The Use of the Media by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and John Kennedy's Presidential Administration to Gain Public Popularity of the Space Program

        However, in the confidences of his Cabinet, America’s newly-elected , fearless leader showed a different face.  Unanimous members of the Kennedy Administration stated, “despite his statements during the campaign, Kennedy cared little about the actual space race...  He made it fairly clear that the prestige and Cold War politics were the decisive element in his decision...  At least on the presidential level, the great adventure was launched purely for the meanest of motives.”  To Kennedy, it was a defense and foreign policy issue more than a pure science issue.

        In 1961, Lyndon B Johnson, Kennedy’s Vice President, became the Space Council’s chairman, a job that normally the President himself would take.  Kennedy gave the right over to Johnson because he was deeply patriotic.  The programs he carries out so energetically proved poorly thought out, and many of the men he inherited from Kennedy were incompetent in such areas due to Kennedy’s lack of respect for them.  Although he was more responsible than any other politician for the steps leading up to the flight to the moon, he got no credit for it under Kennedy’s limelight.

        In a statement to the United Nations on January 30, 1961, the newly-elected John Kennedy stated that the United States and Soviet Union should “help themselves as well as other nations by removing [space] endeavors from the bitter and wasteful competition of the Cold War,” putting the idea into the heads of every American that the United States had every intention of making peace with the Soviet Union.  However, the major population of America remained unaware that on January 31, the very next day, the United States launched the Samos 2, the first recon spy satellite.  Samos 2 was placed over the Soviet Union and returned with the first aerial pictures of the massive country.  Obviously, John F. Kennedy had intentions other than making amends with the United States’s long-time opponent.

        Before becoming president, Senator Kennedy made an announcement to the Senate, “We are in a strategic space race with the Russians, and we have been losing.  We cannot run second in this vital race.  To insure peace and freedom, we must be first.”  Once he became president, Kennedy would find that tricking the American public into believing that the space program’s hurried advancement towards outer space, with especial emphasis on landing on the moon, was purely for the United States’s benefit of acquiring more scientific research knowledge to be easier.  Americans were blinded with the previously absurd thought of conquering outer space and were easy to take advantage of.

        In the early 60s, the officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration realized that if the American people were to be unconditionally supportive of the space program, they were going to need a way to find out about the space program’s newest advancements and goings-on.  After researching for months, NASA procured the knowledge that many Americans subscribed to magazines such as Time, Life, and Newsweek.  In light of this helpful information, NASA began to draw up contracts that would trade the authorization and complete cooperation from NASA for the magazine to publish stories about the space program for large sums of money paid to NASA by the magazine.  It was a wonderful plan because, through the magazines, the American people would learn more about the inside of NASA, a place no common United States citizen would ever hope to see, and NASA would receive more funding for their highly expensive space program.  

        Newsweek, one of the prominent American magazines, bought one such contract with NASA.  In a short article published on John Glenn, the first American man to walk in space, Newsweek called him “a single remote figure” and compared him to Charles Lindbergh, another “authentic individualist.”  In another such instance, Life magazine bought a contract with NASA for five hundred thousand dollars and acted as NASA’s main stream in the popular media.  Life published biographies of astronauts as human interest stories to get people excited about the space program.  By doing this, NASA was able to not only raise the popularity of the space program, but get the masses more interested in the men they were sending into space.  These men were by no means average Americans as most were high ranking officers of one of the branches of the Unites States military.  By influencing the public to be inspired by the fearless astronauts being sent into the wily unknown, NASA was highly successful in raising the support by the American people of the space program without accidently informing of them of its real intentions.  By supporting the space program, Americans supported decorated military heroes and only an unpatriotic, communistic American wouldn’t love a proud, dedicated, patriotic officer.

