Daniel Lang was a journalist and author for The New Yorker, and From Hiroshima to the Moon is a collection of his stories for the magazine about the birth of the atomic age and the space age, as written at the time of their origins.
Lang is an on-the-ground journalist. These stories from the front lines of atomic scientists and rocketry geniuses are not only unique to other histories you may have encountered, but these are raw.
I cannot stress enough the importance of these pieces being written when these events were happening. There is conjecture about what it all may mean, but the hindsight that exists is only a few years old. What comes next is mostly guesswork, which makes this front-line nearly first-hand perspective so intriguing.
This book takes you from August 1945 to November 1958, covering the origin and the scientists researching all things atomic – the bomb, the fallout, and the potential power – as well as the V-2 rockets removed from Germany, and the accompanying scientists that would eventually become the launching point for a race to the Moon.
Throughout it all, with writing that is very heavy on the whys and hows of science, there is one thing Lang keeps his writing focused on: the human element, mainly the people doing the research and the people in the communities supporting this government endeavor – even if they may not be in favor of it. He covers the opposition and the unknown in equal measures to give you a complete story of what it was like in the early days in Tennessee, New Mexico, Nevada, Florida, and even some insight into the politics of the atomic age in Washington, D.C.
However, the book’s biggest takeaway on this side of history is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
In regards to science, “To many laymen who have come to expect scientists to be starkly objective in their approach to technical problems and whose schooling pretty much encouraged the belief that there is always only one right answer to any question concerning science, the current disagreement among the authorities is both exasperating and baffling, if not actually frightening.” This feels like an underlying issue that people outside of the sciences tend to misunderstand more than any other. It is made all the worse when dealing with new or emerging technologies that still have a long way to go when it comes to research.
The other is a line that Christian Lee Strout of the Christian Science Monitor gives to scientists who have come to Washington to lobby on behalf of atomic restraint: “the average politician is a baby kisser, a cracker-barrel fellow. You men may know who to play with oscilloscope tubes, but he’s better at small talk. We have a system in this country whereby the most intelligent people don’t necessarily come to Congress, and even if some of them do, they don’t inevitably become chairmen of committees. Russia and the cost of living are big enough problems. Now you fellows come along with the biggest, most complicated problem of all. I’m not so sure Congress–or, for that matter, man–is civilized enough to solve it. So be patient, will you?”
Both of those sentiments, the scientific and the political, could easily fit into any segment or column in today’s media landscape. Again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
However, it is precisely the change and the hindsight that you may or may not bring to this book that makes this collection of articles form Land so compelling. Again, he’s on the ground, literally in a jeep chasing test rockets to see what the results of their onboard equipment say. He’s getting up before dawn to go search in the desert for uranium. He’s at Cocoa Beach interviewing the people who were there before all the rockets started blasting off.
These are perspectives and stories cut for time that are just as important to the history of anything atomic and the space race that are too often overlooked. It’s why I’m thankful that this book exists and that I discovered and devoured it. If any of this interests you, I encourage you to uncover a copy for yourself, it’s quite an amazing read.
Read the Secret File of technical information and quotes from Hiroshima to the Moon.