Gretchen Heefner, "Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
About this episode
Dr. Gretchen Heefner discusses how US military engineers navigated and conquered extreme environments from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Deserts, the Arctic, outer space—these extreme environments are often seen as inhospitable places at the edges of our maps. But from the 1940s through the 1960s, spurred by the diverse and unfamiliar regions the US military had navigated during World War II, the United States defense establishment took a keen interest in these places, dispatching troops to the Aleutian Islands, North Africa, the South Pacific, and beyond. To preserve the country’s status as a superpower after the war, to pave runways and build bridges, engineers had to understand and then conquer dunes, permafrost, and even the surface of the moon. Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments (University of Chicago Press, 2025) by Dr. Gretchen Heefner explores how the US military generated a new understanding of these environments and attempted to master them, intending to cement America’s planetary power. Operating in these regions depended as much on scientific and cultural knowledge as on military expertise and technology. From General George S. Patton learning the hard way that the desert is not always hot, to the challenges of constructing a scientific research base…
People in this episode
Host: Marshall Poe
Guest: Gretchen Heefner
Topics covered
- US military engineering
- extreme environments
- scientific knowledge
- cultural knowledge
- post-war America
- construction challenges
- space exploration
Keywords
- military engineering
- extreme environments
- deserts
- Arctic
- space
- construction
- scientific research
- cultural knowledge
- US military
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Chicago Press
Places: United States, Aleutian Islands, North Africa, South Pacific, Arctic, Mars
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