Inventing Billy the Kid: Visions of the Outlaw in America, 1881-1981

Billy the Kidd has been an interest of mine for many years and I have read several books on the Kid and his life. This one is mostly interesting because it is really about his rise to mythological status after his death in 1881, when he was killed by Pat Garrett, the Lincoln County sheriff. In life he was a hotheaded youngster with a propensity for violence and thievery.

By happenstance the Kid made his way to New Mexico in 1877 and got into what has been called the Lincoln Country War in 1878 between rival factions who wanted to control the mercantile business—with various other locals lining up on one side or the other. While it really wasn’t much a war there were several acts of violence—most notably the killing of John Tunstall (one of the principals in the fight) and the Battle of Lincoln—the Lincoln County seat in New Mexico Territory. In this fight the Kid was one of several who provided muscle for Tunstall and those who sided with him.

After a climactic battle in Lincoln in July 1878 the Kidd scattered along with others, engaging in petty rustling, thievery, and the like. Because of those actions the territorial governor, Lew Wallace—the author of Ben Hur—put a price on his head. This ensured the furtherance of his name as tabloids, dime novelists, and others seeking to romanticize the West latched onto him an attractive figure; especially his name served as an attraction.

Since his death, Stephen Tatum has traced the Kid’s place in American popular culture. Initially, he was viewed as a scourge, an example of a bygone era of violence and ruling by brute force. His killing by Pat Garrett brought him what he deserved. In the twentieth century the Kid has been viewed as a troubled youth and juvenile delinquent; a repressed gay who acted out because of his pent up frustrations; a robin hood who challenged corrupt power in favor of democracy and equitable dealings; a man of the wilderness fighting back against civilization; a warrior in a milquetoast time; and a host of other interpretations. As Tatum makes clear, the Kid and his story has served in essence as a blank canvas on which writers, directors, and actors could depict the concerns of the era in which they operated.

No wonder that there have been no fewer than twenty feature films in which Billy the Kid played a role. Some of the best known actors in Hollywood have depicted him in film, including Roy Rogers, Audie Murphy, Paul Newman, Kris Kristofferson, and Emilio Estevez.

This is a truly interesting discussion of the multiple reinterpretations of Billy the Kid in literature and film, as well as how the story has been turned and modified and updated to reflect current concerns and social conditions.

For those interested in this subject, and even for those who don’t, I would like to call your attention to an on-line analysis, “Labor of Love or Cheap Labor? The Plight of Adjunct Professors.” It is available here. I was pointed toward this study by Celine James, one of the authors. My thanks to her for contacting me about it. Check out the report.

The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies is currently conducting a congressionally‐requested study to examine the goals, core capabilities, and direction of human space flight. This study, which is being carried out by the NRC’s Committee on Human Spaceflight, will provide findings and recommendations to guide the U.S. human spaceflight enterprise in a sustainable manner. The Committee on Human Spaceflight recognizes the importance of reaching out to the communities interested in human exploration and is using several approaches to solicit input regarding the motivations, goals, and the possible evolution of human spaceflight. One important source of input is this call for short papers from communities around the world with an interest in human spaceflight.

The Committee on Human Spaceflight invites interested individuals and groups to submit input papers describing their own ideas on the role of human spaceflight and their vision for a suggested future.

In developing their papers, respondents are asked to carefully consider the following broad questions.

1. What are the important benefits provided to the United States and other countries by human spaceflight endeavors?
2. What are the greatest challenges to sustaining a U.S. government program in human spaceflight?
3. What are the ramifications and what would the nation and world lose if the United States terminated NASA’s human spaceflight program?

In discussing the above questions, respondents are asked to describe the reasoning that supports their arguments and, to the extent possible, include or cite any evidence that supports their views. In considering #1 above, submitters may consider private as well as government space programs. This request for input papers is open to any and all interested individuals and groups. For more information on the committee and the goals of the study, please see the statement of task at http://www.nationalacademies.org/humanspaceflight.

Formatting and Length Requirements: To facilitate document management, the Committee asks that submitters abide by the following formatting guidelines:

• Input papers should not be more than 4 pages in length. Papers can include web links to other documents among the references.
• Use a 10 or 12‐pt font with 1‐inch margins on all sides of the document.
• Use Microsoft Word (.doc ). or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf). No other formats will be accepted.
• Authors are responsible for obtaining any permissions necessary to use, or for the NRC to reproduce, copyrighted material.
• Position papers must be less than 50 MB in size. For file management purposes, please compress your figures if this does not detract from the clarity of your white paper. You should feel free to include hyperlinks to high-resolution versions.
• A cover page can be included (beyond the 4‐page limit) that shows the title of the white paper, a short abstract, the primary author’s name, phone number, institution, and email address, and a list of co–‐authors with their respective institutions.

