One year down, how many to go?

I've completed one academic year as a PhD student - and have been officially signed-off to continue into year two. As a part-timer, my target is to complete the PhD in five years, though secretly, I'd love to nail it inside four.

Yesterday was my Masters graduation - a nice morning in Uxbridge where, fittingly, Helen Sharman, Britain's first cosmonaut, received an honorary Doctorate for her services to science. She was based at Brunel before her trip to Mir, and I now have a research office in her old project building.....I wonder if she popped back for a nostalgic look round yesterday? The graduation marks a milestone for me: I can now firmly put the MA behind me and move forward much more deeply into the PhD research.

The high point of the first year of study was undoubtedly my visit to the US, both to NASA in Washington DC and perhaps more surprisingly, to Abilene in Kansas. I'd been working on the hypothesis that there was a direct formative effect of the media on US policy making at the beginning of the space race. But working through Eisenhower's presidential papers and the collections that surround these, it has become ever clearer that the process of presidential decision making was much more nuanced - though there were times when Ike's policy decisions really did appear to be made on the fly as he updated draft speeches and memos in the hours before meeting the NSC, briefing the press or meeting the leaders on the Hill.

So, I've moved my position somewhat. I'm still fascinated by the space race and the respective roles of the President, NASA, Congress and the media in shaping US policy. But my focus now is on the contrasts in presidential decision making between Eisenhower and Kennedy and the role the different strands of the media played in flavouring the audit trail towards decisions. I have about 1,000 pages of Eisenhower documents that I'm slowly working through, and am already thinking about a trip to Boston to put Kennedy's role in space policy under the same microscope.

Aside from getting my photographed documents into some kind of order, I'm still working through those papers and books that delve into my area of interest. I'm currently reading Harlen Makemson's 'Media, NASA and America's quest for the moon'. As to what I make of it? Well, for once I'm reading it professionally for a commissioned review piece for Spaceflight magazine. So for the moment, my thoughts remain my own.

The great lurch forward

So I'm back from my trip to Washington DC and Abilene, Kansas and have approaching a thousand pages of documentation to analyse - or at least digital pictures of the paperwork of space policy making under Eisenhower.

Working my way through his own papers, those of Press Secretary Jim Hagerty and his personal secretary (and Assistant Press Secretary) Ann Whitman was a thoroughly fascinating voyage - and I hope I've absorbed even a tenth of what I read.

The 10 days in the US have made a change in my thinking around the project. No longer can I see a direct cause/effect relationship between what the media printed or broadcast and the actions Ike took. The relationship is more subtle - and filtered through the likes of the Dulles brothers, Neil McElroy and Donald Quarles, congressional big shots such as LBJ - and most especially the president's scientific advisers - Jim Killian and George Kristiakowsky. Ike used his press conferences as a sounding board for policy - but used his pre-briefings for these public engagements as opportunities to make policy on the run. While the President wasn't immune from the impact of the media, he dis not respond directly to it, but built standpoints grounded in the opinions of a very close circle around him.

I've much to do to crystallise these thoughts, but the thesis is lurching towards an investigation in Presidential decision making and what role the media took in this. I suspect there'll be a huge contrast between Eisenhower and Kennedy and look forward to making a similar deep dive into the Kennedy papers next year.

Thoughts from the former colonies

I'm sitting in my hotel room on the campus of Gallaudet University in Washington DC waiting to head off on my trip to Abilene, Kansas, and the Eisenhower Presidential Library. I've been here since Wednesday night and it has been a very busy few days - built around two days in the NASA HQ Historical Referenced Collection. I had a flying visit to the Collection back in 2006 - but it was literally a couple of hours. This time round, I was at NASA HQ all day Thursday and for most of Friday too. Many many thanks to Jane Odom for making me so welcome (and taking me out of the bowels of the building!) in what was clearly a very trying week for her, and to Liz Suckow for her great patience and understanding in keeping me stocked with research boxes and escorting me around the labyrinthine corridors of the NASA underground world.

I never thought I'd get back-ache from research, but hunching over and photographing documents all day has done nothing for my already rubbish posture. However, the volume of material I've collected on this trip means that digital images are essential - I couldn't afford the extra baggage charges for many hundreds of pages of photocopying.

So, what have I gleaned from my tow days with my nose stuck in papers from '57-60? Well, first, that I spent too much time reading the material and not enough copying it for later analysis....well at least at first!

While the Sputnik 1 media coverage and IGY papers reflected much I'd already seen, several interesting seams of information opened up.

For one thing, it was interesting to trace the challenges NASA's Head of Public information Walt Bonney faced as NACA became NASA and the interest in space exploded. Papers show he was understaffed - especially when it came to press officers - and thus NASA's attempt at image making was largely ineffective. The media managers were reactive - responding to hundreds of calls and an average of 45 in person requests every day - and were a team of around half a dozen; the field officers had a tendency to go native - either favouring their chosen beat reporters and correspondents or working to the agendas of local management rather than NASA HQ. As Scheer took over the wider Public Affairs mandate, his memos became increasingly waspish as he sought to put NASA image management on the front foot. I'm not sure he was entirely successful.

