Introduction

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge each provide us with a means for understanding professional, disciplinary, or scientific knowledge. They describe the elementary conditions under which the full variety human knowledge is created and maintained. And they suggest that epistemology need not be construed as a species of esoteric contact with "transcendental conditions", but may, at least sometimes, amount to little more than a way of talking about what we know in order to determine, more or less precisely, how we know. While it is not always easy, it's not rocket science. It is a perfectible craft, i.e., something you can get better and better at the more you practice.

In addition to the two books just mentioned, this blog will be organized around the description of what we know about Project Apollo (especially in the years 1961-1969). To keep things as simple as possible, we begin by identifying a the "doctrine of elements" that sets up a kind of "schematism" for the research experience (the scare quotes indicate an uneasy tension with aspects of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which we may also get into at some point.) So, Thomas Kuhn defines a "disciplinary matrix" or what is colloquially called a "paradigm" as a research environment conditioned by the presence of four elements:

symbolic generalisations

models

values

exemplars

And Foucault likewise describes "discursive formations" or "discourses" in terms of four elements:

objects

concepts

enunciative modalities

strategies

There is no one-to-one mapping of these elements, however. And, while paradigms and discourses are certainly similar in many ways, it is important to keep in mind that they are independent ways of approaching human knowledge. One of the things they share is an emphasis on historical conditions, which is one sense in which they eschew transcendental analyses.

It is a relative mastery of these eight elements of epistemological description that this blog hopes to encourage and foster. We will be returning again to the facts mentioned in the prologue, expanding and sharpening this statement in order to identify its "objects" and "generalisations", its "strategies" and "values", etc. What we want to know is how Project Apollo can be construed as a problem of business administration and philosophy, which is our field.

Prologue: the fractional coherence of the moon (May 1961 - July 1969)

The success of the Apollo space programme, most clearly marked by the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon on July 20, 1969, is normally understood as a triumph of science and technology. But putting a man on the moon did not depend on science and technology alone, or at least not in the ordinary senses of these words. While getting to the moon did depend on knowledge about planetary motion and rocket propulsion, it also depended on political and cultural factors. These factors are what will interest us here.

For there is clearly a difference between what makes the moon an object of scientific research and what makes the same moon an object of national policy, a political objective. There are just as clearly connections between these. These differences and connections make for what we want to call "the fractional coherence of the moon". Our ability to conceive of a mission to go there depends on a multiplicity of relations between political subjects and scientific objects that together allow us to understand what it means to "explore space".

Consider John F. Kennedy's speech to Congress on May 25, 1961. (Text available here; video excerpt here.) He famously proposed that the U.S. "commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." Congress accepted the challenge and the Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility, right on schedule, eight years later.

One striking feature of this speech is the enormous amount of emphasis Kennedy puts on political and economic background conditions. The moon landing was proposed as a way "to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny". Before suggesting it specifically, in the ninth and final part of his speech, Kennedy spoke at length about "social and economic progress" both in the U.S. and elsewhere. He also talked about the global military situation and his hopes for disarmament. When he finally put his famous challenge, much of his argument had to do with "the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere" and he underscored that success would depend largely on a bold allocation of resources, i.e., political decisions not scientific discoveries.

That is, the Apollo project seems very clearly, and very explictly, to have emerged as a solution, not to problems of a scientific and technological nature (though solutions would be needed to such problems), but as a solution to political and economic problems. Picking up on this, we want to ask what it would mean to construe the Apollo missions, not from the point of view of physics and engineering, but from the point of view of business administration and philosophy.

Our point of departure is the connection between Kennedy's challenge in Washington, 1961, and Armstrong's famous words on stepping off the ladder of the Eagle in 1969: "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." In the 1930s most scientists agreed that a trip to the moon was implausible (but not, of course, physically impossible). As late as January 16, 1956, Time Magazine quoted Astronomer Royal Richard van der Riet Woolley for saying that space travel is "utter bilge", meaning that no one in their right mind would devote the necessary resources to the adventure. Even today, some argue that, from a scientific point of view, the trip was an enormous waste of effort and resources. But this idea is rarely articulated in mainstream media.

So there seems to be a sense in which Kennedy's speech marks a turning point for "the very idea" of going to the moon. Something that had been unimaginable became imaginable. And today, as NASA is keen to point out, President Bush seems to also see the pay-off for space exploration in terms that go beyond science and into the realm of "national spirit". A vague sentiment seems once again to be gaining sufficient coherence to captivate "the minds of men everywhere".