It didn't feel like that at the time at all, did it? You know, it's interesting because given, you know, the perspective now when we know that the Soviet system and its one-party state, you know, and planned economy would collapse in a couple of decades, the outcome seems preordained. And that, I felt, was missing from most of the accounts that I was reading.ĭAVIES: Yeah. Those are the stakes, as people understood it at the time. JFK had said during the campaign in 1960 that if the Soviets control space, they control Earth. Kennedy - that this was a Cold War contest that wasn't just symbolic it was an existential struggle, and it was one that America seemed to be losing. And when you read books about the Cold War, they're mostly concerned with Berlin and Cuba and all of the other kind of hot zones of the Cold War.Īnd it seemed to me that the importance of the space race, as people understood it at the time - people including, by the way, the president of the United States, John F. But when you read most of the books about space or about astronauts, the Cold War is sort of background. It hasn't escaped anybody's notice that the Soviets were trying to get there before we did and, in fact, did actually manage to send a human being into space before we did. It's widely understood that this was, as you said, a Cold War contest. SHESOL: Well, I read a lot of those space books, and I've enjoyed many of them, but I always felt that something was missing. What convinced you that it was an original story to tell here? space program, especially since we, you know, had the 50th anniversary of the moon landing recently. Thanks for having me.ĭAVIES: You know, there aren't many subjects quite as heavily chronicled as the U.S. It's titled "Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, And The New Battleground Of The Cold War." I spoke with him last year.ĭAVIES: Well, Jeff Shesol, welcome back to FRESH AIR. He's written two previous books selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Jeff Shesol is a historian and former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton. But as Shesol describes, they were decidedly human, engaging in personal conduct that could sully the program's image if publicized and locked in intense rivalries with each other to man key missions into space. They were military pilots who were embraced as the nation's champions in the Cold War.
The book describes the sometimes-shaky improvised technology the program employed and the experience of the seven men chosen to be the first astronauts. In a new book, Shesol recalls the early days of the space program, when the Soviet Union was ahead in the race to explore the heavens, and their dominance of the field seemed to take on a grim inevitability. Americans had become used to seeing their rockets blow up on the launch pad. Our guest, historian Jeff Shesol, says the crowd was huge and the tension palpable because there was a real fear that Colonel John Glenn wouldn't survive the day. They were awaiting the launch of the United States' first mission to put an astronaut in orbit around the Earth. If you'd happened to be in New York's Grand Central Station on the morning of February 20, 1962, you'd have seen 10,000 people standing on the concourse, staring up at a large television screen.
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