The course of the Space Age underwent a fundamental shift during
the decade of the 1980's. The heady era of Sputnik, Apollo, and the
Cold War-fueled space race shifted to an era of more methodical
activities as space operations became popularly mundane. Similarly,
seminal works pertaining to the history of conspicuous early space
projects have been joined on the library shelf by words examining
less glamorous, but still important topics. The big, visible space
projects existed as much for reasons of politics and national
prestige as for scientific research, and thus attracted the early
attention of historians. The advancement of human knowledge and
skill, however, owed at least as much and perhaps more to smaller
projects and research conducted out of the spotlight. A facility
devoted to such projects still operates on the East Coast of the
lower Delmarva Peninsula. The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's Wallops Flight Facility has, since its
establishment in 1945, launched over 14,000 rockets, making it one
of the most prolific launch sites in the world as well as one of
the least known. Currently a subsidiary of Goddard Space Flight
Center, Wallops has always been among the smaller of America's
aerospace research facilities. Despite, and possibly because of,
the administrative and budgetary chaos that often characterized
this nation's space effort, Wallops evolved from a highly
specialized, test facility to a more generalized, multi-faceted
research center. The history of the base reaches back to the early
days of U.S. involvement in space research, and reflects most of
the major controversies encountered therein. An historical
examination of the base, therefore, has value not only because of
the comparative lack of such attention, but also because it allows
a unique vantage point from which to view what is, to paraphrase
policy historian John Logsdon, "the great adventure of our
lifetime." This thesis will focus on the political, administrative,
and social history aspects of the base from 1957 to 1966. This
period began with the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1,
continued through the creation of NASA, and culminated at the
height of the Project Apollo escalation. A fast-paced era, it also
includes the second of the three most important periods in Wallops
history to date.
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