We all know the names: Grissom, Armstrong, Cernan-legends of the space age whose names resonate with people around the world and whose deeds need no introduction. We know less about the men who led the organization that planned and began the US exploration of space: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Thomas O. Paine grew up an ordinary boy in northern California during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He would go on to serve as NASA's third administrator, leading the space agency through the first historic missions that sent astronauts on voyages away from Earth. On his watch, seven Apollo flights orbited our planet and five reached our moon. From those missions came the first of twelve men to walk on the moon. Years later, in 1985, the Reagan administration would call on Paine again to chair the nation's first-ever National Commission on Space. The Paine Commission Report of 1986 challenged twenty-first-century America to «lead the exploration and development of the space frontier, advancing science, technology, and enterprise, and building institutions and systems that make accessible vast new resources and support human settlements beyond Earth orbit, from the highlands of the Moon to the plains of Mars.»In Piercing the Horizon, Sunny Tsiao masterfully delivers new insights into the behind-the-scenes drama of the space race. Tsiao examines how Paine's days as a World War II submariner fighting in the Pacific shaped his vision for the future of humankind in space. The book tells how Paine honed his skills as a pioneering materials engineer at the fabled postwar General Electric Company in the 1950s, to his dealings inside the halls of NASA and with Johnson, Nixon, and later, the Reagan and Bush administrations.As robotic missions begin leaving the earth, Tsiao invites the reader to take another look at the plans that Paine articulated regarding how America could have had humans on Mars by the year 2000 as the first step to the exploration of deep space. Piercing the Horizon provides provocative context to current conversations on the case for reaching Mars, settling our solar system, and continuing the exploration of space.
Оглавление
Sunny Tsiao. Piercing the Horizon
PIERCING THE. HORIZON. The Story of Visionary NASA Chief Tom Paine
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE: MAN WILL CONQUER SPACE SOON
1. NAVY BRAT
2. I NEVER GOT OVER IT
3. A LONG VOYAGE HOME
4. HOUSE OF MAGIC
5. IT’S A PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENT?
6. GAINING SOME RESPECT
7. I’M NOT A POLITICIAN
8. A GREAT SENSE OF TRIUMPH
9. GOING GLOBAL
10. WHAT NOW?
11. I ACCEPT YOUR RESIGNATION
12. A LITTLE BETTER FOOTING
13. PIONEERING THE SPACE FRONTIER
14. CHIEF MARTIAN MONSTER
EPILOGUE: A TWINKLE IN HIS EYE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Отрывок из книги
Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics
James R. Hansen, Series Editor
Purdue University Press / West Lafayette, Indiana
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A renowned fellow presidential commissioner fondly recalled Paine as a man who was “a wonderful human being who was very shrewd but never gave the impression [of] being shrewd. He … came across as being just kind of an ordinary guy, but he was quite extraordinary.”6 To see how Tom Paine came to be a central figure in the US space program, we must open not with the moon and Project Apollo, nor the romance of the high plains of Mars that he hoped human beings would one day settle, nor the saga onboard a US submarine as it perilously fought the Japanese, but in the colonies of the New World at the time of the birth of America. This was a time when visionaries of another kind journeyed across the breadth of an ocean to conquer their dreams.
By 8:56, they had made their way directly broadside of the convoy and were in good position to take a shot. But they nearly lost their chance. Only two minutes earlier, with no warning, the Pompon had suddenly lost power. Paine’s quick action on the bow planes stabilized the nose and brought the boat back into the correct firing position. With crewmen Paul Stolpman and Whitey Bevill working the forward torpedoes, he was able to confirm the forward tubes ready just in time. Gimber immediately gave orders to fire. Three torpedoes shot out from the bow tubes toward the convoy 2,300 yards out. Ninety seconds later, the transport ship was gone. Gimber wrote in the mission log: “Bulls eye! One hit amid ship and he literally disintegrated, breaking in half and sinking almost immediately. Numerous breaking up noises were heard; in addition, two other explosions which were probably the other torpedoes on the beach.” After the war, Japanese shipping logs revealed that the captain of this vessel had requested to go around the western side of Japan because he believed that there was too much danger from US submarines on the Pacific side. His request had been denied.11
