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The Space Race: Moondust

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The Geopolitics of Space Exploration

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Abstract

John O’Keefe was a young American astronomer of the 1950’s. Brilliant and confident, he seemed a typical middle-class business man taking part in the flourishing American society post-WWII. O’Keefe was a man deeply in love with his job, and – as many astronomers like him – he measured life through a different lens than ordinary people. He often worked alone at night on top of a mountain, observing stars and galaxies in the infinite silence. He knew that if even a single star in the universe had a planet like ours, there could be billions of planets like Earth – and maybe people like us – out there.

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Notes

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    idem

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    Young, Hugo, Bryan Silcock, and Peter Dunn. 1969. Journey to Tranquillity. Singapore: Times Ltd Publishing.

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    idem

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    McCurdy, Howard E. 2011. Space and the American Imagination. Baltimore: JHU Press, 84.

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    Medaris, John. 1960. Countdown for Decision. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

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    http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/farewell_address.html.

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    idem

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    Young, Hugo Bryan Silcock, and Peter Dunn. 1969. Journey to Tranquillity. Singapore: Times Ltd Publishing.

  26. 26.

    idem

  27. 27.

    idem

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    http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/xzw1gaeeTES6khED14P1Iw.aspx.

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    https://www.jfklibrary.org/sites/default/files/archives/JFKOH/Welsh%2C%20Edward%20C/JFKOH-ECW-01/JFKOH-ECW-01-TR.pdf.

  30. 30.

    idem

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Spagnulo, M. (2021). The Space Race: Moondust. In: The Geopolitics of Space Exploration. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7_2

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