The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984

by Paul B. Stares

Book by Stares, Paul B.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1985

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can tell this grew out of a doctoral dissertation, as the author frankly admits, because it has that name/date/name/date kind of style, with cursory summations at the end of each chapter. Frankly, you can get away with just reading those, for slogging through the actual chapters themselves can become a little tedious as you slough through name after name, committee after committee and date after date.
Probably five stars for the specialist interested in this sort of thing, I, a lay reader, found it sorely lacking mainly because it goes into almost no detail about the actual space program! There's a few token mentions of Gemini and the space program, but a lot of the work focuses on the bureaucratic niceties in the US during the 50s and 60s with a brief bit on the Reagan era let's-build-space-losers spending orgy (the book itself dates from 1985). So.

[Elsbeth Magilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good historical context but definitely someone’s dissertation that was never quite edited for a book.