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Rockets and Revolution: A Cultural History of Early Spaceflight. By Michael G. Smith. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Pp. 448. $34.95.
In his intriguing prehistory of the space age, Michael Smith invites us to view rocket science as an infusion of cultural influences. In so doing, he suggests that rocketry can serve as an allegory of the human understanding of science, and also illustrate how a transnational flow of ideas can shape human knowledge. Smith's emphasis centers on the Russian experience, but uses the metaphor of the parabola that brings ideas back to Russia or the Soviet Union. Purists may argue that a more accurate description would involve an ellipsis, but the parabola idea works if one accepts the linearity of history, a concept popular in the science fiction that also influenced early rocketry.
Starting in the nineteenth century, Smith surveys the popularizers of science and how their message helped popularize not only relativism, but also such concepts as cosmism as well as a notion of plurality of worlds. A notable quality of his study involves the drawing on writings not usually associated with flight. (Henri) Bergsonian philosophy's argument that human intellect...