Space Craze: Understanding History and Fiction Using Artifacts

Type: Presentation

Description:
Join Dr. Margaret Weitekamp, chair of the Department of Space History at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, as she discusses her recent book, Space Craze: America’s Enduring Fascination with Real and Imagined Spaceflight (Smithsonian Books, 2022). Written based on Weitekamp’s experience working with the Museum’s collections of spaceflight memorabilia and space science fiction objects, Space Craze surveys the long history of spaceflight, from the formative stories told by Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, to the historic flights of John Glenn and the Apollo astronauts, through the Space Shuttle era to the present. How does material culture – things such as toys, pins, buttons, mugs, and mission patches – illuminate the story of spaceflight as a particularly American endeavor?