In terms of the influence on Presidential decision making, it's fascinating to see the moves and jostling among Presidential advisors - and to see how quickly opinion changed as events over-ran the most solid of predictions from the 'experts'. Frnma Defense-mentality of no information on launches for instance to all kinds of agenda-fuelled lobbying, it's clear to see the President had more opinion than he could reasonably deal with in heading off the post-Sputnik outcry and putting America's efforts in space on a firm footing. Kennedy may get the credit, but he does largely seem to have stolen ike's clothes on this.

The next few days at Abilene will be pivotal in fixing my views on Eisenhower and his process of policy making - especially how the media influenced it, if at all (I still believe it did).

Finally a point on Gallaudet. For four days, I've felt totally a minority here. All the staff sign and many of the people I've met on the campus, from the breakfast waiting staff to people on the shuttle bus have little or no hearing. The common language of campus is ASL - and everybody here, hearing impaired or not, signs elegantly and eloquently. I don't. I have one word: 'thankyou' which I've used a lot. This is an impressive educational facility and has had a strong effect in shaking me out of my communication complacency over the past few days. I think that's a pretty good thing.

Sputnik Mania

Finally got my hands on the film Sputnik Mania yesterday and watched it last night. While Hoffman does well to pull together the narrative strands around the story, I was slightly disappointed by his grasp of the history and glossing of some of the facts.

There's little of the battle that raged within the US armed forces as to which would send the first US satellite into space, and too much clever editing has constructed a narrative to fit the film rather than the facts in reference to exactly what happened when and as a consequence of what - Von Braun, for instance is pictured at the launch of the Jupiter/Redstone, when he was in Washington, and huis Disney programmes from the mid-50s areplayed out as if they were aired during the Sputnik Autumn.

While my thesis is that the media not Joe Public created the 'mania' the film's line suggested that the reaction to the launch was merely a reaction to the US loss of prestige. It missed some of the subtlty of the Democrat reaction as the likes of Johnson and Symington manoevered into a strong position for the fight for the 1960 Presidential Candidate nomination.

Though the film was fun to watch, it took an angle on the Sputnik story - good for a film maker: bad for hostorographical research.

Progress...slow progress

Last week was a good week for the PhD work.

First, I heard I'd been awarded a $500 travel grant from the Eisenhower Foundation to help with my visit to Abilene. Then, I made contact with two of the key names on my research hit list.

First up was Walter Mondale - former US VP, but, for this work, most interesting as a vocal critic of the Apollo space program. We've been exchanging emails for a few weeks. And, while he initially found my line of questioning judgmental, he has now answered most of those questions - and raised a few further questions for me.

Second, I reached a guy called Brian O'Leary. Today, an authority on green issues, but at the end of the 60s, a NASA astronaut in training. O'Leary quit the program, frustrated by NASA, frustrated by the lack of opportunity for true science. His insight into NASA's purpose and image making will be revealing.

First corporate sponsorship recorded

I'm off to Abilene.....or at least the planned trip is beginning to turn into reality.

Having got news at the end of last week that I'd won a BAAS travel award, I started this week with the great news that a company I've freelanced for over the past four years had agreed to sponsor part of my research. I banked the cheque this morning - thank you very much the fabulous CMS Cameron McKenna LLP.

I've also applied for funding direct to the Eisenhower Foundation who manage travel grant applications to visit the Eisenhower Presidential Library. If I'm lucky enough to receive an award, that will pretty much cover a 10-day 'smash and grab' trip to the NASA archive in DC and the Eisenhower facility. My plan is to get hold of as much primary source material as possible - and then analyse it and turn it into my opening chapter over the course of the rest of 2010.

I'm still working my way through Divine's book on the fallout from Sputnik, but planning ahead, have treated myself to a new book today - a repackaging of Mailer's writing around Apollo 11. My copy of 'Moonfire' should arrive in about a month.

My research seems to be sparking interest among a few of the key influencers that I want to reach - I even had an email from former US Vice President Mondale this afternoon offering to answer my questions. Man may not be going beyond earth orbit any time soon, but manned space exploration remains a subject of interest open to rigorous debate.

It's a good news day!

I've just found out that I've secured my first research funding - a BAAS Postgraduate Short-Term Travel Award for 2010. It'll be in the £ hundreds not £ thousands - but seeing as I'm funding everything from net income at the moment, every little helps.

While I'm far from writing anything to do with the thesis, I'm beginning to think myself through what needs to happen much more clearly. It's progress: it's slow...but it's progress.

Anyway, with a bit of funding in place - and an application to the Eisenhower Foundation wining its way to the US, I can start planning this summer's research trip to the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas.