The Long Space Age: The Economic Origins of Space Exploration from Colonial America to the Cold War

by A. D. Macdonald

Publisher:

Yale University Press

, 2020

Overview

An economic historian traces uncovers the story of privately funded space exploration from early 19th century astronomical observatories to SpaceX.

The standard historical narrative of American space exploration begins during the Cold War, with the federal government’s efforts to beat the Soviet Union in the Space Race. Given this framing, the more recent emergence of private sector space exploration appears to be a new and controversial phenomenon. But as Alexander MacDonald argues in The Long Space Age, privately funded space exploration had been happening in the United States long before we tried to put a man on the moon. 

Since the early 19th century, private observatories had been making discoveries and developing technologies that led directly to NASA’s epochal 20th century achievements. And their efforts were no less ambitious for their time than SpaceX and Blue Origin are in today’s resurgent space industry.The Long Space Age examines the economic history of this centuries-long development, from those first American observatories to the International Space Station.

Product Details

• Title: The Long Space Age: The Economic Origins of Space Exploration from Colonial America to the Cold War
• Author: A. D. Macdonald
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Print Publication Date: 2020
• Logos Release Date: 2024
• Pages: 272
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9780300227888, 9780300219326, 0300219326, 0300227884
• Resource ID: LLS:9780300227888
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-21T19:54:02Z

About the Author

Alexander MacDonald advises on national space strategy development and private sector space activities and is an expert on the economic history of space exploration. He received his doctorate in economic and social history from the University of Oxford. He is an economist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology, and is currently assigned to serve as Senior Economic Advisor with NASA. He was awarded the AIAA History Manuscript Award in 2016.