Frontiers Space Exploration Book

McDougall's book is very well researched. It largely tells the back-and-forth space development, exploration, and exploitation tale between the USSR & the US. The book is thematically centered on the emergence of technocracy in the US as a result of (perceived or real) need to compete with the USSR for national prestige in space. In McDougall's analysis, the success of the lunar landing set the stage for LBJ to implement a number of technocratic, centrally managed national programs, to include the management of Vietnam and the "Great Society" writ large. Once the space program proved centralized management successful, education initiatives and social programs followed. McDougall takes a very cautionary view of this, invoking often Ike's fear of technocratic tendencies to shove aside the American ideals of freedom.