Beyond the Pale Media |||

How NASA Sold Us a Trip to the Moon

American Experience and Retro Report

This video was originally published by American Experience and Retro Report to accompany the PBS documentary, CHASING THE MOON. Produced by Joshua Fisher and edited by Cullen Golden and Kimberly Mayhorn.

Most remember the space race of the 1960s as a moment of rare national unity around the cause of scientific exploration. Public opinion polls from the 1960s show that the majority of Americans approved of Project Apollo, but the nation was deeply divided over the cost of the program. To win the space race, NASA would have to market the moon to the American public.

Today NASA is using new tools to communicate its mission to the public—and private companies are marketing their plans for space exploration.

Up next The Road to Apollo The Desegregation of Huntsville
Latest posts A Death Ruled “Justifiable” Reframing The March on Washington The Black Ambassador Who Took His Fight for Equality Straight to the State Department How a Black Journalist-Turned-Ambassador Changed the Game in Both Media and Diplomacy When Blue Jeans Got a Bad Name A Place to Remember Un(re)solved The War at Home Briggs v. Elliott brought us Brown v. Board of Education. Here’s how. Mr. Civil Rights Red Summer: When Racist Mobs Ruled William and Elizebeth Friedman and the NSA’s “Secrecy Virus” The Cryptanalyst Who Brought Down the Mob Mississippi Justice The Ongoing Fight She Resisted Black Women’s 200 Year Fight for the Vote Langston Hughes on Trial Another Hidden Figure: Clyde Foster Brought Color to NASA Broadcasting the Moon The Desegregation of Huntsville How NASA Sold Us a Trip to the Moon The Road to Apollo The Women Who Brought Us the Moon Wernher von Braun and the Nazis Zora Neale Hurston and the Polk County Blues Finding Carrie Buck The Acrobat Genetic Screening: Controlling Heredity The Rise and Fall of Lillian Leitzel, Circus Queen The Pain Of Police Killings Can Last Decades