Spacework: Labor and culture in America\u27s astronaut corps, 1959–1979

Previous discussions of American astronauts as a labor force have emphasized the flamboyant cultural traits of the earliest members of this select group. Despite periods of celebrity, though, astronauts, like countless young military officers before them, have nearly always been organization men : middle class strivers expert in managing the demands of large institutions, not unlike other elite professionals of the late-20th century. Through reference to archival documents, oral history, published sources, and popular culture, this historical analysis examines the origins of this new American profession and follows it through several critical transitions, including the end of Project Apollo and the beginning of the Space Shuttle program. As celebrities in a growing government agency, astronauts of the 1960s balanced a determination to meet the expectations of their superiors with a desire to gain more control over their work and lives. Despite occasional professional and personal stumbles, their culture remained largely unchallenged for half-a-decade, as successive groups of astronauts accepted and reinforced the standards of conduct, professional outlook, and workplace dynamics of the earliest spacemen. The arrival of scientists into the astronaut corps in the late-1960s undermined the authority of NASA\u27s pilot-astronauts and signaled a fundamental shift in both national space policy and the space workplace. Having enjoyed unprecedented celebrity and authority in the 1960s but no longer in the spotlight, astronauts of the 1970s adjusted to a work culture that placed them more firmly under the control of NASA management and demanded new skills of negotiation and adjustment. Meanwhile, NASA increasingly sought to capitalize on the public fascination with space travel its astronauts had inspired