3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

For sixty years space exploration has been a fundamental part of American identity and culture, its imagery and rhetoric invoked everywhere from the Halls of Congress to movie theaters and shopping malls. When, how, and why did spaceflight become central to our nation’s sense of self? We will answer this question through a survey of the history of space exploration and, by proxy, of the United States. America’s celestial achievements are in every way a reflection of its terrestrial concerns: domestic politics, international relations, capitalism, civil rights, science, and contemporary culture.