Utilization of the Papers: All submitted papers will be reviewed by the Committee on Human Spaceflight. Note that, because participants will be self‐selected, these input papers will not be used to judge the prevalence of attitudes or opinions within various communities. However, they will help ensure that the committee hears about important issues from interested parties. The submitted papers will also be available for public viewing at http://bit.ly/13mEg1i. All input papers will be considered non‐proprietary for distribution with attribution.

Submission Instructions Please submit your white paper by navigating to http://bit.ly/11edCc8. Clicking on the appropriate link there which will take you to a page where you can upload your input paper as instructed. You must agree to the copyright consent form on that page before uploading your document. Doing so will ensure that your paper will be reviewed by the committee and that your contribution will be made publicly available.

Submissions must be made through http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DEPS/ASEB/DEPS_083343 by no later than July 9, 2013. All submitted white papers will be made public.

Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction

This is a fascinating edited collection of essays on several episodes of the confluence of science and religion in Western Civilization. Intended as an introductory text, Gary B. Ferngren obtained contributions from a broad assortment of historians and other social scientists on all manner of episodes in the debates between science and religion. While there is some information on very early conflicts between science and religion—the relationship between Atistolelianism and mystery religions and Medieval Christianity and science area are two such essays—but the book is most interesting and contributes the most when considering the scientific revolution and religious conceptions.

Essays by leading historians such as Owen Gingerich, Richard S. Westfall, Ronald L. Numbers, and others illuminate a range of difficulties. Predictably, these more modern controversies begin with the Copernican Revolution, the papal edicts against Galileo, and various philosophical schools running counter to the conceived wisdom of Christianity. The 17^th and 18^th centuries were hotbeds of debate of the relationship of science and religion, some of it hamhanded as in the insistence of Catholic leaders that the Ptolemaic system be maintained by fiat when observation clearly showed it no longer worked. They fought a losing battle of evidence, and in a more appropriate manner, altered their perspective.

The leading debate in the 19^th century was over Darwin, biological evolution, and the age of the Earth. Again, religious ideas eventually found accommodation among most mainstream religious groups. But of course, this is not a debate that is completed by any stretch of the imagination. The landscape of the evolution/creationism debate is filled with polemics attacking evolution and advancing the cause of creationism/intelligent design, or vice versa. The manner in which scientists hesitantly accepted the theory over its first 50-75 years has been told and retold. The reaction to the evolutionary idea from the religious community has also been documented, whether it be rejection, accommodation, or otherwise. Many people of faith observed that scientific findings in geology, biology, astronomy, and other disciplines seemed to assault the traditional ideas of Christianity.

For centuries most people a part of Western Civilization had believed that the Earth had been created by God about four thousand years before Christ, often applying the dating system developed by Bishop Usher to record biblical generations. Aside from a few cataclysms, some of which were divinely induced such as the “Great Flood,” the Earth had remained pretty much the same from the time of that creation. Humanity, as well as all of the other creatures on the planet, had been specifically created by God and that humankind held a special place in this creation as being in the image of God.

The wisest of the people of faith sought to rationalize and accommodate the two conceptions. In reality, while there were some noted naysayers and opponents that engaged in debate and denunciation, most American religionists in the first three-quarters of a century after the publication of Darwin’s On the Origins of Species in 1859 sought to rationalize the two belief systems. They argued that there was no legitimate conflict between science and religion; it only appeared that way because of the incomplete understandings of humanity on both the subjects of science and religion. Or they asserted that the Bible might be more of an allegory that helped to explain how humanity came to be, essentially a form of poetry, than anything that might be viewed as an actual statement of actual events. Several of the essays in this volume address these questions head on.

The same is true of 20^th century debates over physics, ecology and the environment, genetics versus psychology, and associated issues. There are even essays relating to recent trends in the history of science that some will find interesting. This is a superb introductory text, easy to understand and filled with a wealth of ideas.

President Nixon talking to the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon, July 20, 1969.

All are invited to the open forum at noon on Thursday, June 13, 2013 at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C.

Roger Launius, senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, will moderate a panel discussion on the American space program as it developed under Presidents Nixon and Ford, including the Apollo missions to the Moon, the decision to develop the space shuttle, and the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz test project.

The panel includes John Logsdon, professor emeritus of George Washington University; William Barry, chief historian at NASA; and others. Presented in partnership with the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Archives Office of Presidential Libraries.

NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher shows the projected Space Shuttle to President Gerald R. Ford in 1976.

