The main research question for my thesis is to ask whether – and in what ways – NASA considered the environmental impacts of the rockets that took men to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s? I am exploring the material environmental impacts that can be attributed to the rocket at any stage of its life or within some key commodity chains without which the vehicle would not have been possible, which will enable an analysis of the mindset of the time to be evaluated. I am asking how far these environmental impacts went, what factors influenced the degree to which these were felt, and to what extent these were considered by those responsible for program. In doing so, I hope to provide an alternative view of the attitude to the environment in 1960s America, viewed through the lens of the moon project, as opposed to a denigratory analysis of the craft from a modern perspective. Spoiler alert - all signs point to me finding that the environment was rarely, if even, considered when making decisions, and that the environmental impacts that followed were both considerable and diverse. 

My work focuses on the decisions made which impacted environmental concerns and traces these environmental impacts across a range of situations, reflecting on the fact that these were not so much of an issue at the time and would not have been a major factor in decisions made during the Program. This places the thesis within the body of work focused on American history, notably in the difficult decade of the 1960s, alongside environmental history and STS by the nature of the topic, and treats the rocket as a piece of Americana. The one-time use of the craft is a symbol of the throw-away, consumerist culture of America in the 1960s, illustrating the dominant mindset of the era. This was a decade of abundance and consumption, with Apollo/Saturn being an allegory for this age.

My work will show that the Apollo/Saturn craft impacted far more than the 38 astronauts who flew it or the nearly half-million who worked on it, thanks to the wide range and scope of environmental impacts the craft had on Planet Earth. It will view this from the perspective of those involved in the rocket at the time and the extent to which these environmental impacts were considered. This thesis will illustrate that Project Apollo fell at a junction of time where environmental concerns were not at the forefront and that this allowed NASA to take an approach of ‘whatever it takes’ to achieve the objective of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely before the decade was out. Fuelled by the intense competition of the Cold War and the Space Race, my work will ask the question of whether Apollo could have been carried out at any other time, or if this was a melting point of national drive without the burden of environmental consideration which meant that it was a distinctly 1960s America project.