The successful shot of the Explorer satellite got the U.S. into space, but last week was the week that space got down to the U.S. In Congress, in the White House, at the Pentagon, in politics, diplomacy and planning, space lost its otherworldly quality, was folded into the everyday processes of government.
President Eisenhower demonstrated his own matter-of-factness with an edict at his 126th press conference: "All of the outer space work done within the Defense Department will be under Secretary McElroy himself." McElroy put his thumbprint on an advancing age by...
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