Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest

by Gerard J. Degroot

New York University Press, NY,  2006, hardback, 320 pages, price $29.95

     The thesis of this book is that the space race to the moon was a colossal waste of taxpayers money that served no scientific purpose and that the money spent shall have been spent here on Earth for social programs.  In contrast  to books and films like The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 that glorify the American exploration of space, this book is an indictment of NASA.

     What drove the race to the moon was not science but politics and the military industrial complex.  The media fed the public the false impression that the Soviet  Union was way ahead of us in space technology and that we had to catch up.  The goal to reach the moon was fueled by politicians egos and military generals not by national scientists.  The moon is a sterile, lifeless rock of little value. yet in the late 1950's and 1960's it was an obsession.  Once we got there NASA had no goal, it was aimless.

     This book is heavily documented and has many surprises like the fact that Eisenhower, who was president when NASA was founded, was against this race to space as a waste of money and an excuse for the military industrial complex to fleece the public.  Another surprise is that John F. Kennedy privately didn't care for space exploration but had endorsed it as a way to criticize Nixon and the Republicans in the 1960 election.  J.F.K. claimed we were behind the Soviets in the space race and that the Russians would use the moon as a base to fire nukes at the U.S..  As the author points out, this made no scientific sense at all.

     UFOs and flying saucers are briefly mentioned as being a temporary craze.  He speaks of people in Roswell seeing little green men in the 1950's.  Of course he's wrong, they were gray and it was the 1940s.

     Despite the saucer errors, this is a well written book that has been praised by historians and is being offered by the History Book Club.