A science blog with Eric Berger

Poll results: Most say first spaceflight more historically significant than the Civil War


Earlier this week I asked readers which historical event, the Civil War or the first human spaceflight, would turn out to be more significant to future generations. Specifically, in the year 2211, when historians look back, to which event would they attach more significance?

The results:


The results don’t surprise me given that this is a science blog with a technical bent. Readers of this space, myself included, yearn for the day when we do more than dream about the stars. We want to go there.

Nevertheless, I tend to lean toward the Civil War as the answer to my question, and not only because I’m an American. The Civil War was essentially a referendum on the viability of democracy, and was watched as such by the world.

In the end, thanks in no small measure to Abraham Lincoln, the democracy was saved. In essence, freedom was saved. I’m talking about freedom for not only black slaves, but for the world in general.

The world’s freedom would be tested a century later when totalitarian regimes in Germany and Japan sought to take over the world. In both instances the United States ended up spearheading coalitions to drive back these totalitarian governments.

During the succeeding decades the United States struggled with the USSR, which sought to project a communist economy and oppressive government around the world (i.e.: “the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.”)

Whatever you might think of the United States today, during the last century it was unquestionably a force for freedom and democracy in a world threatened by forces from the opposite end of the spectrum. That doesn’t happen without the Civil War. And it’s difficult to imagine what the world would be like today had the United States split.

Categories: Great questions, History
Eric Berger

34 Responses

  1. Gary Packwood says:

    Perhaps there were so many major events that we either don’t know how to prioritize them or we just plain forget about them.

    Last night I watched a PBS special on the Panama Canal and was horrified to learn how much I had forgotten about the human and engineering challenges in designing and building the canal.

    Might be a good idea to look at the top 100 scientific and geopolitical events since 1776 just to see if there is agreement with respect to importance.

    After we remember what they were of course.



  2. SgtDave says:

    I’m not surprised by the results of your poll, not just because this section is, as you say, more of a technology blog, but that as Americans we tend to live for the moment. I’m an active member of the Sons of the Confederacy so I could go on all day about the accused evils of the Confederacy but I won’t. It’s just that most of us hated history in school.

  3. NoWhining says:

    Absolutely amazing…wow…HITH do you get the Civil War was about democracy???

  4. Geoff Fieldbinder says:

    The Civil War was about the “rights” of states and individuals. In the end might proved right, and the right of the states to secede from the federal Union was denied.

    The rights individuals to be free to pursue their own goals (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness), and be remunerated for their labor was upheld (Habeas Corpus), although apparently we’re still debating this in spite of the facts.

    The whole world was watching, and placing bets on the outcome. The French, and the English, were directly involved in the conflict and I can only speculate what their intentions were if the North had failed.

    I’m kind of fond of the idea that I own myself.

    Space, on the other hand, presents with an interesting perspective on our humanity-focusing outward and away from our own smallness. Don’t you suppose the astronauts stood upon the moon and marveled at the insignificance of the earth, and its nations? Or perhaps its beauty and uniqueness?

  5. Patrick says:

    The most important thing in the world is the American economy. Without a healthy American economy we do not have the money to fight tyranny, go to the moon, or develop modern medicine. Anything that diminishes the American economy deprives us of the money necessary to achieve these lofty goals. Secession was legal in 1861 via the 10th Amendment and the Ratification Ordinances of the States. Yet a split in our country would have forever prevented us from developing the only economy in the world that could stop Stalin or Hitler. No other nation has the virtue to promote freedom and prosperity than America. The first space flight was NOTHING compared to our Civil War. The gravest threat to the freedom of the world is the socialism that Obama and the Democrats are pushing, for that is the end of our prosperity.

  6. JackR says:

    By the year 2211, 200 years from now, the Civil War will be ancient history, probably completely forgotten. In 200 years even the first manned space flight will be ignored, much like we look at the Mayflower today.

    What future historians will look at, however, is what we did 200 years before them to save or destroy their planet.

  7. dmoran says:

    Well, these are apples and oranges. If it turns out that involvement in space is directly related to surviving climate change through new technology or providing energy and resources for earth (if we ever get back to the Moon!) or developing the means to divert an asteroid strike, I think people in 2211 will consider the dawn of spaceflight extremely important. On social issues, the Civil War probably has more significance. But the space program with its history of bringing diverse peoples together continues that legacy.