Watch this event live on our Ustream channel at www.ustream.tv/usnationalarchives. All the videos of this events are archived on this web page and can be watched at any time.

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What’s New in Commercial Space Transportation?
Space Policy and History Forum #8

by Dr. George C. Nield
FAA Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

Abstract: Ever since the beginning of the space age more than 50 years ago, most of what has been accomplished in our nation’s space program has been done by the federal government. That may be about to change, and in a very big way. Going forward, private industry will be playing a significant role in space, especially when it comes to transportation to and from low Earth orbit, and for suborbital flights. Commercial firms have already begun delivering cargo to the International Space Station, and work is underway at several different companies to develop rockets and spacecraft that can safely, reliably, and cost effectively carry crew. At the same time, other companies are working on vehicles that have the potential to allow thousands of people to personally experience spaceflight every year through space tourism. This presentation will provide an update on some of the progress that has already been made in commercial space transportation, and what kinds of things we are likely to see in the years ahead.

Biography: Dr. George C. Nield is the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the FAA. He has over 30 years of aerospace experience with the Air Force, at NASA, and in private industry. Prior to joining the FAA, Dr. Nield was a Senior Scientist for the Advanced Programs Group at Orbital Sciences Corporation. His previous assignments include working as an Astronautical Engineer at the Space and Missile Systems Organization, a Flight Test Engineer at the Air Force Flight Test Center, and an Assistant Professor and Research Director at the USAF Academy. He served as Manager of the Flight Integration Office for the Space Shuttle Program at the NASA Johnson Space Center, and later worked on both the Shuttle/Mir Program and the International Space Station Program. He was recently selected as a member of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel in support of the NASA Administrator. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, he holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University, and an MBA from George Washington University. He is also a Flight Test Engineering graduate of the USAF Test Pilot School.  Dr. Nield is a registered Professional Engineer and a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Date and Time: June 10, 2013 (Monday), 4:00-5:00 P.M.

Location and Access: The presentation will be held at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), 600 Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C., 4:00-5:00 p.m. Please RSVP to launiusr@si.edu so your name can be put on a list for access to the Director’s Conference Room on the 3rd floor of the Museum. You may check in and obtain a badge for access to the building at the guard desk just to the right as you enter the Independence Ave. doors. If you have any questions regarding access, please contact Roger Launius. Parking is not available in NASM, and is limited elsewhere; we recommend using the Metro system for travel to the National Air and Space Museum—the Smithsonian and L’Enfant Plaza stops are close by.

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope

Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly are a “power couple.” Giffords was a member of Congress representing Arizona who was very nearly assassinated in a brutal attack that left six others dead early in 2011, and her husband was a NASA astronaut. Both have had a lot to say about the direction of space exploration in the United States, Giffords from her place on the House Science Committee and Kelly through his place as a respected participant in the program.

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope is a book by Giffords and Kelly on their experiences as a couple, as advocates for their priorities in space, and as those who suffered an outrageous injustice at the hands of a madman with firearms far beyond any ever needed for hunting or home defense. The book especially focuses on the events of January 8, 2011, when Giffords was shot in the back of the head by an assailant while meeting with constituents at a Tucson super market. It also details the long road to Gifford’s remarkable recovery from the shooting that nearly took her life.

Written primarily from the perspective of Mark Kelly, Gabby takes a thematic approach rather than one that is chronological. He discusses how the couple met, their relationship before the shooting, and a range of issues concerning her political career, his astronaut career, and his mission to the International Space Station in the wake of Gabby’s recuperation and recovery from the attempted assassination.

This is an useful book in many ways. For those interested in human spaceflight, the most interesting material may well be about Kelly’s career as an astronaut. This will be especially true for the internal controversies over whether or not he would be allowed to fly on STS-134, which he had been assigned to command, following Gabby Giffords’ shooting. “NASA officials weren’t sure they even wanted to keep me on the job,” he confessed. Concerns about his psychological state as his wife fought for her life in hospital prompted many at NASA to recommend his replacement. Mike Kelly’s twin brother, Scott, and an astronaut in his own right, argued the case for his brother. “You’re trained to put aside personal issues, to focus on your mission,” so NASA should have no worries about his ability to persevere. Some at NASA also worried about the public’s perception of Kelly continuing with STS-134 when his wife lay critically ill for political reasons. Would it seem that the mission came ahead of his husbandly responsibilities? Kelly insisted that Gabby would have insisted that he fly the mission regardless of anything else.

