NASA: Space Race
The space race emerged as a direct result from the 1950s arms race. In 1957, to the dismay of American scientists and politicians, Sputnik was launched. In an immediate response, NASA was born and three years later John F. Kennedy announced his intention of having an American be the first person to step foot on the Moon. The space race was utilized in essence as a marketing tool which would allow nuclear technology and the potential for intercontinental ballistic missiles to be explored in a manner which would receive less backlash than the atomic bomb. Previous generations were led to believe that nuclear technology would be the answer to threat of an energy crisis but the bombs made the public and financial backers weary of certain technology. Futuristic concepts were the core of marketing in the hopes that the American public would embrace and support the research efforts.
On October 4th, 1957, the knowledge of Sputnik’s presence in orbit came as a surprise to most Americans. The discovery came from many corners of the globe at once as the signals Sputnik was emitting were picked up. The Soviet Union kept its plans and timeline secret and “as if to mock how sleepy the U.S. space program was by comparison, the bleeping ball of metal actually passed twice over the American continent before it was detected.”[3] By the next day headlines emerged announcing the achievement of the Soviet Union and the resulting failure of the United States. As the weeks rolled on, nationally circulated publications such as Life magazine, ran multiple features on anything of relation to the Soviet Union, Russians, Sputnik, or space travel.
Within one month of the first launch, using the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution as an excuse, the Soviet’s launched Sputnik II. This time the stakes were upped as the Soviets not only used even more advanced technology for the satellite but sent the first living creature into space, a dog named Laika. For Americans, this period brought them “to the grim realization that these Sputnik launches represented a milestone: No longer could the Americans dismiss their Cold War rivals as technological inferiors.”[4] Data mining of popular publications such as Life magazine and Time, reveals that in the years before the launch of Sputnik and the kick off of the space race, anti-Soviet rhetoric had been on a decline. It was even non-existent for several months in many major publications.
America’s first satellite was launched on January 31st, 1958. In the later years of the space race the Soviet’s remained ahead for many milestone events with the US following just a few months behind. Some scholars argue that in order to drum up support for US nationalism and the space program during this era a massive media and PR campaign was unleashed which revived the use of anti-Soviet rhetoric as a nationalistic tool.[5] Along with the political discourse came a push of marketing which used futurism as a tool to support the nation through consumer purchases. The stimulation of the economy was only one result of this. The other was placing direct funds into the hands of businesses which would be responsible for bringing Americans the designs and products of the future.
[1] Lasswell, Harold. “The Garrison State.” Coined by Eisenhower in 1941, he predicted paranoia and over armament could lead to destruction from within.
[2] Stephen Whitefield, The Culture of the Cold War, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
[3] Marina Benjamin, Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond (New York: Free Press, 2003) 41.
[4] Von Hardesty and Gene Eisman. Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2007) 80.
[5] David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek, Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014) xi-x.