  8. Rich says:


    Stick to science and don’t pollute history with your stupid interpretation.

  9. Evan says:

    LOL! Eric, I know you mean well, but I say stick to the science analysis. Reducing the American Civil War to the war that saved democracy is simplistic, at best. The Confederate States of America were, by many measures, more democratic than the USA at the time. And who knows what the impact on world freedom through the succeeding 150 years would have been had the CSA prevailed? We simply have no way of gauging this.

    I’m not rooting for the CSA, please understand — I’m just pointing out that your comments don’t make much sense to me (although I know your intent is good). In a country that already over-simplifies its own history, I hate to see the trend reinforced by blogs.

  10. Bill says:

    I won’t, I can’t even comment on what I think of your opinion of the War between the States…which is only what it was. Stick to science, Eric.

  11. flypusher says:



    I’d say definitely not for the better. The USA has a dark side to its history (i.e., slavery, the treatment of the natives, the interference the the affairs of Central America, etc.) but on the whole the balance is positive IMO. We’ve kept a nice republic going for almost 230 year, and hopefully will keep it going. We’ve also done the best so far in creating a society where people need not be held back by being of the “wrong” race or gender or religion. I’d rather live in the country as it is now, even if the federal gov’t has more power than some would like, than in one of a number of smaller, possibly balkanized states. So even as geeked as I am on the prospect of spaceflight, I agree with your assessment Eric. You’ve got to have a strong USA first, and you don’t have that if the Confederates win.

  12. BruceWayne says:

    The War of Northern Aggression had little to do with Democracy…

  13. Dan says:

    I agree with your statement, “And it’s difficult to imagine what the world would be like today had the United States split”. But you asked what would be more significant in 2211, not today. The natural resources we rely on are limited, and won’t last forever. Without spaceflight and the technological advances that came with it, I’m not sure humanity will exist in 2211.

  14. JohnD says:

    The War of Northern Aggression had little to do with Democracy…The War of Northern Aggression had little to do with Democracy…</I.

    You have a typo there; you obviously meant "the War of Southern Treason".

    Remember that it was the South that chose to commit treason and fired the first shot in a war that they hoped would preserve their "right" to own slave.

  15. JohnD says:


    That’s a popular but legally incorrect theory. See Texas v. White, which settled this question back in 1869.

  16. craig says:

    This is sort of an apples and oranges comparison. Both are important but from different perspectives but from a human standpoint having a seperate country, the Confederacy, sitting today along the United States’ southern border embracing slavery as the right thing to do would certainly be difficult to comprehend and more difficult to live with for anyone who takes to heart the stated sentiments, not some of their actions however, of our founding fathers about all men being created equal.

  17. Charles Hixon says:

    You also asked the question when NASA, manned space flight and the disposition of the shuttles are in turmoil.

  18. Lou says:

    Eric, I’d say you barely know history. Stick to what you REALLY know.

    There’s a saying… Victors get to write history.

  19. JackR says:

    Some of you need to fast forward to 2011 and get a life without dwelling on the past so much.

  20. Eric Berger says:


    The War of Northern Aggression had little to do with Democracy…

    Maybe, maybe not. That wasn’t really the point of what I wrote. The war preserved a union that would become a potent force for democracy and a free economy a century later.


  21. Evan says:

    Eric, I suspect that nobody reading this blog would deny that the USA has been a potent force for democracy and a free economy in the world. Where you lapse into speculation is in your assumption that an independent CSA could not have been an even more potent shaper of those ideals.

    The originial Declaration of Independence was the document most revered by the CSA — given that reverence and the CSA’s tendency toward more boldness and less isolation than the USA, it is possible that the CSA would have been a more proactive exporter of democracy and free enterprise than the USA. Who knows — it is all speculation, and that’s where I believe you went astray in your post (although the sentiment behind your speculation was well intended).

