Ice cold take on space history that some of you might enjoy.

OK, so I've read quite a bit now and roughly speaking there are two types of space history: inside the space agency and outside.

Inside is more typical - tells the story of leaders, engineers, and astronauts.

Outside is plentiful, but less common and popular - tells the story of the geopolitical and domestic political fights that motivated the agendas for space agencies and space military agencies.

These are both "correct" ways to view things, but if you only read inside-the-agency history, you get a very different, and I think skewed picture. I'll give a quick example.

Lunar orbit rendezvous.

von Braun and others at NASA wanted a Moon landing system where you assemble a huge craft in space, which can go to the moon, land, and return. Basically, a whole moon infrastructure system.

Engineer John Houbolt fought this for a different idea:

Basically, you get a craft to the Moon, which drops a small "dinghy" down for a moon jaunt. It then rises up to the orbiter, docks, and people go home. This is the version NASA went with.

An inside-the-agency telling goes like this: Brilliant engineer Houbolt fought entrenched power to get NASA to do a mission that could successfully put men on the moon before 1970, fulfilling Kennedy's pledge. He won and he won.

An outside-the-agency telling goes like this: The US is scared the Soviets will get to the Moon first, and worries failing at Kennedy's pledge alone could cost prestige and power on the world stage. They opt for a mission that narrowly fulfills Kennedy's parameters, but

does not create the infrastructure for future developments. In other words, they zeroed in on a mission that could be completed on time in order to secure a propaganda victory.

Again, these are both correct/accurate tellings of the story. One truth is nested inside the other. Problem is people tend to either only read the inside history OR see the outside history as negativism. It's best to know both, if you want to understand the future.

One other way to put it - without reading the outside-the-agency history, it's like reading about Greek warriors stabbing each other without knowing that there's a Peloponnesian War on. It'll be engaging, and there'll be real heroes, but you're missing something big.