The early years of the Cold War were a period of anxiety and adventure in the United States. As Americans were being advised to build fallout shelters, they also ventured from home in greater numbers than at any other time in the nation’s history. Thanks to the proliferation of private automobile ownership, an expanding interstate highway system, and the advent of more generous vacation policies in the workplace, nearly 75 million Americans took to the roads annually in pursuit of pleasure by 1960.
The rise of leisure travel coincided with the dawn of the Space Age, and many motorists made detours to visit the facilities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration en route to their ultimate vacation destinations. The nation’s insatiable appetite for space exploration, fueled by the expansive efforts of NASA’s public affairs office, led to a demand for space attractions in communities around NASA centers, yet none existed.
This paper explores the growth of space-inspired tourism in the city of Houston, Texas centered around the National Space Hall of Fame. Opened in the heart of the city’s civic center in 1969, the NSHF celebrated American pioneers in the exploration and utilization of space, many of whom worked at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in suburban Houston. Its form and function reflected the economic, social, and political concerns of 1960s Houston. The NSHF became the keystone of the city’s “touristry” program, which was motivated by the fundamental belief that “the same thing that attracts the tourist also attracts industry.” By decade’s end, the NSHF had reached its apex. This institution, intended to continually enshrine American space pioneers, failed to induct more than one group of honorees. Its truncated trajectory speaks to a shifting urban landscape in Space Age Houston.
About the presenterEmily A. Margolis
Emily is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University. Her dissertation, “Space Travel at 1G: Space Tourism in Cold War America,” explores the proliferation of space museums across the American South and locates their origins in local social, economic, and political concerns. She is the 2018 Guggenheim Fellow at the National Air and Space Museum and was the 2017-2018 AHA/NASA Fellow in Aerospace History.