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An astronaut, a little hop and a witty quote:
Neil Armstrong’s first lunar footstep
is ingrained in the minds of all
humankind. But that first moon
landing might not have been such
a memorable moment if it weren’t
for NASA’s savvy PR team.
Richard Jurek is a marketing
executive and co-author of the
book Marketing the Moon: The
Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program.
He says NASA’s move to real-time,
open communication made the 1969
Apollo 11 landing “the first positive viral event that captured
the world’s attention.”
Before NASA was established in 1958, rockets were the mili-
tary’s purview; that secretiveness carried over into the space
agency’s early days. At first, NASA followed a “fire in the tail”
rule, only publicizing a rocket’s launch when it was successfully
in the air.
But as the agency evolved, it started announcing more
details about the Apollo pro-
gram. It championed its
astronauts, talked openly
about mission goals and
challenges, and shared
launch times so people
could watch.
“If it had been run
like it was under the
military,” Jurek says,
“we would not have had
that sense of drama, that
sense of involvement,
that sense of wonder,
that reveal.”
Instead, all the PR and
press hype in the years ahead
of Apollo 11 brought the human
spaceflight program into people’s
living rooms and imaginations.ALONG FOR THE RIDE
As the drama neared its climax, NASA’s PR
officials pushed for live TV broadcasts of the first
humans to walk on the moon.
Not everyone thought it was a good idea. The
technology for live lunar
broadcasts, and cam-
eras small enough
to keep the payload
manageable, didn’t
exist at that point.
Some engineers wor-
ried that develop-
ing that equipment
would distract from
efforts to achieve the
landing itself.
But NASA’s communications team
argued that telling the story was as
vital as the achievement itself. Live
TV would bring the American people
— and international viewers — along
for the ride.
Come landing day, which conve-
niently fell on a Sunday, more than
half a billion people worldwide
huddled around TVs and radios for
the historic moment.
“We were able to come together
and do something that was exciting
and interesting and brought the world
together,” says David Meerman Scott,
marketing strategist and co-author of
Marketing the Moon. “I don’t know that
we’ve done anything like that since.”^ DMARKETING
THE MOON
How public relations transformed
the lunar landings into a cultural
moment. BY ERIKA K. CARLSON
JUNE 2019. DISCOVER 45
NASA decided early on to publicize its attempts to land
on the moon. From top: Westinghouse project manager
Stan Lebar shows off some Apollo cameras. Apollo 11’s
Buzz Aldrin makes a sandwich during a TV broadcast.
Apollo 16 astronaut John Young leaps and salutes the flag.The Apollo 16 lunar module
lifts off the moon’s surface
on live TV in 1972.