Kelly, of course, flew the mission and it went well. Gabby was getting better every day, and she would eventually demonstrate a remarkable physical recovery. She, of course, lost an eye in the shooting, as well as other capabilities, but her ability to function as she does more than a year after the shooting remains an inspirational story. After the STS-134 mission Mark Kelly announced he was retiring from NASA, and Gabby Giffords has announced she would not continue to serve in Congress.

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope is an interesting dual autobiography, actually more of an autobiography for Kelly than for Giffords, and it offers an interesting perspective on NASA, the Space Shuttle program, and the Astronaut Office. Much of what Kelly has to say about these is critical. He viewed the Astronaut Office as dysfunctional and petty. The Space Shuttle Program was shutting down and limping with layoffs, retirements, and other departures. No decisions were final in terms of a way forward for human spaceflight and this was troubling to Kelly. He states in several places that only more effective leadership will resolve these issues. Such is still the case in 2013.

Robonaut and astronaut faceoff.

I have asked that question many times in the last few years, as I see more and more people becoming cyborgs through technological enhancements to their bodies. Howard McCurdy and I also addressed this issue  in the last two chapters of our book Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).

Of course, in Star Trek: The Next Generation the intrepid crew of the United Star Ship Enterprise repeatedly faced the Borg, cyborgs intent on assimilating the biological creatures of the universe into their collective consciousness and thereby destroying individuality. When considering the far future and the potential for humans to colonize other bodies in the solar system and beyond, perhaps humanity will adapt to the space environment through modifications of the human body.

This idea was first broached by scientists Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in a 1960 NASA study. They remarked: “Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments would be more logical than providing an earthly environment for him in space.” To fly into space (none had yet done so at the time of their article), humans would take with them all of the elements of earthly existence, supplemented by devices to protect themselves from hazards like radiation that did not penetrate the Earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetic shield. To Clynes and Kline, this seemed unnecessarily complicated.

They added, “Artificial atmospheres encapsulated in some sort of enclosure constitute only temporizing, and dangerous temporizing at that, since we place ourselves in the same position as a fish taking a small quantity of water along with him to live on land. The bubble all too easily bursts.” To resolve this problem, they suggested that the astronaut attempt “partial adaptation to space conditions, instead of insisting on carrying his whole environment along.” They proposed a variety of modifications, many mechanical in nature, which would allow humans to withstand radiation, the absence of atmospheric oxygen, and other hazards of space. They coined the term “cyborg” to describe this adaptation.

Since that time, NASA has refrained from serious consideration of the ideas offered by Clynes and Kline, although a few studies in the 1960s investigated these possibilities. But what of the future, especially the distant future? To date, human presence in space has consisted of what might be characterized as extended camping trips, often a week or more but rarely exceeding a half year in length.  Yet space advocates continue to propose far lengthier stays, from planetary outposts to solar system colonization.

Humans are not well suited for very long stays beyond Earth, especially at locations whose temperature conditions, radiation levels, and gravity differ markedly from those found on this planet. Technology and culture favor a role for human spaceflight that under the most favorable circumstances appears limited to excursions to the Moon and perhaps a remote outpost on Mars, with increasingly autonomous craft surveying the remainder of the solar system and beyond.

If colonization of the solar system, and the rest of the galaxy, is truly desirable, will it be done by Homo sapiens? Or will robots prevail?  In undertaking this cosmic venture, humans might change, especially if very long periods of time are involved.  Humans born and raised on extraterrestrial locations would change naturally in response to different terrestrial or gravity conditions.  Given advances in biotechnology, others might reengineer themselves.

In many ways we are already there, with millions of people enjoying a better quality of life, or in some cases life itself, through the incorporation of pacemakers, joint and limb replacements, cochlear hearing implants, artificial lenses, artificial organs, and a potential list of even more sophisticated genetic and biotechnological enhancements. Future possibilities are astonishing.

The implications of such developments for the future of space exploration are fascinating.  They are made more interesting when one considers the degree to which humans might change during the millions of years available to colonize the galaxy. Who knows what derivations of the human form could emerge? Such developments would alter the traditional debate over space exploration in ways that provide a new paradigm quite different than the one casting humans with all of their biological limitations into the extraterrestrial realm. Such developments might make space travel more attainable, though in unconventional ways.

Is there a Borg in our future? Possibly. How might we remake the human body to more effectively meet the rigors of space exploration? Should we even attempt it?

Culture Wars: The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America

Since I mentioned this book in last week’s Wednesday book review, I thought it was appropriate this week to review Culture Wars: The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America, published in 1992. James Davison Hunter, then a professor of sociology and religious studies at the University of Virginia, appeared prescient in this 1992 book about the emergence of a religious conservatism in the United States that could dominate the political agenda through its emphasis on certain traditional values.

