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(Photo:n early 1962, preparations were under way for John Glenn's flight as the first American to orbit the Earth. He decided to name his Mercury spacecraft "Friendship 7." (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/friendship7.html) The script art for Glenn's Mercury capsule was developed by Cecelia Bibby, an artist employed by NASA contractor Chrysler Aerospace. After selecting the name, Glenn insisted the individual who developed the artwork personally apply the paint, meaning that Bibby would need to hand paint the name on the spacecraft as it stood atop an Atlas rocket enclosed in the gantry at Cape Canaveral's Launch Pad 14. Bibby's supervisor initially objected to her painting the name since women rarely, if ever, went up the launch pad towers. Glenn insisted and Bibby was allowed to apply the historic name to the Mercury 6 spacecraft. She later painted the names on Scott Carpenter's Aurora 7 (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/aurora7.html) and Wally Schirra's Sigma 7. (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/sigma7.html) In this photo, Bibby is wearing coveralls for McDonnell Aircraft, the Mercury spacecraft's prime contractor, and painting Friendship 7 on NASA astronaut John Glenn's Mercury spacecraft. Image Credit: NASA  ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Marketing the Moon: 1of4:The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (The MIT Press) Hardcover – February 28, 2014 https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Moon-Selling-Apollo-Program/dp/0262026961 One of the most successful public relations campaigns in history, featuring heroic astronauts, press-savvy rocket scientists, enthusiastic reporters, deep-pocketed defense contractors, and Tang. In July 1969, ninety-four percent of American televisions were tuned to coverage of Apollo 11's mission to the moon. How did space exploration, once the purview of rocket scientists, reach a larger audience than My Three Sons? Why did a government program whose standard operating procedure had been secrecy turn its greatest achievement into a communal experience? InMarketing the Moon, David Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek tell the story of one of the most successful marketing and public relations campaigns in history: the selling of the Apollo program.  Primed by science fiction, magazine articles, and appearances by Wernher von Braun on the “Tomorrowland” segments of the Disneyland prime time television show, Americans were a receptive audience for NASA's pioneering “brand journalism.” Scott and Jurek describe sophisticated efforts by NASA and its many contractors to market the facts about space travel—through press releases, bylined articles, lavishly detailed background materials, and fully produced radio and television features—rather than push an agenda. American astronauts, who signed exclusive agreements with Life magazine, became the heroic and patriotic faces of the program. And there was some judicious product placement: Hasselblad was the “first camera on the moon”; Sony cassette recorders and supplies of Tang were on board the capsule; and astronauts were equipped with the Exer-Genie personal exerciser. Everyone wanted a place on the bandwagon. Generously illustrated with vintage photographs, artwork, and advertisements, many never published before, Marketing the Moon shows that when Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind, it was a triumph not just for American engineering and rocketry but for American marketing and public relations.