was called by God to settle new frontiers and prepare for the inevitable end of time and Gods final judgment. Religious forces, Newell finds, were in no small way responsible for the crescendo of support for and interest in space exploration in the early 1950s, well before Project Mercurythe United States first human spaceflight programbegan in 1959. In this remarkable history, Newell explores the connection between the art of Chesley Bonestellthe father of modern space art whose paintings drew inspiration from depictions of the American Westand the popularity of that art in Cold War America; Bonestells working partnership with science writer and rocket expert Willy Ley; and Ley and Bonestells relationship with Wernher von Braun, father of both the V-2 missile and the Saturn V rocket, whose millennial conviction that God wanted humankind to leave Earth and explore other planets animated his lifes work. Together, they inspired a technological and scientific faith that awoke a deep-seated belief in a sense of divine destiny to reach the heavens. The origins of their quest, Newell concludes, had less to do with the Cold War strife commonly associated with the space race and everything to do with the religious culture that contributed to the invention of space as the final frontier.