        Alongside bought-out magazines such as Life, the nightly news and the daily newspapers glorified the astronauts.  The vast majority of the coverage of the space program by such institutions was positive and the news particularly seemed to enjoy celebrating individuals who ‘conquer nature’ without harming it: explorers, mountain climbers and of course astronauts.   The New York Times emphasized comparisons between the astronauts and the mythologized “individualists” of the past, including aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright and navigators Columbus and Magellan.  Astronauts were a new breed of heros for the American public to become very excited about.  They were a combination of classes – explorers and aviators – conquering more than one realistic realm with a single earthshattering blow.  President Kennedy encouraged journalists and reporters alike to evoke the spirit of America’s frontier mythology, integrating his space policies with the general theme of his administration: the New Frontier.  To ring true, the presses said, the frontier story must possess specific constituent elements: (1) an identifiable, conquerable geographic location that is (2) unknown and hostile and includes (3) a malevolent antagonist who is thwarted by (4) a heroic adventurer, and indeed, America’s new frontier story included all of the above.  America was fed story after story by a press knowingly being used by the government to rally the American public for the space program.  Robert Cirino was not off-target when he called the media “the willing partner of the NASA propaganda machine.”

        In early 1963, it came to NASA’s attention that the hype and popularity of the space program was starting to fail.  Criticism for the NASA officials, the President, and the program itself came rolling in.  It had been over a year and a half since the initial excitement of the space program had hit the American public.  Walking on the moon had been promised to the people by the end of the decade and, while it the decade was not even half gone, the American people began to sink back in to normal life, which did not include being excited over walking on the moon.  NASA became flustered and was urged by the White House to rekindle the American hype over the space program.

        In an attempt to once again set ablaze the American excitement for traveling into the unknown, NASA officials dramatically increased their speaking appearances in 1963.  In 1962, for instance, NASA administrator James E. Webb delivered forty nine public speeches while NASA’s Deputy Administrator Dr. Hugh L. Dryden a mere sixteen.  In just the first six months of 1963, Webb has already presented forty two addresses while Dryden stored twenty one under his belt.  These appearances proved to be successful.  By the end of 1963, the average American was again reading the lengthy, glorifying articles put out by their favorite magazines and newspapers and cheering on the news of neoteric launches of satellites and astronauts alike into the New Frontier, still unknowing that all of it was going towards one cause: beating the Soviets in a war.

        The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in cahoots with President Kennedy’s Administration, used any form of the media they could during the early 1960s as a mouthpiece to the public in order to more allow the masses into promoting the space program without informing them of its main purpose of winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union.  John F. Kennedy allowed the general public to believe that he maintained a positive attitude about the space program, constantly assuring them that its only intentions were to further American scientific research, while acknowledging to his Cabinet and House of Representatives that the space race’s main interests were in both beating the Soviets to space, and ensuring his re-election in 1964.  NASA put out high-priced contracts to many magazines popular in the average American’s mind’s eye, even putting such contracts up for auction for many different magazines to bid on, which allowed the magazine that bought to contract to publish human interest and other such stories about American astronauts in order to get the American public’s attention and admiration for the newest proclaimed heroes of their country.  The televised news along with the printed newspapers aggrandized the American astronauts, making them larger than life, in an obvious effort to stimulate the average American into thinking that the space program was peacefully gaining new, unknown frontiers.  When criticism of the space program increased in 1963, speaking appearances were increased by the NASA administration in hopes that speeches soothingly convincing the public of undaunted operations would increase the popularity and confidence in their program.  While no one at the time caught on, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration worked successfully with Kennedy’s Presidential Administration to keep the American populous unaware of the ulterior motives that lay behind their operations, yet still in favor of the new, exciting trek into the galaxy.

Works Cited

Levine, Alan J. The Missile and Space Race. Westport, 1994.

Kauffman, James L. Selling Outer Space: Kennedy, the Media, and Funding for Project Apollo: _        1961 - 1963. Tuscaloosa, 1994.

Kennedy, John F. “If Soviets Control Space, They Can Control The Earth.” Missiles and _        Rockets, 10 Oct. 1960: 12.

Moley, Raymond. “Spaceman’s Ordeal.” Newsweek, 9 April 1962: 116.

Nye, David E. Spaces and Narrative. New York, 1997.

Salinger, Pierre. John F. Kennedy, Commander in Chief: A Profile in Leadership. New York, 1997.

Van Bencke, Matthew J. The Politics of Space: A History of U.S.-Soviet/Russian Competition _        and Cooperation in Space. Boulder, 1997.

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