Destined for the stars : faith, the future, and America's final frontier /

This unusual work combines biography, art history, religion, and the history of science to make an in-depth study of how the Cold War and the space race were influenced by ideas about religion and the frontier, through the medium of popular art. Newell (Univ. of Miami) draws connections between artist Chesley Bonestell's representations of the solar system, created in the 1940s and 1950s, and paintings of the US frontier dating from the previous century. She argues that Bonestell's romantic yet scientifically accurate depictions of the moon and neighboring planets engendered an almost religious faith, among readers of the popular magazines in which his art was published, that the US ascent into space had been ordained by God. In Newell's view, this idea harks back to the 19th-century belief in Manifest Destiny. In particular, Bonestell's placement of tiny people in his alien landscapes, a practice developed during his early career drawing architectural plans, served to humanize the concept of space exploration, inspiring both imagination and humility at the scale involved. Later chapters detail Bonestell's connections to Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun, who were also instrumental in the popularization of rocket-powered space travel. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Hillary Corbett, Northeastern University

In her convincing debut, Newell, assistant professor of religion and science at the University of Miami, argues that it was not only science that made the U.S. space program possible but also "a culture that believed it was called by God to settle new frontiers." To make this case, she examines the intertwined influence of the space art of Chesley Bonestell, the technology-infused science writing of Willy Ley, and the role of V-2 and Saturn V rocket progenitor Wernher von Braun in selling humankind's call into the cosmos to the American public: After explaining the interactions between these three men-who worked together on popular space exploration science fiction and coauthored The Exploration of Mars in 1956-she then turns to America's intense faith in the race for space. Newell uses the narrative of the "new frontier"-which formed through the combined artistic and scientific imaginations of Bonestell, Ley, and von Braun-to make a broader point about the overlaps between religion and science, both of which require faith in things outside of one's normal perception. Recasting the space race as an inherently spiritual endeavor, Newell exposes and explains the origins of the language of "divine destiny"-which imbues much of the modern talk of visiting other planets today. Newell has produced a forceful, original view of the American quest for the "final frontier." (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.