The Soviet space program was an endeavor that struck fear into the hearts of Americans for decades, and yet somehow remained shrouded in mystery.

Many scientific historians have broadly discussed the influence of the Cold War on the development of specific fields within the broader discipline of earth science.  However, few have touched on the study of climate change by the U.S. military, and its array of plans to co-opt the process for warfare during (and later after) the Cold War. 

I want to be an astronaut.

Welcome to the third and last section of my blog post on earth science in the 20th century! We’re here to close out the Cold War and speculate on the future, now with even more sources for your reading pleasure.

World War II was the beginning of a decades-long partnership between the U.S. Navy and civilian oceanographers that would last into the Cold War, completely redefining what the field was capable of and producing some of the defining theories about the earth that we herald today.  And yet, it eventually began to fall apart.

In the last few months I’ve had many discussions with people about the history of the Earth Sciences – geology, geophysics, oceanography, and more – and how the emergence of these fields as respectable and important scientific institutions is tied directly to major political events in the twentieth century.  With that in mind, I’ve decided to write a series of posts elaborating in depth on this topic: how the rise of oil and the experience of WWI changed geology, and how WWII and the Cold War shaped oceanography, and how we still feel the effects of these events in the field today.  

I am here to dispel some myths about science as a profession, and the people that practice it.  

In fact, I think several people like this blog!