Power to Explore: a History of Marshall Space Flight Center, 1960-1990.

By Andrew J. Dunar and Stephen P. Waring. The NASA History Series. (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA History Office, Office of Policy and Plans, 1999. Pp. x, 713. $49.00, ISBN 0-16-058992-4.)

Institutional history suffers from many pitfalls. To be useful, it must provide an thorough analytical view of the inner workings of the institution and yet do so without losing the lay reader. The organization must be placed in context within a larger world of economics, politics, research, and general success in the field. Perhaps most importantly, it should give even the most objective employee a view of the institution more complete than that individual's experienced observation, even as it provides an outsider with an accurate understanding of the dynamics of the institution. This is a tall order. Power to Explore, however, is a fine example of vibrant institutional history.

Originally incorporated in 1941 from two U.S. Army arsenals in the Huntsville, Alabama, area, the Army's Redstone Arsenal, part of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, emerged as the country's primary rocket research center by the end of the 1940s. The core group of German rocket experts from Peenemunde under Wernher von Braun were joined by American engineers, and Redstone rockets were followed by Jupiter and Saturn rocket successes. By the time the Redstone Arsenal became the Marshall Space Flight Center under NASA in 1960, it had an established reputation for rocket research excellence and a distinct personality greatly influenced by its origins and leadership under von Braun. Energetic and opinionated, von Braun and his German colleagues brought with them their German work habits and their dedication to culture and community, and they helped transform Huntsville from a sleepy cotton crossroads into an oasis of middle-class economic values. They also brought the "arsenal" approach to their work, which meant dedication to doing everything connected to a project within the institution itself. In the NASA years to follow, that operational philosophy, although by necessity abandoned, haunted Marshall's dealings with its contractors and other NASA field centers.

The list of Marshall's contributions to space exploration is extremely varied and impressive. Its credits include the Jupiter and Saturn rockets, the Explorer satellite series, crucial involvement in the Apollo program, the Apollo Telescope Mount, the Lunar Roving Vehicle, Skylab, Spacelab, the STS (Shuttle) program, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Space Station. Marshall's role in these programs and projects, and its interaction with its contractors and other centers, are examined in detail and provide a series of case studies of successful and less-than-successful relationships.

Three chapters deserve mention, and their authors deserve praise for their thoroughness and forthrightness. "The Marshall Reconstruction" tackles the issue of civil rights and minority representation at Marshall, placing the center's mediocre record in the context of social and political changes during the 1960s. Although Marshall's role in implementing social change was often the result of pressure from Washington, its environment fostered enlightened social attitudes that were certainly advanced for its Alabama location. The two chapters on the Challenger accident and the Hubble telescope fiasco are equally honest and disturbing. While the details surrounding the O-ring and joint failures in the Challenger's solid rocket motor are damning, the process by which the failures were incompletely addressed is made all too understandable--a combination of miscommunication, noncommunication, relationships with contractors, management priorities, complacency, and political pressure tragically coincided. As for the Hubble telescope, mirror quality control failed at both the contractor and center level, but what is noteworthy in the Hubble debacle is that a remedy was engineered.

One minor issue is that the narrative tends to hopscotch chronologically. This awkwardness was perhaps unavoidable given the arrangement of chapters by programs and projects, many of which had concurrent evolutions. It is only mildly disconcerting, and in a book that exemplifies institutional history at its best--thorough, honest, and readable--it is surely a small concern. The book was twelve years in gestation, which appears to have been time well spent.

ELIZABETH A. MUENGER
U.S. Air Force Academy