Hunter framed this as a “culture war” over the meaning of America and its place in the world. Now more than twenty years old, Hunter found that the many battles over the arts, women’s rights, gay rights, history, science, and a range of other issues were the canaries in the coal mine shaft signaling a realignment in American culture that emphasized moral and religious concerns. Of course, Hunter wrote this book long before the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and the resultant dominance of these issues on the national stage.

Hunter concluded that the debate in this culture war revolves around—rather than stances on Jesus Christ, Martin Luther, or John Calvin—on how one reacts to the ideas of Rousseau, Locke, or Voltaire (including their philosophical heirs, especially Nietzsche and Rorty). “The politically relevant world-historical event, in other words,” Hunter writes, “is now the secular Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and its philosophical aftermath. This is what inspires the divisions of public culture in the United States today” (p. 132).

He also noted that “what is ultimately at stake is the ability to define the rules by which moral conflict of this kind is to be resolved” (p. 271). Hunter believed that “the culture war is rooted in an ongoing realignment of American public culture and has become institutionalized chiefly through special-purpose organizations, denominations, political parties, and branches of government….In the end, however, the opposing visions become, as one would say in the tide though ponderous jargon of social science, a reality sui generis: a reality much larger than, and indeed autonomous from, the sum total of individuals and organizations that give expression to the conflict. These competing moral visions, and the rhetoric that sustains them, become the defining forces of public life” (pp. 290-91).

He did not see this culture war as something that would eventually reach a balance; a rational negotiated settlement of the conflict did not seem possible from his perspective. Instead, Hunter believed that one side or the other would gain the upper hand and dominate the culture. “The principal reason,” he contended, “is that the most vocal advocates at either end of the cultural axis are not inclined toward working for a genuinely pluralistic resolution” (p. 298).

In terms of who has the edge toward victory in this culture war, Hunter believed that “the moral vision of the orthodox alliance, particularly as championed by the Evangelical Protestant community, is in a strong position to actually dominate American public discourse in the near future” (p. 299). This was because they brought a passion and organization to the fight not present on the other side. Despite the resources and power of modernity and secularism, they were far from monolithic and their organization has not been nearly as effective.

Hunter hoped to see the emergence of a creative tension between the forces on both sides of the culture wars to create a balanced compromise position. That may yet take place, but at this point in the twenty-first century in the U.S. it appears that the forces of orthodoxy and traditional values are relentlessly pursuing an agenda aimed at establishing a conservative, almost Puritan version of Americanism. The dialogue in this debate continues. Hunter has offered an excellent early analysis of what was just emerging in the early 1990s as THE cultural divide in the United States.

Jesus Christ, detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.

Christian writers, intellectuals, theologians, and others are right about this one thing: the world remains fascinated by the story of Jesus of Nazareth more than 2,000 years after his death. Thousands of writers, tons of ink, and mountains of paper have been expended trying to understand this unique Rabbi from Galilee who taught a belief system of tolerance and love in a world that was brutal and desperate.

For example, Bruce Barton in The Man Nobody Knows (1925) interpreted Jesus as the builder of the greatest sales force ever, inspiring his disciples to change the world through his message of love. Andrew Lloyd Webber fashioned him as a “Superstar.” Nikos Kazantzakis in The Last Temptation (1960) viewed him as essentially a man who slowly came to an understanding of his own divinity. Others have interpreted him as the fully realized Son of God who offered a blood sacrifice for the sake of humanity.

At sum, the life of Jesus as reported in the canonized Gospels, not to mention those uncanonized, has been a mirror upon which we might interpret His message dependent upon time and place, perspective and priority. Every generation since his departure has asked, “Who was He? What does His life mean?” For every generation, the permutations have the answer have been complex.

I am most disappointed, and not a little frustrated, when the complexity of the message of Jesus is lost in a thinly veiled, simplistic, and arrogantly argued millennialistic perspective on the world. I seem to be seeing this more and more often. So often these perspectives ignore more than a century of sophisticated higher criticism, remarkable scholarship on the meaning and message of Jesus and his life, and only channel simplistic apocalyptic ideas. When hurricanes and tornadoes, tsunamis and earthquakes are equated with an unleashing of God’s wrath on humanity and a sign of the “end times” I roll my eyes. Usually I bite my tongue but not always.

Clearly, such judgments have little to do with Jesus Christ and his message. Perhaps a way to think about Jesus is to ask which you value more: the life and teaching of Jesus or the death and resurrection of Christ? There is a lot of richness in considering that dichotomy, and there is ample room for righteous people to emphasize either perspective.

I wish I saw more of that richness in any discussion of the events of the world.