NASA and the American South

An unprecedented examination of NASA’s strong ties to the American South, exploring how the space program and the region have influenced each other over 60 years

During the Cold War, federal funding for the space program transformed the southern United States as NASA built most of its major new facilities in the region and invested heavily in Project Apollo. This volume examines the economic, social, political, and cultural impacts of NASA on the South since the space program was founded in 1958 and explores how the program’s strong relationship to the region has affected NASA’s organizational culture, technological development, and programmatic goals.

Featuring contributions by scholars from a range of backgrounds, including space historians and specialists in many other fields, NASA and the American South offers perspectives on how NASA provided a springboard for the complete restructuring of communities that were home to its facilities in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. These changes unsettled previous patterns of life, and the chapters in this volume include assessments of NASA’s influence on regional development, tourism, art and architecture, religion, and Black institutions of higher education.

Bridging the gap between the history of technology and its geographical and cultural contexts, this book offers an unprecedented reevaluation of the impact of the space program on its surrounding landscape, introducing a new framework for interpreting the agency’s legacy.