  22. kvolk says:

    Eric, you definitely have provoked some good discussion with this post. You are using 20/20 hind sight to draw a coorelation extending back 150 years. I won’t argue that the Civil War is a formative event of our history but to then extrapolate that it is why democracy is flourishing now is a leap of faith at best. I don’t think the dominos fall that clearly for 150 years. Don’t fall into the trap that history is a series of linear events that you can clearly trace cause and effect from.

  23. Eric Berger says:



    Well stated.

    I think I may try to find some historians next week who might be willing to weigh in on this question.


  24. flypusher says:



    I find this site to be very illuminating in discussions about the CSA:

    It compares the Constitutions of the USA and CSA, section by section. There is some commentary to the right, but one can always choose to ignore that.

    Honestly, I feel more than a bit skeptical that people who wrote in their declarations of succession things like:


    as opposed to:


    would be at forefront of spreading and defending things like freedom and democracy. Yes, it’s obvious that the USA did not initially live up to such lofty ideals, but the first step is getting the standards right.

  25. Evan says:

    Nowadays, the American Civil War has largely been publicly dumbed down to the issue of slavery, the one issue on which the North was fully in the right. Forgotten are the other issues, most of which one could argue that the South had mostly right — states’ rights, limited government, no taxation without representation, freedom to secede, free enterprise, etc.

    It is all part of the nation’s history, so you would think that people would be eager to explore all the issues. But somehow it has become almost politically incorrect to even suggest that there were multiple issues at stake in the Civil War. It is sad when history becomes a propaganda football — there is so much to be gained by exploring it thoroughly, as it is, rather than as one group or another wants it to be.

  26. Neronis says:

    I’m curious: how many people in support of the CSA (or who will defend it and a somewhat revisionist outlook on historical events) are also conservative Tea Party supporters?

    Off topic to be sure, but the scientist in me is forming a theory that needs research data to confirm. I’d love to be proven incorrect.

    While I do think the first moon landing was a vital moment in US history, it still serves as an example of humanity’s inability to get along with itself. After all, it was in fact a space race we were trying to win so as to act symbolically as a victory against our Cold War enemies (USSR).

    To that end, I believe the Civil War (regardless of why it started) became about the base equality of all men and as such is more important than space flight in its entirity.

  27. Evan says:

    I don’t know anybody, including Tea Party members, who are unhappy with the outcome of the American Civil War. Wanting history to be explored and discussed objectively, including examining all the issues of the Civil War, is not support of the CSA — it is support of our history. It is revisionist to refuse to face up to the many issues behind the Civil War. It still amazes me that people are so defensive about having a rational discussion of a conflict that took place 150 years ago!

  28. Bill in Houston says:


    Posted by Eric Berger at April 16, 2011 08:17 AM


    Check out Harry Turtledove, master of Alternative History for an idea. While his politics swing pretty far leftward, the guy knows his history and has a great imagination.

  29. Steve C. says:

    Evan, slavery split the nation, and while there are other contributing factors, it was the primary reason for the Civil War. It is so categorized because without it, it’s highly unlikely that the war would have occurred. If slavery had not existed, the entire political and social structure of the nation would have been different — perhaps radically so.

  30. Bill in Houston says:

    @ Steve C.

    Lincoln did not use the slavery issue until 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation was very unpopular in the NORTH, because of feears that newly-freed slaves would migrate to cities and work for less money. Case in point the Draft Riots of July 1863.

  31. Martha says:

    “The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history… the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”

    ~ H. L. Mencken

  32. Martha says:

    I missed the original poll, but I’d have voted for space flight.

    Here’s a great column, written by a black man, explaining things about the War:

    And a US Congressional resolution:

    On the 25th of July, 1861, both Houses of Congress with but a few dissenting votes adopted a joint resolution which declared:

    “This war is not waged, on our part, in any spirit of oppression, not for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several States unimpaired; that, as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease.”

  33. Evan says:

    Steve C., if you include the economic elements of slavery, along with the social and political, you might well be able to claim slavery as the primary cause of the war. It was the economic differences that made the leaders of both sides willing to flame the war. There is little evidence to suggest that the moral issue of slavery was a significant motivator for the war, although that seems to be the popular notion nowadays.

    At the level of the fighting man on the battlefield, it appears that the big motivating factor for the Union soldier was preservation of the Union, and for the Confederate soldier, independence and defense of home.