ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how a technocratic mode of social organization became entangled, through Project Apollo; with the image of America as a transcendental state and presents how integral the space technologically deterministic faith appears to the inception of American space exploration. Kennedy's messianic vision of humanity's future being decided in Space was reiterated across NASA's organizational culture. Analyses of NASA culture describe the prevalence of instrumentalist rationality. At the level of the organization, instrumental rationality produced abstract space: NASA arranged its work into a network of Field Centers, each located to efficiently and cost-effectively contribute to its designated task in the Project Apollo supply chain, just as workers in a Florist production line. Parker reports in his analysis of Webb's 1969 book, Space Age Management, this instrumental rationality appeared far less appropriate within the upper echelons of NASA, where individuals like Webb, possessed considerably more freedom to comment on, and influence, the substantive direction of the organization and nation.
