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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

In Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership, ten contributors present compelling arguments and analyses that shed new light on the power and leadership of the nation's presidency and on the space program.

Setting the tone for the collection, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy maintain that the nation's presidency had become imperial by the mid 1970s and that supporters of the space program had grown to find relief in such a presidency, which they believed could help them obtain greater political support and funding. Subsequent chapters explore the roles and political leadership, bis-à-vis governments policy, of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush.

(Extracted from the back cover).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Acknowledgments.

-Introduction: The Imperial Presidency in the History of Space Exploration. Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy.

-1. The Reluctant Racer: Eisenhower and U.S. Space Policy. David Callahan and Fred I. Greenstein.

-2. Kennedy and the Decision to Go to the Moon. Michael R. Beschloss.

-3. Johnson, Project Apollo, and the Politics of Space Program Planning. Robert Dallek.

-4. The Presidency, Congress, and the Deceleration of the U.S. Space Program in the 1970s. Joan Hoff.

-5. Politics Not Science: The U.S. Space Program in the Reagan and Bush Years.  Lyn Ragsdale.

-6. Presidential Leadership and International Aspects of the Space Program. Robert H. Ferrell.

-7. National Leadership and Presidential Power. John M. Logsdon.

-Epilogue: Beyond NASA Exceptionalism. Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy.

-Contributors.

-Index.