Selected:
* The Coming of the Space Age
-- Tracking Sputnik I: E. Nelson Hayes
It sounds so 50s, because it is so 50s. Good quotation at the end "... never had so much been known by so many about so little."

* The Society of Space
All about extraterrestrials. No entries by Ursula Le Guin, who actually had thought about this, in her own way, quite carefully; she had only just begun publishing her books the very year this anthology was assembled.
-- Interstellar Culture: James Edson
Speculations about the interactions between peoples living on other worlds. A reference to a Project Ozma which seems like the precursor to SETI. Edson tells us that we will surely conquer the worlds around the nearby stars if we feel like it, because there can be nothing so dangerous as human beings living there. But perhaps we will be able to communicate with the peoples who live on the planets surrounding distant stars. Both imperialist and optimist; this man would hot have gotten along well with H. G. Wells.

-- Direct Contact with the Stars: Carl Sagan
Confident that NAFAL ships will be developed in the near future. A back-of-the-envelope calculation about the density of life on other stars leads to the unwarranted conclusion that we must have had alien visitors in the past. These alien visitors just drop by and study humans, showing up with more frequency as technology advances. The idea of searching mythologies for credible evidence of alien visitation is discussed. Sagan points out that the criteria should be somewhat exacting. There is one good quotation:
"A simple account of the apparition of a strange being who performs marvelous works and resides in the heavens is not quite adequate. All people have a need to understand their environment, and the attribution of the incompletely understood to non-human deities is at least mildly satisfying. When interaction occurs among peoples supporting supporting different deities, it is inevitable that each group will claim extraordinary powers for its god. Residence of the gods in the sky is not even approximately suggestive of extraterrestrial origin. After all, where can the gods reside? Obviously not over in the next county, it would be too easy to disprove their existence by taking a walk. Until very subtle metaphysical constructs are developed, possibly in desperation, the gods can only live beneath the waters, or in the ground, or in the sky." Sagan even suggests that thoughtful visiting extra-terrestrials might have left some kind of human being monitor on the moon, where it would be safer. Is this where Clarke got his idea for 2001? This essay by Sagan is so much more the stuff of science fiction than of science.

-- Extraterrestrial Linguistics: S. Golomb
Golomb mocks the optimism, both the likelihood of contacting extraterrestrials, that if contacted they would be communicated with, and if communicated with they would be benevolent, of the Project Ozma/SETI crowd.

"At closer range we can demonstrate gadgets, especially munitions, at which our species excels. Other than publicly killing one another, we can perhaps demonstrate our intelligence by collecting biological specimens to be raised in captivity. Such scientific curiosity is an unmistakable sign of intelligence, although with a notable drawback: If our specimen belongs to the dominant species, his capture and imprisonment may be regarded as an act of war."

"As H. G. Wells once pointed out, even if the aliens tell us in all truthfulness that their only intention is to serve mankind, we must endeavor to ascertain whether they wish to serve us baked or fried."

Golomb is funny and pithy.

-- Interplanatary Man: W. Olaf Stapledon
INTRODUCTION: A fairly bleak, post WWII about human annihilation being a real and imminent possibility but of there also being some hope for the future.
IF THE PLANETS ARE INHABITED: Argues that it is extremely unlikely that intelligent life exists in the solar system. Nothing that has been learned since then contradicts this.
IF THE PLANETS ARE UNINHABITED: In which it is pointed out that Mars is the best planet for attempting settlement. Many people still think in this way. Also asserts that improving the earth should take priority over terra-forming Mars. This doesn't follow. There are a lot of people on the earth, where would you put them while implementing your big earth improvement schemes? On Mars? You see the problem.
ADAPTING MAN TO THE PLANETS: I think this is utterly goofy. He suggests selecting humans who are more adapted to a thinner atmosphere to go to thin atmosphere places and humans who are more adapted to hot climates to go to Venus. These adaptations are no doubt valuable for the narrow ranges of pressure, temperature, etc. in which humans live, but the scale of variation among planets makes these differences negligible.
WHAT IS IT ALL FOR: Luxury would be the first thing. I don't really buy this, because stuff from other planets would come expensive. The next is merely asserting oneself, which is generally only so good a thing. The third is some vague higher goal.
A COMMONWEALTH OF WORLDS: Could the existence of planetary exploration cause countries to work together better? It does, just a little bit. Shared scientific endeavors have been accomplishing this for a few hundred years now, but this is all tricky, in my opinion, because science and military might go together.
MAN AND THE COSMOS: Random mysticism along with some more down to earth remarks that we don't really know anything about the aliens that we meet, so we might as well wait for a few more facts.

-- The Anthropology of Space Flight: Kraft Ehricke
This one is bad. Has his history wrong. The Declaration of Independence and US Constitution were not influenced by the French Revolution, since the writing of both preceded it. Very careless. Calls mammals "the most perfect and versatile land animal." No justification for this as reptiles get along rather well in their own way, also beetles. I am all for the enlightenment and the invention of science but Ehricke's take on the mediaeval people is just rude. They were not dummies. Imperialism is a human right, because humans are intelligent and there can not be any local intelligences out there. This does not really follow. Then there is the reminder that each step in the work of space travel should be considered in terms of its utility. I think he means practicality.

-- UFO: Leslie Peltier
Nice little story by a skilled astronomer about a UFO that turned out to be nothing out of the ordinary.

* Space and the Spirit
I read this first, because I expected it to be the least interesting.
-- God in Space: C. S. Lewis
Lewis preaching is generally pretty bad. He does point out that people who ridicule Christianity make too many simple-minded jokes about aliens and theology. They'll wonder, for example, how you would manager to get Jesus appropriately crucified on a billion inhabited worlds and think they've made a good point. Lewis points out correctly that nothing in Christain theology calls for this; it is a pathetic strawman. It's a good point, but the rest is hard to stomach. He also, however, says that sufficient unto the day are the theological problems that one confronts; that is that there is no need to address theological issues about aliens until we find some. That is an anti-scientific attitude of course; a scientist, mathematician, or software engineer who was doing a good job would actually consider objections to their work that had not actually arisen yet, and try to answer them.

-- Space, God, and Science Fiction: Sam Moskowitz
Discusses C. S. Lewis's science fiction novels, which I have not read. Also many other early efforts to speculate about almost exclusively a Christian god in various science fiction. Omits the short story by Phil Dick in which Jesus eats an astronaut's face off.

-- Astronautics and Poetry: Arthur C. Clarke
Nothing much here.

-- The Fireflies: John Glenn
A transcript of Glenn's radio communication. Must have been exciting for him out there.

-- The Unnattainable: Richard Jefferies
Something by the author of "After London".

-- The Last Judgement: J. B. S. Haldane
Excitedly predicts the end of mankind and possibly the achievement of some great goal. Not holding my breath.