Science History Podcast

The 60s hosted the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union, which occurred in the midst of the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and civil unrest. How did the culture wars of the 1960s relate to the space race, especially in the United States? How did the Civil Rights Movement, the New Left, environmentalism, the women’s movement, and the Hippie counterculture influence NASA, and vice versa? With us to answer these questions is Neil Maher. Neil received a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College in 1986, an MA in U.S. history from New York University in 1997, and a Ph.D. in history, also from New York University, in 2001. He is a professor of history in the Federated History Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, Newark, where he teaches environmental history, political history, and the history of environmental justice. Neil has received numerous fellowships, awards, and grants from the Smithsonian Institution, NASA, Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for